"It Must be Nice to be a Teacher..."

     "It must be nice to have summers off, and have all of those vacations and to get paid for it all."  This statement is one that I hear a lot when I tell people about my chosen profession.  It is also the one statement that infuriates me so much because they have no clue what it means to be a teacher!  Why shouldn't they view the profession like that though, when even the government views teachers as "failures."  This week's readings have been about Neoliberalism and their view that "what is private is necessarily good, and what is public is necessarily bad."(Apple, pg. 38 ). This statement is so far from the truth, that I don't even know where to begin.
     I want to ask the government officials who are promoting neoliberalism, to come to our schools for a week. Not a day, because things can be made to look good in a day, but over a week they will get to see what their "policies" have done to great teachers.  Due to the NCLB Act we have amazing teachers who used to do creative, thought provoking lessons, which weren't always, "curriculum driven" but were a valuable part of a child's learning process, now afraid to "let go" of their curriculum. Teachers who were allowed to be individuals in how they could teach, and still  get the needed curriculum out to the students, afraid that they will be let go or reprimanded if their students do not pass a test with a "4" or a high "3".   In fact, I know that there are some teachers in our school systems who actually do "working snacktime" instead of letting the kids have 10-15 minutes without instruction in their day!  Can you even imagine the impact on these children?  With the way that some families are functioning lately, school can be their only time to have positive social interactions with peers and adults, and we are now so obsessed with "teaching to the test, or having to get our curriculum in"  that we are forgetting that these students, are children.  For the teachers who give the students working snacks, what about the valuable lessons we could be giving them on life during that time?  Such as, "you are important to me, and I want to know what you did last night for fun? "  or  "what do you think about ....?"  Just getting the students to talk to each other in a less restrictive environment, is such a vital concept to develop, that we lose those lessons, when we are forced to "teach to the test."  Perhaps in spending their week with a school, they would get to see that their policies are partly enabling the destruction of our society, more so than they believed that they are aiding in our society with their ridiculous standards.
     The fact that the neoliberalists are stating that, "nearly all public institutions are sucking the financial life out of this society,"(Apple, pg. 38) infuriates me even more.  They are lumping so much into that statement when they say this. What about the parks, and museums that people can go to to engage in learning?  Some are free, or at least affordable so that everyone can benefit from them.  Looking at and studying artwork from a well-known artist, can inspire someone to do something with their life, or just to enjoy looking at something of beauty.  How about the transportation system?  This system helps people get from place to place, whether it is work, or pleasure.   I do recall hearing somewhere that we should be using public transportation more and using less resources to drive our cars everywhere.  If private companies took over all of the public sphere, then I honestly do not think that the neoliberalists realize that they will be taking away the very essence of America.  "The Land of the Free..." would mean nothing if everything begins to be sold to the  highest bidder.
    "For the neoliberals, the world is a vast supermarket." (Apple, pg. 39)  This statement proves that they would like to sell everything to the people willing to pay for them, but they are forgetting that they are then going to be aiding in "a massive transfer of social wealth from middle-class, working-class,and low-income people to the extremely rich" (Lipman, pg. 47.)  Do we want this philosophy in our school systems, and other public spheres?  Can you imagine what  a school system would look like if teachers have to conform to whatever the company owners want them to teach?  How would colleges accept students who come from so many diverse education systems?  They would not be able to judge how a curriculum prepped these students, without a system in which there was some control over, or some kind of standards.
    I ask the neoliberals to go back into their memories and pull out what made some of their favorite teachers stand out in their lives.  I bet that they would name the teachers who were kind, caring, had fun with what they were teaching, were creative, made them feel like they were special, etc. Wait?  Aren't I describing what the majority of teachers are nowadays too? Teachers battle so many small things, that I want to know why these neoliberals want to throw more into the daily battles with these policies?  Let us teach, and let us do this to the  best of our abilities. We are educated individuals who went into teaching to help children, and we do this in a time that isn't always easy.  Do not impose even more ridiculous standards like 100% of our students passing a test. I also want to ask these neoliberalists if they could handle a high bar set like that in their profession?  I think that deep down these people know that this is an impossible goal to make people obtain, so that they can then say that we "failed".  This way they can't take ownership for what they created, or for the fact that we are dealing with human beings, and as far as I know, human beings are never 100% perfect.