Yes, I am a teacher. No, I am not going to destroy society and your children
The anti-union celebrities (and their secret backers) have taken the war on teachers public. But educators shouldn’t have to defend doing our job
I learned recently that I don’t live in the real world: before that, I’d assumed that if my degrees, certifications and teaching career didn’t qualify me as a resident of the “real world”, then the taxes, rent, car payments and student loans that I am dutifully paying off certainly would. But each time my eyes wander into the comments section of an education-related article, I’m told that my fellow educators and I inhabit an alternate universe in which we are the villains, responsible for all of society’s ills.
In the “real world”, I’ve been informed, the singular solution to the problems with education in America is to get rid of the teachers’ unions and even to just fire and replace all teachers, which would magically transport us all to this vaunted real world in which no educator should be entitled to pensions, affordable health benefits or due process. (In it, I’m certain I’d be wealthy enough to start using phrases like “job creators” and attending Chamber of Commerce events, instead of just standing outside of them to protest corporate tax breaks and cuts in education funding.)
In the “real world”, I didn’t choose my profession because I want to help my students develop into productive and successful citizens or because our neighborhoods and societies will flourish when educational opportunities and systems are strong – and, certainly, the union for which I work cares about none of that either. In that world, people entrust their children exclusively to grasping, greedy monsters and criminals who became teachers because of the massive salaries, premium benefits, minimal work hours and the joys of lording power over impressionable young people. (Nothing makes one feel more powerful than a room full of adolescents calling you “Miss!”)
But that sort of finger-pointing isn’t limited to those hiding safely behind screen names.
Take journalist-cum-teachers’-union-warmonger Campbell Brown, who has been busy on the talk-show circuit this summer spewing false research about “bad teachers” and bemoaning how impossible it is to fire them while refusing to disclose her funders or links to special interest Yes, I am a teacher. No, I am not going to destroy society and your children | Valerie Braman | Comment is free | theguardian.com: