Avoiding "Learned Helplessness"

[Conch]

3. Ummm, sorry. No.

I am a teacher and a mediocre one at that! I have seen more shitty teachers than I can shake a stick at and I have been at it only five years, this being my sixth.

People look at teaching as if it were somehow different from every other work force in the nation when it is not.

It has nothing to do with a lack of "WANT" for, "creativity, reflectiveness, experimentation,... ." There are just a lot of lazy teachers. They don't "enforce conformity" Jesus what a ridiculous thing to say... they, many...especially after they get a few years under their belt and gain tenure or the equivalent..they just want a pay check.

Not all of them of course or perhaps even most. However, teaching like so many other professions has a great many people who phone it in.

I am lucky (in my opinion, any number of other teachers would have any number of other opinions) in that I am allowed to create my entire curriculum... my class is currently writing vignettes for good or ill. Do you have any idea how much work it requires to allow 75 kids to be creative, reflective, experimental, and independent? I do... I would like to think I allow them all to do just that. But it is an assload of work. It is more work than many people are willing to put in.

It is no different in parenthood in that people probably (maybe not) understand that it is going to take a lot of work to do the job well BUT they actually don't have an accurate idea and when they are in the position to do all that work they cut corners, they try to reach a portion of the students but not all ("you can't save them all&quot .

To think that there is an institutional aversion to independence on the part of the students is nearly conspiracy theory-esque.

It's a lot like parenting... a lot of people prep for it wishing for the best and end up not being good at it unfortunately by the time they or others realize it they are $100,000 in student debt and are getting checks for their un-inspiring work.

Oh and here, check out some of my former kids' work. The current batch are working on their blogs currently.
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