What happens
when there are no more
Teachers?
Today's Oakland Tribune heads with an article entitled "Teacher shortage hits suburbs." The article shares about the severe and severely increasing shortage of not just qualified and certified teachers, but any body with a pulse willing to teach in our public schools. Shocker of shocker....this is already a problem in our urban areas...but now our safe flight-to-paradise & good-school-promised-land suburbs are also seeing teacher shortages. Unknown
before in places such as Danville, Walnut Creek and Piedmont.I don't know what was most troubling for me in the article: Was it the complacency and apathetic way in which it was articulated that this shortage problem is not just common, but increasingly the norm, in such places as Oakland?; or was it that there will be a radical shortage in the future everywhere of teachers (and that's not even considering the massive black-hole drain that will empty our schools of qualified and experienced administrators over the next 10 years.) Scary! Will our schools become empty wastelands, like this abandoned school building in Germany?
Why would you teach when you have to live off your salary to do so? In particular in suburban places where you're teaching children whose families don't struggle financially. It seems like teaching has been tweaked from a "noble" profession to a self-chosen form of indentured servitude? And education is the key to the future. In the World is Flat, Tom Freidman lifts up tha massive investment (not just throwing money, but skills and skilled people) in education is the only way to ensure that the USA stays financially strong, systemically somewhat healthy, and techonologically able. You've got to wonder where are priorities are?
I struggled all last year to get our daughter into a quality public school....now I wonder if I should have maybe started getting stuff together to home school her?
The Tribune helps to host this great ongoing blog written about new Oakland teachers and their experiences in the first year of teaching. HERE.
3 comments:
Another sad state of affairs in Oakland. I was talking to an ex-teacher from Bret Harte. A kid had picked up a desk and hit him in the neck. The injury required surgery. He was not going back to teach at a MIDDLE SCHOOL because he valued his life.
Hi Monte,
Sue Morgan here. First time to your blog re: DIA and the Sequoia mural project.. Perused the blog a bit and found some stuff about your story re: finding schools....
I am a parent and a teacher and have lived in Oakland for over 30 years. I understand that many people believe that the public schools are horror stories waiting to happen and that no self respecting person would subject their child to them... but truly, when you go visit schools, when you spend time in classrooms and hallways in the schools in Oakland, you will find over and over incredibly dedicated teachers, students who want to learn and places where this is happening.
Are there horror stories.. certainly.. but these are not everyday occurances.. I have taught in some schools that were quite out of control and it always comes back to the administrators .. either they have their teachers backs or they don't.. when visiting schools, take the time to talk to the principal and ask flat out what happens if there is an incident and a student comes to the office... If the answer is that the child returns to the class within 10-20 mins... this is not the school for you....
I am so very tired of the assault on the public schools... from No Child left Behind to the morass of 'Broad/Gates' corruption here in Oakland with superintendents that only follow the 'charter' mode of education..
Now that you have visited Sequoia and seen what Debbie has done with students, come visit again
(as an aside, I met your family at A's spring training a few years back and have been hearing very positive things about what you are doing in the community.... thanks for sharing ....
Sue Morgan
Hi Sue,
Thanks for your comments and participation in the discussion. I echo what you shared. I think that our public schools are the way to go - my daughter is one I fought all last year to get her into - and we love it! My closing comment about home-schooling was merely a cynical joke.
I seek to use my blog to lift up stories of heroes and heroines in our Dimond/Laurel/Maxwell Park Neighborhoods, in particular working in and with schools in OUSD! A teacher at my daughter's school has a large bumper sticker in his classroom window that reads "TEACHERS ARE THE REAL HEROES" I think that says it all!
Cheers, courage and perseverance!
See you soon at Sequoia, the A's, our church, or somewhere else!
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