Over 2 decades ago, then Governor of Utah Norm Bangerter, in response to teacher’s complaints about low pay, huge classes and rock-bottom lowest per-pupil spending, responded with something like “They [teachers] just need to take a couple aspirins and go back to work.”
Our current Governor, Gary Herbert, now joins Normie in the Utah League of Dumbass Comments Regarding Education.
“A teacher could have gone to sleep 100 years ago, come back 100 years later and felt very comfortable in the classroom – because nothing has changed.” (Salt Lake Tribune, June 2013)
Nothing has changed? This comment proves without a doubt that our current Governor either a) is completely ignorant about what is going on in Utah schools, b) is intentionally lying in order to display education in a bad light, or c) both.
I think about education when I started teaching 20 years ago and know that if I had slept the last 15 years I would be flabbergasted being dumped in a classroom in 2013.
Would a teacher from 100 years ago:
- Be ESL (English as a Second Language) endorsed in order to be better prepared to teach our diverse population?
- Be able to teach using differentiated instruction in order to address different learning styles?
- Be able to update their grades at least weekly and have them available to student’s and parents at home?
- Know how to put worksheets, assignments and even lesson notes somewhere that students who are sick or on vacation could access them and be able to keep up with classwork?
- Have almost immediate communication with parents on a daily basis?
- Know how to make a power-point lesson and present it to the class?
- Be able to set up an online Disclosure for parents and students? Or even know what a Disclosure Statement is?
- Know how to show a video from TeacherTube to the class and integrate it into a lesson?
- Be able to supervise their students taking the online benchmark tests, access the data from those tests, import it into an Excel spreadsheet so they could use it to guide their future lessons?
- Even understand the importance of the end of the year tests?
- Be comfortable using a whiteboard, or even know how to use a SmartBoard, Interwrite Tablet or iPad connected to their PC, instead of a chalkboard?
- Be able to supervise a class of students using the computer lab for research, writing or any of the other online learning programs?
- Understand how to help a student using a graphing calculator to do their math homework?
- Set up and give a clicker quiz?
- Even understand what ESL, 405, SEP, PLC, URL, logon, SID, AP, SpEd, LMITS, MyAccess, Canvas, Digits, Portal or WebStore mean?
And I’m sure teachers out there could think of at least 100 more examples of things that we have had to adapt to over even just the last couple of decades in order to do our best to keep up with a changing society.
No, Mr. Herbert, a teacher from 100 years could not do my job and if you’d get your ass off your high horse up there on the hill and come down and visit a few schools, you would be amazed at how different the job is from even when you were in the public school system.
