Well, fuck’em if they can’t take a joke.
But nobody ever picks “steal a car”!
“Unions” per se don’t exist in Texas, for the most part. Google the term “open shop law” for more information. “Advocacy organizations” would be a better term, which is why I kept using it.
I have given a general overview now, not once, but twice. Unions and advocacy groups lobby the state and federal government, for the most part. They also become involved on the local level, when necessary or advisable, particularly when protecting individual teachers from malfeasance, unfairness, etc., by local administrations or school boards.
Actually, the crappier districts often offer the best pay, paid for by state funds in order to attract teachers to crazed inner-city districts or extreme rural districts that no young professional in his or her right mind would otherwise wish to work in. This is one of the reasons educators are screaming about “No Child Left Behind,” because one of the major tools the law provides for “punishing” schools that don’t meet the standards involves cutting state and federal funding. An analogy that’s been applied is: If your racehorse does not win all the races, we will add two hundred pounds of saddlebags, and then expect it to perform better next time…
(Insert “beating head against the wall in frustration” motie here…) You know, this is starting to feel like my one o’clock class on Fridays. I answer a question, and then, fifteen minutes later, someone asks the same question, and I answer it again, and ten minutes after that, someone else asks that same goddamn question…
Fuck you. The reason people keep questioning you is because what you said makes no fucking sense. Moron.
I’m sure if this was your kid you would see it as a joke. :rolleyes:
If what the coach did had ben done to me at that time of my life I would have either killed myself (likely) or killed the coach (less likely, but still possible). The coach should be removed from ever having authority over children again.
On Pardon the Interruption, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon discussed this subject, and needless to say neither were particularly pleased; Tony called for his immediate release, and Michael said basically that he should have had his ass beaten down.
The most surprising point that they brought up was that this guy was a SPECIAL EDUCATION teacher. I would think that a position like that would have taught him a bit of sensitivity, but then I guess I thought wrong!
So the deal is…
Publicly apologize
Never allowed to coach in school district
Lose $3,000 raise
Undergo sensitivity training
Will now have senior teacher “mentor” him
Why don’t they fucking fire the guy, and get someone who doesn’t need sensitivity training because they possess something called common sense?
county, why do you always have to be such a dick about stuff?
Regarding the Columbine comment. While perhaps that particular incident had more to do with a psychopath looking for infamy, the Slate article itself seems to support the idea that other school shootings are motivated in part by bullying and ostracism:
I don’t think it’s outrageous to opine that the attitude displayed by this subhuman coach can contribute to school shootings. It’s bad enough to be bullied and ostracized by fellow students. When the administration turns a blind eye or actively participates, it makes a certain, sad sense that some kids will conclude that they have no hope of escaping the constant psychological (and sometimes physical) torture, and decide to blow away their tormentors.
This asshole puts me in mind of the lacrosse coach who taught my health class. One example of his sage advice: “Don’t cope!”
I just wanted to confirm Master Wang-Ka’s claim about teacher strikes being illegal in Texas: they most certainly are. Our unions cannot bargain collectivally, they can only lobby and provide liability insurance.
This is not true in all states. But it is true in Texas.
One more comment on teaching: teachers yern for an extra layer of buffering because of the nature of our job. I’m a teacher because I love my kids. Good teachers love their kids. Walking out in the middle of the year can signifigantly harm the education of 150 kids, since when a teacher leaves mid year the students almost invariably spend the rest of the year jerking around with a sub. Good teachers will take a lot of abuse before abandoning their kids.
I wouldn’t want dickheads in my union local because they would make the rest of us look bad. But even the dickheads get due process.
It’s been an uphill battle for us part-time faculty in community colleges to get anything at all from the districts, even things they don’t have to pay for; and I am not going to apologize for wanting to be treated like a professional. We subsidize the colleges enough as it is without them taking things away.
The full-timers and the classified staff don’t have it any easier. At one of my campuses, we have been working under expired contracts for months.
I just can't imagine anyone telling me that I have to hold office hours but not get paid for holding them; that I should be happy making half of what a full-timer makes for doing the same work with the same credentials; and that I should get no more consideration for assignments after 14 fucking years than someone who just came in off the street. This is why we formed a union and fought for a damn contract in the first place.Well, if repeated, gentle, simple explanations, specifically repeated and reworded to answer specific questions aren’t helping you, I don’t know exactly what will. Perhaps some independent research on your part, as opposed to flat assumptions that because things are done a certain way in YOUR trailer park, that it must be that way everywhere else.
I teach special ed. I am here to tell you that belittling a kid, putting him on the spot, making him uncomfortable, or outright humiliating him is a no-no of great magnitude. At best, you will make him very hard for you personally to work with. At worst… well… depends on the kid. Sky’s the limit. Some cope better than others. But this coach’s behavior makes me ponder who really belongs on the short bus, here…
“even the dickheads get due process.”
Damn well said. Hell, anybody can represent a good employee/teacher.
Representing someone who has actually done something that justifies firing, well that is a challenge.
Suck my dick.
Hey, suck your own.
You said it yourself: “Things are much, much different in Texas.” Wang-Ka is in Texas; therefore, his experience is not analogous to your own.
That doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole.
Well, he’s not, but you’re sure acting like one. Why is this so life-or-death to you? Are you one of those “can’t separate the Pit from real life” people? (I haven’t read that thread.)
Fuck you, Rilchaim. Apparently you can’t read all the snotty responses he has posted. Are you really that fucking obtuse? And YOU seem to be the one who’s getting all bent out of shape, and can’t seperate this from real life. Get over it, dude.
Oh, and one more thing - genius. My comment: “suck my dick” was not because Wang-Ka’s experience is different, but because of his immature “you live in a trailer park” comment. Did you really not get that?