Rattlesnake

The majority wanted it. This is a non-story.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080730/ap_on_.../mccain_taxes_7 Uh-oh, he's going to tax us all to death! I'll bet that this isn't just for the top 1%, either. I love it.

I'm using the Family Income (2008) chart that was posted in another thread: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8060900950.html Just curious as to what the makeup of this board is. I think that I know, but am interested to see what the actual numbers are.

Thank God for the 2nd amendment.

Not in America.

I've had veteran teachers say those very things to me......that they weren't trained like we are, that this generation is better because of it, etc. I had some good ones, too......but on the whole, they were bad. No creativity, no varying in lessons. Just traditional crap. Make me think that you know less about education than I already do, though.

Unfortunately, you don't know much about my history, or you probably wouldn't talk about real-world experience. I don't feel comfortable telling my entire life story here, but I worked in a factory for three years, I worked in sales for awhile, I've worked in shipping/receiving......and I didn't graduate from college until I was 25 because I had to keep quitting to work and save money to go back again. My wife and I got married real young, have three kids at a fairly young age (a lot of my friends don't have any, or only have one), and have literally been through it all, financially and otherwise. I've got plenty of real-world experience. Truthfully, I don't know anyone my age who has been through as much as I have. That probably explains my fascination with psych. I'm wise to the ways of the real world......I just think that our values are way fucked up in this country, that's all. I refuse to fall in line, I guess.

Oh, I have a feeling he'd beat McCain.

Updated voter literacy quizzes. People have to be able to answer basic questions about our Constitution and how our government functions. Also, I'd like to see someone specific on candidates in the polling booth. For example, if one wants to vote for McCain or Obama, fine........they must answer three questions about the candidate's policy ideas/plans (multiple choice, probably, for time's sake) correctly. If they miss one, then they can't vote for that person. Maybe that's not the best idea, but there has to be SOMETHING done. I'm so sick of hearing people say that they voted for someone because he seems nice, would be tough, is a family man, shook their hand at a breakfast.......

I have more fun than anybody here. I rarely have time to fish anymore, because, you know, I work so much and all.........thank God for the internet.

They aren't outspoken Obama supporters? Wow, that was tough to figure out. Next?

Well, it's all related to the deterioration of society. Each year parental involvement/education gets worse and worse, it seems, which is pretty unreal. It doesn't matter what schools do if parents don't do their part. Far too many people don't understand how huge this is. My guess is that many people here had involved parents, or at least parents who cared about performance. So many kids have parents that don't give a rip about anything.

I love how there's no response to any of this. Oh yeah, and I support capital punishment, too....as long as eyewitness testimony is removed from the process (because it's totally ineffective). Yeah, I'm a real bleeding-heart liberal freak, aren't I? Only to people who don't understand much about the true meaning of the term.....

First off, you don't respect teachers. Neither do several others here. The comments that have been made show that. Not only are people uneducated when it comes to education, but they're flat out disrespectful. It's funny that my intelligence and ability keep getting challenged. Yeah, I must suck and be a real idiot, which is why I was in the top 10 in my bachelors graduating class and am currently #1 in my Master's group. Oh, and then there's that insignificant Teacher of the Year award chosen by a combination of students, administration, and faculty. I honestly feel bad for you, because I don't think you're one of those aliases who just comes here to fish. I think you're for real, which is really sad.

Is it the teacher's fault that the manufacturing guy didn't go out and work his ass off to get that toolkit (college)??? I mean, you seem to assume that teachers were handed this education. Some people, many people, just seem to have no idea what teachers have to do now in order to get licensed. Again, many things have changed. I agree with these changes, for the record. It shouldn't be easy to be a teacher. As I just said in two other threads.......some of these people are thinking about the horrible teachers they had back in the day. I understand that. I had a lot of bad teachers, too. Things have changed a lot. Some people choose to dog teachers and blame us for everything and I'm certainly not going to change that, even though it's unfortunate. I'm sure it's very beneficial, however.

Let's just wrap this thread up, as I just touched on the real issue in the RP is an idiot thread. Most of you are thinking about the teachers you had when you were younger. Even if that was 10 years ago, things have changed a lot. Most of the younger teachers (like myself, 25-35) are people who got into the business because they care about kids and want to make a difference. We also know that many of our teachers weren't that great and didn't work very hard. Some of you obviously think that nothing's changed. If that were the case, everything that some of you are saying about us would be right. It's not, though. Sure, there are still bad teachers............just like there are bad employees in all of the buildings that you people work in. That's life. This perception that nothing's changed however is, well, totally inaccurate.

All of my posts, well about 9,000 of them or so, are from 99-01. Old-timers here know that. Pretty weak, Bert. As for work, I already explained all of this. Christ. Time spent lesson planning, grading, working with students before or after school, committees, meetings, paperwork related to NCLB-related programs and school goals, contractual hours during the school year. One other nugget to add - we didn't count extracurriculars, either. Therefore, coaches/sponsors didn't count any of that ECA time at all. You can keep mocking this and acting like it's some joke, that's fine, as you obviously don't have a clue. This was the real deal, though, no inflating. As I just said in that other post, today's teachers aren't like yours were, even if it was 10 years ago. It's amazing how much the training has changed. Keep telling yourself whatever you need to in order to think that teachers are just morons who don't really work.

Regarding the number of posts.......first, we all know that Bert's got aliases.........secondly, anyone here who knows me understands that the 85-90% of my posts were in a 2-year span back in the day when I was still in college and actually running some experments on this very message board. That argument is pretty weak. Let's see what happens when school starts for me. Those of you that I was referring to will be sitting here all day posting while I actually work. You have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about when I refer to grading, obviously. It's not the shit that your horrible teachers used to give you. No worksheets, none of that crap. I teach college-prep and college intro classes (Psychology) to juniors and seniors and the grading I do is primarily structured essay, reflective writing, and projects. Again, just another example of someone who spouts off about education, but has no clue. Listen, I had bad teachers too. I understand that and I completely understand what you are saying. Most of them were bad. That's why I got into it. The new wave, however, those of us who are out in the last decade or so, are a totally different breed. You're picturing me as your jackass teacher from high school, but that's not who I am. That's the mistake that you're making. You are assuming that teachers are the same now as they were 20, or even 10, years ago. Sorry bud, we're not. I'm probably the most non-traditional (unconventional) teacher you'll ever meet. As for the feeling like a man crap.......wow, you've got issues. I respect my students and they respect me. I enjoy teaching a subject like psychology and helping them to understand themselves, and their lives, better. What makes me feel like a man is doing a job that I believe makes a difference. Hopefully the rest of you feel the same and it's not solely about money. Otherwise, what's the point?

I've already answered the question. I'll say it slowly this time. In our study..........teachers worked enough hours............from the second week in August to the first week in June...........to cover for the summer.............(if they would have had regular school days)..............and then some. This did not count............hours spent..............on things like lesson planning............for the next year............attending conferences.........training on various things..............and all of that other shit that you quoted. I was asked a question at the start of this thread, responded, and should have realized at the beginning that trying to discuss the problems facing education with a bunch of people who hold jobs that allow them to sit on the internet and post on a message board was probably a bad idea. Discussing education with the general population is a bad idea, which I've been reminded of in this thread. It's probably about time to drop it. There have been several absurd, offensive, and ridiculous statements since my last post in this thread..........and they affirm my belief that continuing to say the same things over and over is pointless. Some people here get it, and that's appreciated. Obviously teachers are everyone's scapegoat right now. It makes people feel better about being terrible parents and supporting ignorant politicians. Those of you who obviously have contempt for education and have no idea what it takes, that's too bad. As I've said before, teachers around here are simply after cost-of-living raises once in awhile. Personally, I'd like to make more than I did two years ago, not less. Things like that. As I've said many times to people in the profession..........we deserve to be paid more, no question, and respected more.........but I absolutely do not want teacher salaries to become absurd, because then you'd simply get people coming in for the money. Nobody who really cares about kids thinks that teachers should be paid like some of you are. It's just one of those quirks in the profession. Some of you would be the kinds of people who would go into education if it paid 6 figures because you think it's easy and that only dumb people are in education, which is the exact opposite of what's true. Most of you here (who have been knocking education) couldn't even make it through the program, let alone student teaching, let alone actually doing the job. Some would sneak through the cracks, though, due to their desire to get the money - and that wouldn't help anybody, certainly not any kids. I will say one quick thing about vouchers.........if you truly don't care about giving all kids the chance to be educated........then fine, destroy public schools and incorporate the voucher system. Yeah, that's REALLY what we need. Those statements alone show how little some of you know about education.

Yes, because, as we all know, Republicans would never discriminate.

I'm not posting all of those numbers again. I'll attempt a quick summary. When that study was done, I averaged 59.4 a week from the second week of August until the first week of June. After we averaged it over a 12-month span, my average was somewhere around 49. Consider that we're paid for 37.5 and you have your extra time. I did not count any of the time I spent working on school in the summer. None of us did.

By the way...........the true irony of threads like these lies in the fact that some of you mock teachers and the hours that we "allegedly" work. Meanwhile, you're all on here every day posting like crazy. Yeah, must be real tough. During the school year, if I'm on here at all, it's for 15-20 minutes at night when I'm taking a break from work or on the weekends for a few minutes. Must be nice to have jobs that allow you so much flexibility during the work day.