Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Rudest Students

I've only been teaching for one year. Already I am convinced that teachers are the rudest of students. Every course I have attended with a group of teachers has been an exercise in frustration.

I'm serious! Being in a classroom with other teachers is like being in a room of stray cats. There are 15 distinct conversations going on at once, all while the teacher is teaching. And they're not quiet, whispered conversation, it is always full voice, or even done in a louder competitive voice. What happened to the concept of whispering? Does no one know this effective, simple skill for communicating quietly? I swear that I am the last person on Planet Earth that knows how to whisper? It must be a lost art - like moonshining.

Let me also let you in on a dark secret of the teaching profession; there are some really, really stupid teachers. Are you in shock and awe? Not most teachers, not even a lot of teachers, but enough. I have noticed that the stupidest teachers seem to have been educated sometime in the '80s. I know, I know, some of my best teaching friends were educated in the '80s. Just pretend that I am not talking about you. When I was a lad, I remember finding a teaching certification, as a prize, in a box of Lucky Charms. I think this must be how a lot of teachers became certified back then (that or they went to BYU).