Matt Damon Defends Teachers

[gremcint]

I feel like there is more too this video but the three sites for I saw cut off at exactly the same point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFHJkvEwyhk

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...s-journalist/1

Matt Damon is earning praise from teachers everywhere.

The star gave the keynote address at Saturday's Save Our Schools march in Washington, D.C. His mom, who is a teacher, introduced him.

He spoke of his love and respect for educators, saying, "As I look at my life today, the things that I value about myself, my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity, came from the way that I was parented and taught."

But what's really making news is that following his address, the actor got testy during an interview with a Reason.tv reporter. She posed a question to him that said he works hard because actor's have no job insecurity, but teachers, in a tenure system, don't have that incentive.

"So you think job insecurity is what makes me work hard?" Damon said.

"I want to be an actor. That's not an incentive. That's the thing. See, you take this MBA-style thinking, right? It's the problem with ed policy right now, this intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that. It's like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when they have tenure. A teacher wants to teach. I mean, why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?"

After Damon's comments, a cameraman apparently chimed in, saying: "Aren't 10 percent of teachers bad, though? Ten percent of teachers are bad."

When Damon's mom asked where the cameraman got his numbers, he responded, "I don't know. Ten percent of people in any profession maybe should think of something else."

To which Damon struck back: "Maybe you're a shitty cameraman."

Dear Matt Damon. I love you, you are awesome.

Dear Cameraman, your job is to hold the camera and not interfere with the recording, I think Matt is right about you.

Edit: http://reason.tv/video/show/what-we-...he-save-our-sc
no more on Matt but you see them interview others at the rally, and honestly the people behind this site are either trying to raise points for the sake of raising them or they are idiots.

[Hyena Dandy]

"Aren't 10 percent of teachers bad, though? Ten percent of teachers are bad."

Aren't ten percent of EVERYTHING bad at their job?

Tenure is hard to get, a lot of people don't seem to realize not all teachers are tenured. From what I've heard, professors don't spend as much time teaching, they usually spend more time publishing and researching. That's the idea behind tenure, anyway. That it allows people to get away with pretty much anything because then they can't be fired if their ideas go against the establishment/university. Tenure is different from a strong union making it hard for a teacher to get fired.

In some cases, it should be easier to fire teachers, because as it is a lot of them end up being white roomed and being payed to not do anything because they can't be fired.

Anyway, back on topic.

Job insecurity can make people work harder. In general, the amount it does depends on the person doing the job, and what the job is. Job insecurity works as a good motivator if you don't like your job. Teachers generally like their jobs enough that 'not getting fired' isn't a huge motivator. Nobody goes into teaching because its easy, or its hard to be fired from it. Teachers put up with a lot of shit, and their jobs are honestly incredibly difficult.

Its not like job insecurity is the ONLY thing motivating ANYONE. >_> People have a huge tapestry of motivations, some counting more than others.



I really wanna know where the number "Ten percent of teachers are bad" comes from. "Bad" is such a general term. Its a completely nonsensical assessment. How do you tell if a teacher is bad. Their students hate them? Their students get bad grades? Their students get in a huge amount of trouble?

Look, I'm willing to at least consider 'ten percent of teachers are bad' if you could tell me what you're judging 'good' and 'bad' by.

[AdminAssistant]

Tenure also protects teachers against the little shits that they teach. "Mr. Meanie Professor gave me a bad grade because I didn't study...oh, I know, I'll give him a terrible evaluation/complain to the department chair!" Tenure isn't the problem with the university system*. The problem with the university system is expecting high caliber work while paying as little as $2-3,000/class for adjunct faculty (and no benefits, of course), and also insisting that they do research and publish (on their own, unpaid), and serve on committees. The split between those three, by the way, is supposed to be 40% teaching, 40% research/publication, and 20% service.

* I know they have 'tenure' in K-12 education as well, but I'm not as familiar with it. In universities, it's extremely difficult to get tenure.

[DrFaroohk]

I remember from my high school teachers got "tenure" after they'd been there for like 2 years. The first 2 were probation and you'd better not screw up, but after that, have fun.

Bad Teacher = ones who fudge grades, ones who play favorites with students, ones who teach the wrong information, and the other ones who do bad things like hit and molest the students.

[mikoyan29]

My mom just got her teaching certificate about 10 years ago. She had to be on probation for 5 years before she got "tenure" and in that time it sounded like they did alot to make sure they weed out the "bad" teachers. And despite that, she still has to take classes to get the equivalent of a Masters Degree in order to keep her certification (and consequently her job).

But what I don't get is why do the same people that keep bringing up teacher tenure go mum when it comes to the "Golden Parachutes" at the upper ends of the income scale?

[Andara Bledin]

I have had four bad teachers that I can recall. But, considering that I had somewhere around 75 teachers that I can remember (and more that I can't), that's less than half of the 10% bandied about. Of those three, one was a bigot, another was a perv (wish I'd told my mom about him), and the last was truly and utterly incompetent and had no business teaching even preschoolers.

^-.-^

[Hyena Dandy]

Andara, that's just anecdotal evidence, but it raises a good point. They were each a different type of bad. What does the 10% measure?

[Rapscallion]

The ten percent thing is a self-fuelling statistic. I saw a poverty charity torn to pieces on TV once back when I watched it.

They were on to promote their latest campaign. The interviewer asked them what their parameters were for what poverty meant. They said the bottom ten percent of incomes in the country.

"Hang on," said the interviewer, for they had smelled a rat. "There's always going to be a bottom ten percent of income earners."

I can't remember what happened next properly, but I'm certain it involved some hemming and hawwing.

The upshot is that if you believe that ten percent of all teachers are crap, then you get rid of the worst ten percent, and then you start into the new ten percent, because they're obviously substandard. You know, because they're in the bottom ten percent.

Rapscallion

[DrFaroohk]

Tangent - that reminds me of a guy I knew who got into some trouble with the law and when he went before the judge, the judge asked if he was still in school and if he was doing well.

"I'm sixth in my class sir!" the guy proclaims. Judge says that since he's such a good student there's no reason to punish him too severely....

Except it was a tiny little school with only 6 people in the senior class.

[Hyena Dandy]

The ten percent thing is a self-fuelling statistic. I saw a poverty charity torn to pieces on TV once back when I watched it.

They were on to promote their latest campaign. The interviewer asked them what their parameters were for what poverty meant. They said the bottom ten percent of incomes in the country.

"Hang on," said the interviewer, for they had smelled a rat. "There's always going to be a bottom ten percent of income earners."

I can't remember what happened next properly, but I'm certain it involved some hemming and hawwing.

The upshot is that if you believe that ten percent of all teachers are crap, then you get rid of the worst ten percent, and then you start into the new ten percent, because they're obviously substandard. You know, because they're in the bottom ten percent.

Rapscallion

The thing is, I'm not sure it is a self fuelling statistic. It sounds like something he'd heard that had specifics that he took out. I want to know what that number represents.

[Andara Bledin]

Here's an article I found that comments on the idea of "deselection 5-10% of teachers with the worst-performing students" at Shanker blog which was mirrored at The Washington Post.

The idea is called Teacher Deselection and was proposed by Eric A. Hanushek.

While I agree that there are some cases where teachers should not be retained (my 9th grade literature teacher is a prime example), the solution he proposes would merely put more stress on a commonly overburdened and sometimes ridiculously over-regulated group of workers to what would most likely be little effect that would be nearly a decade in discovering.

^-.-^

[Hyena Dandy]

If that's where he's getting the numbers, he clearly doesn't understand them. The number is entirely arbitrary.

[Andara Bledin]

Oh, the cameraman has likely never even heard of Hanushek. He's likely just heard some soundbite spouted by someone else who knows who he is but doesn't actually understand the science, or the fact that even Hanushek doesn't think it would be a good idea to try.

^-.-^

[Rapscallion]

Here's an article I found that comments on the idea of "deselection 5-10% of teachers with the worst-performing students" at Shanker blog which was mirrored at The Washington Post.

So, basing the decision on who to employ on someone else's performance.

Wonderful idea.

Let's be brutal. Inner city children who have been brought up to think that 'the man' is keeping them down are less likely to perform than those coming from more priveleged backgrounds.

Another comparison. Two hospitals in an area, and only enough funding exists for one. One has a higher mortality rate for heart patients. End funding there because the doctors are worse, right?

Au contraire! The doctors with the highest skill levels have been taking the really nasty cases where survival is less likely, and thus the mortality rate is higher.

Within the NHS, this actually happens - sending patients of lesser chance of survival to doctors with the best chance of keeping them alive. I've read articles by a doctor in the NHS describing this. He also cited the above circumstance as either having happened or having been mooted by beancounters - I can't remember the exact details as it's quite some time in the past.

Rapscallion

[Andara Bledin]

Honestly, we need to stop apportioning funds based on the taxes raised in any given area, and start distributing them evenly on a per-student basis. Every student should be given the same allotment as every other student. And if people don't like that some inner city youth is getting the same chance at an education as their precious snowflake, they can send them to a private school and shut the fuck up.

^-.-^