8/2/2019 Devaluation of Teachers

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Teach your Children Well

Prof. Jimmy Stephens, M.S., M.Ed.

In the devaluation of teachers, the moneyed few continue their assault on the middle

class and shift more of the countrys wealth to themselves. As teachers become marginalized bythe implementation of such practices as common assessments, state-mandated tests, restrictive

syllabi, certification programs that do not require university degrees, destruction of teacher

unions, and the flushing of experienced teachers in favor of newly minted ones, now calls for

reduction in teacher salaries are beginning.

The advantage of this outsourcing of experienced teachers is having its desired effect.

Young teachers enter a flawed system where individual creativity is stifled in favor of

controlled lessons in a test-driven curriculum. Dreams of being able to make a difference in

childrens lives quickly disappear, and teachers move on to other careers, thus ensuring that the

teachers in the classroom are the lowest paid, least experienced, and least likely to cause

trouble. This bring them in, burn them up, throw them away philosophy of the disposable

teacher is resulting in predictable results.

We are now creating a generation of uneducated workers created for corporations who

do not want employee activists, just employee performance. Too much education spoils workers

into critical thinking, and that is bad for a society that depends on employee obedience. High

schools and colleges have reduced liberal arts education in favor of fast track career programs

that get people to jobs faster. This is nowhere more prevalent than in the field of public school

teaching where billboards advertise, Want to be a teacher? When can you start?

As teachers become less relevant to education, their role in society will diminish andwith it comes lower pay. They will slip down and out of the middle class, thus skewing the

income curve to make more wealth available to the top 1%. State governments are shifting

away from public schools into the private hands of for profit and other charter schools. One can

only hope that in this current dystopian environment that teachers find themselves will end like

the 1927 German science-fiction film, Metropolis, which takes place in a society governed by

the wealthy from large tower fortresses overseeing the poor workers far below. Will the

wealthy rulers of America end up shaking hands with the masses and share wealth and power,

or will we once again see a disenfranchised middle class cry out for Madam Guillotine?