Teaching Tip #89

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #89

A journalist from decades ago sounds off on education.  And it could have been written yesterday.

What do you think of Mencken’s definition of a “true” teacher - “namely someone with a ‘passion for the importance of the thing being taught’”?

Mencken’s main point is that the education system simply wears down the passionate (or good) teachers.  So his solution is simple - teach your heart out for a short while and then find something else to do.  Before you are beaten down by the insane standards and testing frenzy of our education system, which seems to want to produce curriculum that is essentially “teacher proof,” where you just open up the three ring binder, make the specific amount of copies, hand them to the student and read from the correct margin in the teacher text and you are assured of meeting strand four of standard eight.

Never mind what your kids think of it.