Teacher Appreciation Day

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/GrapIgnorance

A relevant video to see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_ZTTRZ2MY4

Sausage biscuits from Burger King, bleeding grease through paper bags on the teacher's lounge table.
A gesture from district for being one of the people who accepts minimal pay for maximum work, because we couldn't do it without you, and this is how we thank the unexpendable. With shiny buttons to pin to your shirts or stacks of post-it notes with "thank you" printed on the side- the words of which erode far slower than your appreciation for the slap in the face of artificial gratitude they handed you. You're insulted, and you should be, but you smile anyway, because you can take it- you've had practice.
Cold chicken wings and a vegetable plate sit on the table at a celebration banquet that concludes the academic year.
The speaker acknowledges that you work so hard at a task so difficult that the nation couldn't possibly afford to pay you for what you do. This is supposed to imbue you with a sense of pride for being cheated. It's supposed to make you feel guilty for complaining that while all prices have risen, the only things constant are change itself and your teaching salary.
Your students say they want to drop out of school, and sell drugs like their parents who work a few hours a day and illegally make triple the money that you do. Their role models are the drug dealers who break petty laws for premium profits, and the sports stars that are paid a king's ransom to play a child's game. Why should they look up to you, when you drive a car as old as they, and chip away at student loans with fragments of your meager pay?
The ignorant politicians who make the rules and break the unions think it's all about the money. Had they been any farther from understanding your point, they would have been closer to it. You want to scream.
It's not about the money, you stuffed shirt, Benz-driving, desk riding, bill signing, budget slashing, academic hitman.
It's about the future- it's about the kids, it's about the shallow pool of resources you've attempted to drown them in so you can sink your campaign's teeth into another bite of pork barrel politics. It's about the principle of our priorities, it's about the methods, it's about the way, it's about tomorrow happening today- it's about time... for student appreciation day.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• GrapplingIgnorance
• school
• teacher
• appreciation
• day
• money
• financial
• education
• priorities
• student
• students
• teachers

[cfalconknee]

I don't understand how people dislike this >_>

I had never actually thought about it like that. As a student I would have rejected the idea of a student appreciation day, but that's probably mostly because I dislike attention. I still believe with all my heart that teachers need more appreciation and such, but after hearing this, yeah. So do the students.

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@cfalconknee My real intention at the end wasn't a hope for one day devoted to students, but rather for us to step into an era where we put students first in terms of our actions as schools, communities, and governments.

[TheMagicSandwichist]

i think this is your best poem yet

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@TheMagicSandwichist Thank you for that.

[PurpleGhost]

Grappling I think I love you.

Doubtless, you're not the only one, to think about who the people doing the thankless job, are doing it FOR; for them to 'have the day', I know *I've* thought about that - but I think you're the only one I've ever heard publicly say it.

The education system started as a system to mass produce factory workers out of our children, but it's potential is so much more than that, because THEIR potential is SO much more than that.

I don't have faith, I do have hope.

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@PurpleGhost Agreed- and I think that most of America agrees too. Our politicians just haven't acted like it.

[The1stArtist]

... individuality of their own.

State-controlled schools are not schools in the real sense of the word. They are indoctrination camps that mold the soft minds of children into automatons ready for instructions and incapable of critical thinking.

If you want more info on the subject i suggest you search for John Taylor Gatto.

[CriKKKeycrocodile]

I wrote my favorite teacher a poem on teacher appreciation day...but it wasn't like that. It was supposed to be anonymous so he wouldn't think I was bribing him or somethin but he found out. His like a business man in a clown convention. He does his job like a sharp schedule. :)

[DeathnoteBB]

And I always wonder, "You always say teachers are so important, yet you give them so little pay?" I mean there's plenty of it for other things, and they SAY how important teachers are and how tough the job is. So why don't they get more for their work instead of just constant praise?

[DeathnoteBB]

Teachers have said to the classes that I'm in "It's my job to be a teacher, and it's your job to be a student" I always wondered then, "well, if it's a job, why don't we get paid?" They act like it's a privilege to be drowned in work, stressed out of our minds, being told we're never good enough.

[QWERTY34990]

This SUCKS!!

[PaleoSteno]

Beautiful and thought-provoking.

[PawnBACM]

Nice poem; the future is the only reason the present matters to begin with.

[BlankPicketSign]

Beautiful.

I hate this country that I love so much ¬_¬

[BlankPicketSign]

@JMcH

Uneducated Comment