The Brutality Report - The Teaching Profession

As I type this, a hateful tote bag rests on top of a mound of rotting food in my kitchen trash can. If you were to come to my house and root around in my stinky garbage, you'd be able to read the tote bag's curved message:

TEACH READING RELENTLESSLY

Inside this jauntily typeset circle, the message continues:

EVERY CHILD
EVERY DAY
EVERY GRADE
EVERY YEAR

The bag was a gift to a member of my household who teaches kindergarten. Her school district showers its employees with a steady supply of cheap, China-made swag, so we have no idea how long the tote bag has been here. It was only this week that we both processed its message, which, impressively, fails on at least four levels:

1) AS MOTIVATIONAL TOOL
"Hey, teacher. Have a free tote bag. Nice, right? Hopefully it will remind you to treat your job as punishment for having been born. No matter how hard you try, you'll never meet our expectations. Ta."

2) AS FACT
Teachers should not literally teach reading to every child in every grade level. If you taught second grade, for example, you would receive a reprimand for attempting to teach sixth graders on your own initiative. If you persisted in bolting from classroom to classroom relentlessly teaching reading to every child you could find, you would eventually wind up unemployed, then imprisoned. If you continued to teach reading relentlessly in prison, you would experience some quality-of-life issues.

Also, reading should not be taught every day of every year. During the weekends, for example. That's a time for kids to watch cartoons and build forts. And the summertime. Children need the summer to recharge their Chi. That's a scientific fact. So if you break into the home of a child during July or August and attempt to relentlessly teach reading, the odds are very good that, again, you'll be spending some time in prison. Perhaps you could use the tote bag as a defense exhibit?

3) AS ACRONYM
Have you ever heard a teacher say "TRR" in a professional conversation? You have not. That's because it's a shitty acronym in a profession rife with shitty acronyms. Does the army have this problem? Nope. Their acronyms are generally awesome, like FUBAR. As an acronym, TRR is FUBAR.

4) AS SWAG
"Hey, teacher. Have a free tote bag. Nice, right? Hopefully it will remind you that we don't take you seriously as a professional or, really, an adult. More where that came from. Enjoy."

The tote bag does do one thing very well. It sums up the brutal paradox of teaching in the 21st century. It's bad enough that schoolteachers are misrepresented in movies like Waiting For Superman (as coddled incompetents), and Bad Teacher (as foxy incompetents), or every tea party protest sign (as commie incompetents who Teach Socialist Jihad Relentlessly). It's bad enough that politicians routinely equate teacher unions with dogfighting rings. It's bad enough that Bush, then Obama, imposed Soviet-style testing quotas on all grade levels. But teachers also get belittled by their own school districts. Have you ever seen a cop clutching a FIGHT CRIMINALS CONSTANTLY tote bag? You have not.

Here's another thing that probably does not happen to cops: educators are routinely treated like sex offenders. Last year, the LA Times started rating teachers, by name, over their test scores. One fifth grade teacher at a low income school, upset over being badmouthed in a major newspaper, leapt off a bridge in September. His family probably had to toss a lot of insulting swag in the trash.

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Previously - Unrelenting Sobriety