Teachers Unions explained.....

[Warph]

There has been some great thoughts and comments on this thread that Red started.  Kudo's Red.  And Diane... you're right and that iceberg gets smaller every day... huh?

Got this from an old classmate of mine this afternoon:


Warph, you old fool. Slappy sent me your email on the black situation in the urban slums.  Your email had a number of very salient observations about the state of American black culture today. Now I've known you for - what? - 45 years now, ever since college. You never cease to surprise me. I sometimes think you are blacker than that old coot buddy of years.

Please allow me to make a couple of observations that come from experience. I believe your description of the inner city black is accurate to a point. I also believe that your observations can and should also be applied to the Muslim and Hispanic populations in our country today. None of those cultures are capable of or willing to assimilate themselves into "the great melting pot" that has always been America.

I am in my late sixties and grew up in the inner city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Some of your observations in your email so troubled me that I called my [much older] sister and read parts of your email to her and asked her if she had observed this simmering hatred while we were growing up. She thought a long time and finally said no, not when we were growing up but she does see it now in the young blacks and muslims.

When we were growing up we were the definite minority in our schools and because of this we played in the homes of our black friends and they came to our house to play. There was no "racial tension" in the classroom or in the school. We were ALL there to learn, we knew what the rules were and if we were disciplined at school for breaking any of those rules we were double disciplined when we got home. There was NONE of the "my child wouldn't do that" or "you can't discipline my child". We were all in the same boat. We were all there to learn and our job was to work hard, get an education and work our way out of those neighborhoods.

Each black family had two parents. I only knew one child of divorce while I was going to school and she was the daughter of a white female liberal that flaunted the rules of that society. The black fathers in each of those families would never have sat still in the face of an impending Category 4 or 5 hurricane, as was the case in New Orleans before the arrival of Katrina waiting for help from the government. Those black fathers would have packed up their families, in a heartbeat, and gotten them to safety without any help from the government, churches or charities. In those black families it was as much of a shame for a girl to be "in a family way" outside of marriage as it was for a white family. Those girls were whisked off to Atlanta or Chicago or Miami for a year of school and they would return a year later childless with a little thicker waistline and a whole new attitude.

It wasn't until "The Great Society" and the "War on Poverty" and Lyndon Johnson that the black family began to fall apart. The old adage is "The road to hell is paved in good intentions" and I believe that the liberals that designed the welfare programs were well intentioned but WRONG. Rules are meant to be broken and programs are designed for people to capitalize on the weak points and misapply them to their advantage. This is what I saw happen with the black families when the father moved out, stayed down the street and only came by for conjugal visits which increased the family's income. The black father and young men were no longer hard working heads of the their families but part of disjointed groups that were intent on personal gratification and working the system and they developed a "plantation mentality" with the government being the great provider and not the men of the family.

When "Motor Voter" came in I was [involved] in our county and I immediately saw that we had succeeded in breaking down the black family and that now the government was intent on breaking down the white family. We had as many voter applications coming in from "social service" agencies for unmarried single parent, young white women as we got from minority applicants in the same boat. These fatherless families cannot teach a young boy how to be a man – just as a single father cannot teach his daughter the niceties of being a cultured young lady.

Like you, Warph I have been able to walk the streets, not of Japan, but of Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Georgia, Pittsburgh, and many other American cities late at night either alone or with a companion without concern for my safety.  Jesse Jackson said some fifteen years ago that he was relieved to find that the footsteps behind him in a major American city were those of a white man. This problem wasn't born. It was made.


Now, when are you coming to D.C. to see me? Tell your lovely wife I said hi and don't bring that old coot Slappy when you come. He eats to much! 



Erita Stone.

[Jo McDonald]

Warph...May I just tell you this.  Your posts and the post from your friend, brings good sense to this forum, and for some reason, a comfort to my mind. 
  Common sense, and words of knowledge is a welcome read.
              Blessings to you and yours.
                     Jo

[Ross]

And that would be the reason you're not an educator, Steve.  Kids are totally at the mercy of the adults around them.  When the parents in question are spending their money on booze, cigarettes, or other vices, instead of buying the children food, clothing, or school supplies, then someone has to step up and help the kids...Period.  The kiddos have a need for at least a basic amount of care...When the parents can't or won't do it...The the school/the teacher step up.  Is it right that the teacher should have to do that?  No.  But if the teacher is worth their salt, they're doing it anyway.  That's just the way teaching goes.  Up to the point where I took my present position, I always worked for poorer systems and regularly put in around 3k a year into my room, due to the school's inability to give me a workable stipend that would cover the extras that made my curriculum come alive for the kids.  Now, I teach for a large system that can afford to give me a workable stipend and I am not having to put as much in to make my room do what it should for the kids.

It appears to me that teachers and administrative want to be more parent than teacher. If children are doing without food, clothing, or school supplies and parents are doing  booze, cigarettes, or other vices then the teacher maybe allowing other types of abuses to these children. The teacher should be reporting the situation to the administrative personell and return to teaching instead of mothering. Perhaps the family needs help from welfare or child protective services and therefore by not reporting it to the admistration may be enabling or adding to the problems the family may have. Are teachers social workers of are they teachers. I believe there is a professional difference.

[Catwoman]

The TEACHER is allowing these abuses?  OMG...You moron.

[Patriot]

The TEACHER is allowing these abuses?  OMG...You moron.

Base name calling?  From a self restrained professional such as yourself?  Shocking indeed.  Surely you must have been goaded into it.

[Ross]

The TEACHER is allowing these abuses?  OMG...You moron.

Me the moron, you don't read so good do you?
Try reading again?

Perhaps the family needs help from welfare or child protective services and therefore by not reporting it to the admistration may be enabling or adding to the problems the family may have. Appears to me that teachers and administrative want to be more parent than teacher. If children are doing without food, clothing, or school supplies and parents are doing  booze, cigarettes, or other vices then the teacher maybe allowing other types of abuses to these children. The teacher should be reporting the situation to the administrative personell and return to teaching instead of mothering. Perhaps the family needs help from welfare or child protective services and therefore by not reporting it to the admistration may be enabling or adding to the problems the family may have. Are teachers social workers of are they teachers. I believe there is a professional difference.

Perhaps the family needs help from welfare or child protective services and therefore by not reporting it to the admistration may be enabling or adding to the problems the family may have.

You may be adding to the problems in the childs life by trying to play parent to the child instead of reporting problems to the administrators, who might report the problems to the proper authorities, where upon the family might get the proper help that they need. Leave social work to the social workers and the teaching to the teachers. There is a big difference.

But I won't call you a moron.

[Catwoman]

Patriot...I knew it was too good to last...So, the bell has rung and we're back in our respective corners?  Go look in a mirror if you've the mind to argue at the moment...I'm not interested.  Rosco, there is no way that any educator can add to the problems that a child has.  The only thing the educator does is try to soften the blows that rain down in steady progression on some of these kids.  If that doesn't match up to what you armchair quarterbacks/Superintendents think should be happening, then I take it that what I'm doing is spot-on...If YOU don't like it, it must be the right thing to do!

[Ross]

Patriot...I knew it was too good to last...So, the bell has rung and we're back in our respective corners?  Go look in a mirror if you've the mind to argue at the moment...I'm not interested.  Rosco, there is no way that any educator can add to the problems that a child has.  The only thing the educator does is try to soften the blows that rain down in steady progression on some of these kids.  If that doesn't match up to what you armchair quarterbacks/Superintendents think should be happening, then I take it that what I'm doing is spot-on...If YOU don't like it, it must be the right thing to do!

There in lies the problem, you are not a social worker, not your job.
Administration should handle problems children may have and report to the proper authorities.

You should be teaching not pretending to be administration.
You should be teaching not mothering.

There is a difference, recognize the differences.

[Patriot]

...there is no way that any educator can add to the problems that a child has.

Like those 'educators' we read about who engage in illicit sex with their underage students?  Or those who ignore such acts going on around them?  Or perhaps those who allow some students to molest others as they turn a blind eye?  The title of 'educator' provides NO promise of protection to our young.  Nothing in that title guarantees ethics or moral standard. I would think an 'educator' would realize that.

[Catwoman]

Patriot, whichever teacher it is that ruined your educational experiences ought to be shot.  You have a massive chip on your shoulder when it comes to educators and education in general.  I feel for you, Patriot.  It's too bad that you didn't have at least one or two really distinguished teachers...Because you've lost out completely on what a fabulous educator brings to the life of the students that he/she teaches.  Yes, there are bad apples in the teaching field...Just as there are in the clergy, just as there are in the judicial system, just as there are on this Forum.  However, you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, Patriot.  YOU should realize that.