I doubt there would be much difference

Cheating to “qualify” as a public school teacher.


You could select names randomly from a phone book, hire those people as teachers and administrators without any training and no benefits or retirement program, end up with a very high turnover accordingly, and probably end up with a better school than some of the ones we’re currently forced by law to fund.  Chances are, they wouldn’t all be indoctrinated leftist/authoritarians such as we have now, but then it would depend on the city.  Certainly, some of the teachers I had were far below average in intelligence and functionality.  Plus they hated kids.  The random, first generation immigrant farmer or mill worker from that area would have exceeded their educational abilities, at least for a while until they got bored from not being able to pursue their main interests.  If all they did was nothing, we’d have done better in my high school, as we wouldn’t have had anyone impeding us in the classroom.  We could have read some books, looked into things using the library, brought in people from the community to speak about their specialties, discussed things amongst ourselves, and actually ended up understanding something along the way without getting a bad taste for the “education” process or being treated like pieces of shit for being curious and having independent minds.

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3 thoughts on “I doubt there would be much difference

  1. I am amazed at how many trachers hate kids. I taught high school in California, but quit after one year. Not because of the kids, but due to the other teachers. They were awful. My kids have been fortunate, but I hear horror stories from their friends.

  2. Educational process is defined top down. So the teachers are caught in the same industrial system the students are. Who’s at the top? You are, the voters who check the box next to the superintendent of public instruction without a thought of who that is or what they can/should do. LOTs of teachers support classroom flipping and other innovative change that would help you “read some books, looked into things using the library, brought in people from the community to speak about their specialties, discussed things amongst ourselves, and actually ended up understanding”

  3. I worked for a semiconductor equipment manufacturer in the 1990’s. The manufacturing floor was populated by about 50 Russian Jewish emigres who had escaped the Soviet Union in the early 1980s as part of detente with the US. The company actually sponsored their immigration requests. They were hard science PhDs, EEs and MEs. They spoke good English. They worked for middling wages building large pieces of equipment for semiconductor chip fabrication, and were damned glad to be out of the Soviet Union, and even happier that it had fallen peacefully.

    I learned more from those guys about the machines than from anyone else at the business, and am absolutely sure they could have taken over and taught any grade school classes and up to graduate level college classes in their fields.

    And don’t get me started on the smarts of the H-1 visa holders from China and India who worked there.

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