Showing posts with label Chuck Thompson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chuck Thompson. Show all posts

Thursday, September 23, 2010

American Teachers: World's Best PR Operation?

The following status update caused quite a discussion:

If you can't understand basic economics, can't compete against international students in math and science, and think that bigger government can solve our problems, thank a California K-14 teacher.

P.S. students in India, Israel, China, Iran, and Eastern Europe can't wait to compete with you.

EzD: That's a pretty wide brush. I used to be a teacher (not in CA, admittedly) and know that there are plenty of great, bright motivated teachers that find themselves fighting against the District offices and our awful myopic focus on standardized tests. It's not always (or even most of the time) the teacher's failure that causes our educational issues.

SlW: I've been put through the system in Poland (K-5), Germany (6-7) and Canada (9-12). The math I was taught in grade 9 in Canada I already knew in grade 5 from Poland. really sad...

JA: And that's why I attended private school most of my life.

TrB: I agree with SlW--after I returned from 3 years in Germany I got to "coast" for a couple years while the rest of the kids caught up to where I was at. Sad.

MaR: @EzD: no one said that teachers don't work hard or that there aren't any bright teachers. At the same time, it's easy to see that our public school system is failing students when it comes to basic knowledge, especially in math, economics, and science.

(By the way, I was doing a riff on the more common quote, "If you can read this sentence, thank a teacher.")

EzD: My first year of teaching, on my first day I had 36 students, 34 sets of books and 33 desks. We don't set our teachers up to succeed any more than we do our students.

DaC: Why blame everybody and the system when the fault lies with the students themselves. What with the WII and PS3 and modern day toys, does anybody really focus on school. Kids can't wait to get home and play. Parents need to enforce stricter ground rules for the kids also.

RoW: the teachers can only work with what they are given. My dear friend is a third grade teacher and often finds herself spending her own money on school supplies when she is short. She also has to buy snacks/meal substitutes because so many kids get sent to school hungry. If they can't focus because the are starving, they aren't learning.

MaR: I'm not surprised kids don't have sufficient resources. 80 to 85% of the education budget goes into the pockets of teachers and administrators. More here.

ScL: Well, you just hit the nail. It's the same thing killing the university system as well. Bureaucrats and Administrators are a metastasizing cancer that starve the rest of the system of resources but the same can be said of government and large banks. Add in a general unwillingness for an objective rating system for teachers and the whole thing's hosed.

NiP: This was a complaint about PS when I was growing up in Chicago. My parents made sure we were challenged by giving us extra homework. "Not all parents are equipped to do that," you counter. True, but there are all sorts of after school help parents can get for their children, some of it free. Some effort needs to be made to help the teachers teach the students, including imposing some home discipline and a good night's rest.

EzD: Heh, I think you have this image of teachers as being overpaid. Strangely, I (and I think a lot of other folks) have a different experience. I make more working at a small non-profit than I ever did teaching. It may very well be that administrators & union folks are rolling in dough, but I don't see anyone getting rich from teaching. Hardest job I ever had, and second isn't even close.

NiC: Teachers should be paid more, the school year should be longer, and there should be less administration.

MaR: @EzD: you mentioned you did not work in California. In California, teachers are adequately compensated. "According to the CTA's parent union, the National Education Association, California teachers were the nation's top-paid, with $64,424 average annual salary in 2007-08." See here.

Teachers also receive special benefits including pensions, lifetime medical benefits, and job security. If teachers agreed to switch to a private sector retirement plan (i.e., a 403b plan), we could pay them even more. However, as long as teachers receive millions of dollars on the back end (i.e., when they retire), we cannot afford to increase the salaries of newer teachers. I guess we care so much about children we don't mind paying newer teachers less money so we can pay millions of dollars to retired, non-working teachers.

EzD: True, I taught in New Orleans and was not so well paid. Does that job security you list in the benefits include the mass pink slips that districts up & down the State are sending out?

The real reason our system is hosed? Prop 13. If we got rid of Prop 13, our schools would almost instantly improve.

NiC: Really, more taxation is the answer??? Houses can't sell as it stands now. Higher taxes is not the answer. How about not wasting the money we already send to the schools. I agree with MaR.

MaR: @EzD: again, the reason newer teachers are receiving pink slips--which were canceled after states received $26 billion in emergency federal aid--is because we are spending millions of dollars paying retired teachers who no longer work. Until the day money grows on trees, we have to decide between paying millions of dollars to retired teachers or paying millions of dollars to newer teachers. California, much to my chagrin, has decide to focus on retired teachers at the expense of newer teachers.

Also, Prop 13 has been a boon to California's middle class (not just the rich). People who support the repeal of Prop 13 support taking money from the private sector middle class and giving it to government employees and unions. It's hard to sympathize with such an approach when the private sector middle class is experiencing major unemployment and financial difficulties.

AnL: You're tough!

MaR: you think I'm tough? Listen to Chuck Thompson:

"And, yes, poor unappreciated teachers. I did say sweet deal. American public school teachers have the world's best PR operation going. Whining every chance they get about how demanding their jobs are, how many 'extra hours' they put in, how little they make, how much of their own money they have to spend just to do their jobs, how noble they are working this job that nobody ever asked them to do--welcome to the f*cking world...

You think you got it tough? You don't got it tough. American teachers would crumble if they ever had to work the real hours of a cabbie, doctor, bartender, fisherman, truck driver, small-business owner, hotel clerk, mechanic, architect, janitor, musician, surveyor, accountant, or the million other jobs that don't observe weekends, much less every city, county, state, and federal holiday on the docket, almost three months' paid vacation a year, and pension programs funded out of the public trough. How is it we go through school painfully aware that half our teachers are lazy or incompetent or pathological control freaks, then turn around and let them convince us what a bunch of saints they are as soon as we become taxpayers?" (p. 100, Smile When You're Lying)

ZiL: I did K-6 (and some college) back in the old country [Poland]. And yes, the curriculum there was more demanding, esp. in mathematics. But their system sucked (and continues to suck) in many other respects, such as lack of individualized attention and a complete disregard for psychosocial development.

MaR: I agree that psychosocial development and academic aptitude are not contradictory goals, but thus far, our schools have been artificially boosting children's self-esteem with their low standards. From my perspective, families should provide self-esteem, and schools should focus on teaching viable skills so students aren't required to work for the government to enter the middle class.

One could almost describe our current education system as a scam. If schools teach most kids no marketable skills for 18 years, it forces them to rely on the government for jobs. As a result, most kids become adults who are forced to vote to expand government, which means teachers and government unions get even more money...for teaching kids no viable or useful skills.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Chuck Thompson on the NBA

An oldie but a goodie: HERE is Chuck Thompson's take on last year's NBA finals. Who is Chuck Thompson? For starters, he's written one of the funniest books I've ever read. See here for a book review of Smile When You're Lying.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Chuck Thompson's Smile When You're Lying

Thompson's Smile When You're Lying is the funniest book I've read since Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day. Thompson writes travel stories you don't often hear about in the sanitized media, which include paintbrushing with unorthodox body parts, possibly being robbed by seemingly demure religious women, and writing love letters for food--and that's just the first chapter. Thompson knows how to write, is opinionated, and interesting, which usually produces a great book filled with unusual insights:

"[Bruce Lee's] kitty-cat squealing and falsetto yelping always conveyed to me an understanding of just how laughable all that in-your-face showboating is. I'm not sure what sound the koala makes in anger, but if I ever get back into kendo, that's the one I'm going to adopt as my battle cry." (p. 82, Holt Paperback)

Thompson's rants will become legendary in time--here's one on public school teachers:

"And, yes, poor unappreciated teachers. I did say sweet deal. American public school teachers have the world's best PR operation going. Whining every chance they get about how demanding their jobs are, how many 'extra hours' they put in, how little they make, how much of their own money they have to spend just to do their jobs, how noble they are working this job that nobody ever asked them to do--welcome to the f*cking world...

You think you got it tough? You don't got it tough. American teachers would crumble if they ever had to work the real hours of a cabbie, doctor, bartender, fisherman, truck driver, small-business owner, hotel clerk, mechanic, architect, janitor, musician, surveyor, accountant, or the million other jobs that don't observe weekends, much less every city, county, state, and federal holiday on the docket, almost three months' paid vacation a year, and pension programs funded out of the public trough. How is it we go through school painfully aware that half our teachers are lazy or incompetent or pathological control freaks, then turn around and let them convince us what a bunch of saints they are as soon as we become taxpayers?" (p. 100)

Thompson's views on Americans' general fear of traveling to South America are just as pellucid as his other opinions:

"Despite being home to Angel Falls, the Gran Sabana wilderness, and parts of the the Andes, Amazon River, and Carribbean coastline, fewer than half a million international visitors venture into the majestic Venezuelan countryside... This is in large part due to the fact that, fear being the lietmotif of all good propaganda, about 75 percent of Americans are convinced that any trip south of Texas will involve some combination of bribery, kidnapping, armed revolt, the most toxic GI diseases this side of the Congo, knives pulled in macho bar duels, and a probable colonoscopy at the border." (p. 118)

Thompson's ability to use sharp humor to defuse common misconceptions about travel and the world is unparalleled. One gets the feeling that he's kept all of his non-politically-correct secrets hidden to appease the gods of corporate fealty and finally decided to unleash his wisdom on all of us, decorum be damned. For example, we've all seen the alcohol ads go from Swedish bikini team to "drink responsibly" slogans. But after Thompson writes, "When the beer companies start running ads lecturing the public about responsible behavior, you sense a civilization in decline" (p. 129), you realize beer companies advocating responsibility does appear, on second glance, to be a strange combination. Those "a-ha" moments come regularly and wrapped in laugh-out-loud lines throughout the book. You owe it to yourself to read Smile When You're Lying, especially if you're looking for a good laugh.

(One point I feel compelled to make, in an act of true lawyer-ly nitpicking: Thompson bemoans traveolcity.com's attempt to increase sales using sexy women on its magazine cover, but his own book features a picture of a blonde woman in a bikini holding a margarita, beckoning readers with her pneumatic charms.)

Bonus (added on August 31, 2015): "If there were a fundamental principle that once separated America from the rest of the world, I'd nominate institutional integrity.  More simply, public honesty.  I'm not suggesting that dishonesty isn't readily found in every civilization, that a Golden Age of American honor ever existed...Nor am I parading myself as a paragon of virtue.  We all lie, to some degree, usually in petty ways, for the sake of discretion or keeping the peace or perhaps on occasion simply because it's the most expedient means available to get what we want.  Still, lying and cheating--perhaps other than to avoid hurting someone's feelings--has never been openly accepted or condoned in the United States, much less celebrated as a 'genius' operational tactic (when done with Rovian finesse) from the boardroom to the courtroom.  At least, not until recently....Worse, Americans seem to be reveling the descent...American society is no accident; it didn't evolve by providential decree; its success wasn't inevitable...Americans have historically understood that to create a country in which half the world aspires to live, the first prerequisite is the integrity of its public and private institutions.  That's the foundation upon which the country was assembled and its illustrious future once determined...What's being overlooked in the rush to save the planet, however, is that we're also pissing away a social gift as great as any people in history have been bequeathed.  And if we don't resist the seduction of the seemingly inevitable road in front of us, it won't matter how much fossil fuel we stop burning, we'll fail to preserve the part of us that mattered most in the first place." -- Chuck Thompson, To HellHoles and Back, pp. 309 et al, paperback, Henry Holt and Company.