Are our teachers worth more?

Well, are they? Come on now, out with it! But alas, you cannot speak through my fingers (not only do they not have mouths, you seem to lack mind-control, you anonymous reader you) nor will you comment on this post. As that would be stupid. Why read someone else's blog and then comment on it? You might actually end up having an intellectual discussion with the blogger (frogger, great game) and that just will not do! Regardless, are our teaches actually worth more?

I will begin by saying that I distrust all governmentally run organizations not because I do not appreciate the things that they can do for me but because I understand that without competition there is no such thing as quality control and insist that the government not weigh down their systems with useless money they spend bureaucratically running things but instead pay independent companies to run their services and audit them at the very least annually. My proof of the lack of quality control lay in the idea of a ten year(I am most familiar with our government's education system, and so have the most right and ability to critique it. Why aren't they asking us how we feel about the whole system when we are most intimate with it...? I fear I will never know.), a function in schools that by definition destroys the concept of quality control. It basically affirms that after ten years of work any given teacher can stop trying, relax and rest assured that their job is secure. There is no quality control in that the teachers rarely come face to face with their customers, the taxpayers, and taxpayers understand that they cannot avoid paying the taxes that support the educational system and so tend not to see teachers as people they are paying to do them a service. So quality or the lack thereof can go unnoticed and run rampant. I will also note, that although there are many teachers I would perhaps stamp the "not quality ensured" symbol on, there are also many that I would not. As much as I despise the man, Docta Dave was a great teacher, and I learned a lot. Mrs. Stroh on the other hand, did nothing, and went to far as to not even grade our papers. But she could not be fired, and the proofs we had for her not grading our papers could not be shown for fear of our getting in trouble. And so the system tends to fail. But I digress.

I think that some of our teachers are indeed worth more, but that many others are not worth more. I will not dance around the names either. I would say that Funk Master P-Rez is doing his students a disservice when he places more value in his union negotiations than his teaching. I believe that all teachers, by not being available to help their students because of union negotiations and rules, are doing their students a disservice. It seems to me that in all the humbug about raises here and there, teachers have forgotten that their job above all else is to teach and germinate the minds of the young people they work with with intellectual thoughts and tendencies. I would say that Mr. Burdett, in disposing of a competitive seating system in his orchestras and in general refusing to recommend students that wish to enroll in the IB Programme in order to save his orchestra program is acting irrationally and if he isn't fired he should at least have his salary lowered. Why? Because by destroying competitive seating he is ruining the motivations of the orchestra members to care at all about how they play and telling them that it is okay to be inept at playing because it doesn't matter how good you are, you might still be in the back "to help the worse players". This would infuriate me and I'm infinitely glad that I quit orchestra. I've heard that one of my fellow students that I hold in high esteem that remains in orchestra, whose name starts with an R, uses the period to eat. By refusing to recommend his students for the IB Programme in a reactionary manner he is hurting their overall education, which as an educator is opposite to what his goal should be. So no, he is not worth more. Mr. Pinzone, from my experience in his creative writing class, is not worth more. He fails to teach and looks as though he doesn't care. Surmising that he doesn't care, he wont mind losing his job or a chunk of his salary. But again, I digress. Accusations mean nothing without actions.

There are those that deserve more, however. For instance, Mrs. Walker, who has taught me more math than any other math teacher here at the esteemed AHS, deserves more. Whatever the seniors' opinions on her, I don't care. I'm getting something out of math for the first time. From what I hear, Mr. Rakow deserves more. I wouldn't know, but it seems he does. Mrs Pavicic, simply because she is willing to spend as much time as necessary to teach a student that needs help what they need to know. There is a lot of worth in that. She is doing her best to do her job. Mrs. Lindley, for setting the bar higher than any english teachers I had before her and actually teaching us how to write. And finally, the greatest raindeer of all, Mr. Radke, for shoving more history than we may ever need to know down our throats with a smile, ensuring that we do well on the AP US History test, if we put in reciprocal effort.

So yes, our teachers are worth more, but no, our teachers are not worth more.