Peter Smagorinsky is a Distinguished Research Professor of English Education, emeritus, at the University of Georgia. He taught in K-12 classrooms for 14 years before becoming a teacher educator. This column that he wrote appeared on Maureen Downey’s blog “Get Schooled” at the Atlanta Journal.
He begins:
The AJC Get Schooled Blog is one of many this fall in which educational stakeholders have asked, Would you recommend a teaching career to young people? Even school administrators are wondering, Who would want to be a teacher right now?
Most of the concern around this question relates to the potential deadliness of school buildings and classrooms, the absence of teachers in decision-making during the pandemic, the hostility of the public toward teachers who have no control over their work conditions, the callousness of school board members who remain aloof from danger while requiring others to risk their lives, the politicization of science at the expense of reality, the meddling of politicians who know nothing about either health or education, and more additional challenges than I can list in a single column.
And that’s just the health crisis.
Teachers can be punished for mentioning the historical fact there is racism in the United States, and that it’s built into institutions. They are being told to do more with less, an administrative bromide that has never been based in reality. They are required to maintain curricular schedules in the face of spotty attendance, greater worries than diagramming sentences, community environments saturated in grief, their own families’ health concerns, and many other social challenges.
He goes on to ask: Who would want to be a school bus driver? Who would want to be a sub? Who would want to be a school administrator? Who would want to be a school board member?
Open the link and read his column.
It might help to remember that the Koch network and other rightwing foundations are funding the attacks on public schools as part of their effort to discredit them and promote privatization.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And then we have this story out of Hong Kong which goes along quite nicely with USA authoritarian vigilantes attacking public school staff, faculty, school board meetings and curriculum.
“Hong Kong ordered schools to adopt a more patriotic curriculum and advised teachers to report any breaches of the city’s national security law, the government’s biggest move yet to overhaul the education system following the protests of 2019.
The measures, announced late Thursday, seek to inculcate patriotism to kindergarten-age children through “story-telling, role-playing, drawing, singing, dancing and other activities.” Students as young as six will be taught to memorize offenses criminalized by the national security law, which was imposed on the city by China last year, including subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers. The curriculum will cover all subjects from geography to biology.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-05/hong-kong-orders-schools-to-teach-sweeping-pro-china-curriculum
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Speaking of China, I have a nightmare that we will wake up one morning to the news that China has overrun and occupied Taiwan. China’s designs on Taiwan are relentless, determined and backed by overwhelming force. I hope I am totally wrong.
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For Better or Worse MacDonalds will at least feed us breakfast while we are being infected, hospitalized, spat on, shoved, de-masked, reported for teaching Critical Race Theory, and forced to witness Jerry Craft book bans in Houston, TX public schools.
McDonald’s is giving away free breakfast to teachers, faculty and staff for five straight days in October as a “Thank you” for all they do.
Starting Oct. 11-15, all educators can head to their local participating McDonald’s during breakfast hours and show a valid work ID for a free breakfast.
The “Thank You Meals” will be served in a classic Happy Meal box filled with an entrée breakfast sandwich, hashbrowns and a beverage. Sandwich choices include an Egg McMuffin®, a Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit or a Sausage Biscuit. Beverage options include a medium McCafé® hot or iced coffee or a medium soft drink.
“Together with our Owner/Operators, we’re proud to serve the people who make our communities a better place, and this is an important time to say thank you to some of our everyday heroes,” said Joe Erlinger, President, McDonald’s USA. “We were honored to give away 12 million free Thank You Meals to first responders and healthcare workers last year and now, with educators going above and beyond, we’re excited to recognize them in a way only McDonald’s can.”
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Sadly, you are totally correct. And short of nuclear war, the U.S, can no longer effectively intervene. All we can do now is supply Taiwan with the latest military equipment and hope that the threat of their resistance will make China hesitate to pay the cost of invasion.
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My comment above was in rely to Joe Jersey, not McDonalds
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Yes, let’s absolutely escalate tensions with the third largest nuclear power on the planet based in the same kind of propaganda that convinced us that Iraq had WMD and da Russkies stole the 2016 election (which I realize most of you here still believe even though it’s been completely debunked). What could possibly go wrong?
Here’s a hint: whenever your government tries to convince you of evils of other governments, look instead to your own government. Cui bono?
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“even though it’s been completely debunked.” LMAO. That’s a good one. Tell us another.
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well said
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Teaching, I long said, is tied with nursing as the greatest of professions. No more. The combination of the pandemic and testing mania and entitled parents and top-down micromanagement and lack of resources and continual and busy work and often capricious “evaluation” by accountability-and-petty-rules-obsessed administrators have RUINED the job. No, I would not recommend going into it now, not under these conditions. No freaking way.
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cx: and busy work and continual and often capricious and petty “evaluation” by accountability-and-rules-obsessed
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cx: has RUINED the job
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In 1994, China rolled out a new “patriotic” nationalist curriculum requiring extensive indoctrination of students. It just imposed this on Hong Kong.
This is, ofc, exactly what Trump and his enablers in the Repugnican Party want for the United States, and what, in many places here, they are getting as a result of the attack on CRT and the 1619 curricular materials. In many places in the U.S. today, you can be fired for telling the truth about genocide, slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic racism in our history.
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My advice to young people considering teaching today: Yes. Thank you. Please do this. However, have something else in your pocket that you can turn to if the teaching becomes too onerous, which it easily can now.
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Just understand that you very well may be used and abused by administrators, parents and students. I remember on a few occasions, teachers and, yes, even administrators warning me that I would likely end up in the crosshairs of entitled parents. That was 10-15 years ago, and it has only gotten exponentially worse. One district was known for never siding with its teachers they were so scared of lawsuits. It didn’t matter to the district whether the teacher was clearly in the right. Litigation could cost them big time.
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I had several parents from whom I would receive almost daily emails, copied to my administrators. Let me give you an idea of what these were like. One parent called my AP to say that “Mr. Shepherd was teaching demonology” because I had my students read the opening scene of Macbeth. Early on, I noticed that a lot of my Juniors and Seniors weren’t using capital letters at the beginnings of their sentences and end punctuation at the end of them. So, I told them that I would dock points for that because they needed to get used to communicating professionally. The first time I did dock points for this, a parent emailed my principal and the district office and threatened a lawsuit, and this became a huge exchange of emails, back and forth, for weeks.
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Haven’t you heard? Parents are supposed to tell teachers what to teach??!!
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If only I had known this, Robert! How much more effective I would have been.
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a reason why the “put cameras in every room” push would stop education altogether: imagine all the disparate and endless ideas for teaching we will hear from parents who THINK they know all about history and science and language and math and art and geography….
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A lawsuit over taking points off for 2nd grade punctuation expectations – in the 12th grade. Oy!
In a school I worked in years ago…. a colleague talked to a parent about a concern that their 4th grader wasn’t completing any homework and the mom said, “well you’re the one that gave it to him – not me.”
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I think the Koch network has been attacking teachers and public education since the 1970s. I also suspect President Teflon-Don Ronald RayGun was doing the Koch network’s bidding when he released the “A Nation at Risk” report and murdered The Fairness Doctrine that required the media to be fair and balanced.
The explosion of the lying, misinformation, conspiracy theory spreading right-wing media took after during the RayGun administration. RayGun even had Limbaugh spend a night at the White House when he was president.
“Day of the Dittohead”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1994/02/20/day-of-the-dittohead/e5723f05-04d8-4ccb-98c9-8b1ba6c358d2/
“Rush Limbaugh and his Presidents”
“Rush Limbaugh’s conservative radio talk show debuted on August 1, 1988, at the tail end of Ronald Reagan’s years in the White House. Limbaugh was little noticed initially and arrived too late to have much impact on the Reagan presidency. Still, the broadcaster and the president did have a post-presidential mutual admiration society. Limbaugh called Reagan on air “Ronaldus Magnus”: Ronald the Great. And by 1992, Reagan had already dubbed Limbaugh “the [LYING] voice of conservatism.” Limbaugh would have a more tangible and direct impact on every subsequent presidency of his life, which ended yesterday at 70.”
https://www.city-journal.org/rush-limbaugh-and-his-presidents
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And here’s another reason:
I couldn’t imagine how disillusioning it must be today for teachers who believe their profession is a calling.
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Who can take Christie seriously as a leader – with his history the last 5 years. He shouldn’t be on a serious political rountable – any more than Rudy.
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roundtable
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