Sunday, June 04, 2006
Gimme a Break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Basic cable on the weekends can be a hit-and-miss affair. But there's always something interesting on C-SPAN2, which on Saturdays and Sundays turns its programming over to BookTV and its continuing series of conversations with nonfiction authors on all sorts of topics. Favorite programs they've done in the past include Tim O'Brien and Sarah Vowell.
Ordinarily, I'll give a few moments during my strobe-like channel flipping if I see someone I recognize (today I saw "Blackhawk Down" author Mark Bowden being interviewed wearing sport sandals and an open-collared shirt. Has this guy not been cashing his advance checks?). But I stuck around anyway yesterday when I looked in and saw Super Tool John Stossel of ABC's 20/20. If you don't know who he is, consider yourself fortunate. But maybe you do anyway. He's the creator of the "GIMME A BREAK" segments seen on that show. They routinely feature Stossel and his Tom Selleck castoff mustache shedding light on scams and schemes that are fleecing Americans of their hard-earned dollars. The 'stache, I suppose, gives him some sort of gravitas with the 75-and-over set who watch 20/20. They're thinking Clark Gable; I'm thinking Magnum P.I.
And the guy has written not one, but two books. The latest is called "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know is Wrong." This should have been my first clue to find something else. Clue No. 2 -- the lecture on his book was given at the Cato Institute. But watch I did. Stossel was making a point about how the education system needs to be more like the business world; competition would make our kids smarter and our schools better. Seldom does something I see on TV leave me slack-jawed, but the following passage did so:
Another myth is that teachers are underpaid. Under what? What does that mean in a free society? In America, you have 5-10 applicants for every teaching job. Teaching isn't underpaid. It's a joyous job. Lots of people want to do that. You get to help children. Plus teachers make $7,000 above the average wage in America. And don’t forget they get lots of time off. They get the summers off, so the government says that if you do an hour-by-hour comparison, teachers make more than chemists, psychiatrists, registered nurses, computer programmers.
Pay particular attention to the blue part. I'm not sure about how many people apply for teaching jobs these days, but is he kidding about teaching salaries? Lots of time off? For someone who purports to be busting myths, he's subscribing to a whopper of a misconception that people have about teaching. Granted, at one point I shared his view before I took up the calling. And sure, on paper it looks like long, luxurious summers of rest and relaxation. But what doesn't show up in Stossel's calculation or those done in the minds of the public at large are the hours I and my colleagues spend at home at night and on weekends, writing lesson plans and grading essays and other assignments. Trying really hard not to play the martyred teacher here, but it really irks me when people flat-out get things wrong about what goes on inside schools like mine. Unless those registered nurses are rolling their patients home in their hospital beds and the chemists pack their beekers and Bunsen burners home on the weekends, as far as I'm concerned there is no comparison. I'm not seeking sympathy or special attention on this, nothing save for simple accuracy. It's this simple: at the end of the year, when you weigh the nights and weekends against the summer, it all comes out in the wash.
Apparently, Stossel's readers aren't the only ones who need to read "Why Everything You Know is Wrong."
The rest of the Stossel screed is available in MP3 and RealAudio streaming formats at: http://www.cato.org/events/060523bf.html.
Read or Post a Comment
It's also important to note that, for all that luxurious time off in the summers, WE DON'T GET PAID! It's a freakin' TEN MONTH CONTRACT, so teachers have their summers off the same way that everyone else has their Saturdays and Sundays off. The difference is that while our buddies in corporate America are flitting from one brunch buffet to another, we spend our Saturdays and Sundays grading papers. You know, when we're not blogging. :)