I have pointed out before that

teachers are not as special as they want us to believe and that military NCOs that teach military schools seem to do a better job than public schoolteachers.

Of course the argument I get is that schoolkids are not soldiers.

So? A GI in his MOS or technical school is simply a student just as the grade school kid is. Military teachers are not permitted to beat students just like public school teachers are not allowed to hit their charges.

There really isn't much of a difference if you look at it for what it is. They are both students and they are both in class to learn.

Of course in public schools teachers are not allowed to teach their students that there are consequences to their actions. The services have consequences of failing a class. 

Therein lies a big part of the problem and I blame a lot of it on the teachers and a lot of it on the administrators. Teachers don't hold students accountable and often when they do the administration won't back them up.

I seriously believe that it is not too early to teach a first grade kid that actions have consequences. The younger kids learn this the better off they will become as they age. They are more likely to do better in school and later on in life.

The other thing I believe is that one of the worst things a school system can do is hire what I call "Welcome back, Kotters". These are people that go off to the nearest teacher's college, get their degree and return to the high school they left four years later.

These are often the little 22 year old school marms that bring nothing with them into the classroom in terms of life experience.

Back in the day virtually all of my male teachers had served in WW2 one way or another. They had been around the block and brought a lot of valuable life experience with them into the classroom. Many of the women teaching me had done other things before they started teaching and they brought life experience into the classroom also.

I remember a couple of the women that taught me had started teaching after their kids had gotten old enough to take care of themselves. They brought at least some kind of experience with them. I also had a Spanish teacher that had spent a couple of years in Europe. That counted for something.

Yet we seem to have no shortage of never left town school marms in the classroom.




To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY