A teacher's heartbreaking and trenchant resignation letter.

[annabanana]

After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/10/1343935/-Teacher-s-resignation-letter-My-profession-no-longer-exists?detail=email

This so very well states the damage that has been done to the very CONCEPT of "education" in our country.

And BOTH Parties are guilty of this decay.

[LiberalAndProud]

1. And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[abelenkpe]

2. K&R

[femmocrat]

3. Yep.... been there.

I would not recommend teaching as a career to anyone now. They will turn all the bright, dedicated, idealistic young teachers into robots and knock that idealism right out of them. It's sickening.

[AwakeAtLast]

9. Or just outright fire them

Since tenure is a thing of the past (at least in my state).

[WinkyDink]

4. The paragraph beginning "I came to teaching..." IS ME, 100%, from the travel to the reading to the

subject's being my LIFE ITSELF.

And I retired as soon as I could, after 30 years.

[Mnemosyne]

5. K&R for truth. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. The society based on production is only productive, not creative. Albert Camus K&R

[KingCharlemagne]

7. Or, as Dickens' character Thomas Gradgrind (how's that for a surname?) says in "Hard Times":

Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.

Dickens' novel, imo, should be required reading for anyone purporting to style him- or herself an 'education reformer'. Come to think of it, today's Yuppies should be required to read Great Expectations. Like Shakespeare, Dickens will never grow old.

[annabanana]

8. +1 . . . n/t