Me and my soapbox.

Today I'm teaching two-step equations and multi-step equations.

The problem:

-4(x + 1.25) = -8

-4x - 5 = -8

+ 5 + 5

-4x = -3

/-4 /-4

x = .75 or 3/4

C'mon. I just gave you flashbacks, didn't I? Didn't I? Did your math PTSD kick in?

One of the hard parts of teaching Algebra, is trying to explain to a teenager and sometimes their parent (Why are we learning this?) that everything you're teaching them helps their brain form new connections that will help them learn other things faster in the future.

This to a group of people who, for the most part, can barely conceptualize next week, much less a few years from now.

Of course, look who I'm talking to. I've noticed a huge proportion of triathletes have degrees in engineering. So I guess another answer to the question, Why are we learning this? might be so that someday you can obsess about yours or other people's statistics and enter formulas into Excel that will aid in your obsessing.

But anyway.

Today I'm going to rant, and it's not about triathlon, so I won't at all be hurt if you choose not to read.

So I was at the gas station and CNN was on and they were reading letters from people who were responding to a story about merit pay for teachers. Something that, for the record, I am against.

The general consensus of the folks that wrote in: I'm sick and tired of these teachers and their unions asking for more money. All my taxes go to support these teachers and their schools!

My favorite: If teachers want more money, they should teach summer school!

My second favorite: Why should my taxes be raised? I don't even have children!

I also noticed that some teachers wrote in, and talked about "these parents". As in, These parents need to raise kids that actually care about learning.

Hmmmm.

I've been a teacher for 8 years. I've been a parent for 23 years. I also have a master's degree in educational psychology and research.

My take: We live in a culture that does not really care about kids. Oh, we say we do, but we have companies in the private sector that penalize people for having families. Our, "culture of life" consistently passes legislation that underfunds things for children such as education, healthcare, and social services.

As a result, kids are warehoused into crowded schools while their parents try to make a decent living for employers who penalize them if they take a day off to volunteer at school or take their kid to the doctor.

The tax system in this country does not take into account that fact that kids spend much of their waking time in schools - there's so much more we could be doing than just testing the crap out of them. We could be working with whole families instead of just being tangentally in touch with them and having this whole "us" and "them" thing going.

And I think that politicians like that. As long as we have this "us versus them" thing going we play the blame game and don't get organized to make them pass the legislation that will protect our children and our families.

For instance, we (schools) want ot be partners with you in raising good, happy kids. But, it's hard to transfer qualitative variables such as "stable home" and "happy, well-adjusted child" into the hard data that is demanded by No Child Left Behind. They don't want creativity, they don't want well-adjusted. They want proficiency scores.

Did you know: By 2014, every school in the US is required to have 100% of all students pass the proficiency tests.
I'm not making this up. 100%. Of all students. Regardless of mental ability. Or else.

I live in a state that has fairly decent pay for teachers, but I didn't ask for it. If I had my druthers, I'd have smaller classes. In fact, according to research, the school-related variable that is most closely associated with school achievement is class size.

Nobody who pays for four years to major in education is in it for the money. Some are in it for the coaching, but all are in it because they want to work with kids. Unfortunately, plenty of teachers are driven out because they become demoralized by how stingy communities can be, and how skewed the priorities have become.

Instead of raising my salary, I'd like to NOT have a limit on how many photocopies I can make in a year. I'd like my class size to be capped at 25, and to have an unlimited supply of markers for my white board, kleenex, and hand sanitizer. I'd like to get a new bulb ($16) for my overhead projector without waiting 3 weeks.

If I had a class size that small, I could have parents come in more often. As it is, I don't have room. Right now, two of my classes have 32 kids and one has 34. If they give me any more kids, they'll have to sit at the teacher's desk.

And they will. Give me more kids. And they'll sit at the teacher's desk, and share table space with other kids. My administrators will ask for permission to hire more teachers, but they will be turned down, because there isn't enough money.

Smaller class sizes will never be funded, because it's not "efficient." Most school models are mandated, actually, by law to be modeled after business models. Because, you know, when you think about children, you think about products, outcome, and efficiency. Riiiiiighttt.

I care about your kid. Not just because your child is a human being and all human beings have worth, but because s/he will be a future citizen in the world in which we live, and I want him/her to be a happy and productive citizen. I want to help empower you, as well, because I know you also want what's best for your child.

For now, I have him or her for 90 minutes a day. Me and the teacher's union are not your enemy. We are trying to protect the profession of teaching, and we really want the best for your child, and we want to be your partner and to make the job of being a parent easier.

Next year is an election year.

Pay attention to the candidates.

Ignore their speeches; instead, pay attention to their works.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

What legislation have they voted for? Against? That speaks volumes.

Thanks for letting me rant.

...