An Educational Rosetta Stone

“Teachers are overpaid” - translation - “They make more than I do (or I think they do)”

“Teaching is a cushy job” - translation - “I think it’s easier than my job (I sat in school for twelve years and teaching didn’t look that hard to me!”

“We need tenure reform” - translation - “We would like to fire teachers whenever they don’t conform to our every demand or when they are too vocal or if a connected person needs a job or if we want to save money with lower paid teachers or if we don’t like their politics”

“My child has a poor teacher” - translation - “My child gets poor grades – It can’t be because I constantly allow him to play video games and hang on Facebook instead of doing his school work”

“I’m sure the teacher did what my child said. He would never lie to me” - translation - “Not unless he really wanted something or thought I might find out that he was lying.”

“The teacher picks on my kid” - translation - “I can’t do anything with him at home. Why can’t the teacher handle him in school?”

“The teacher doesn’t stimulate learning in my child” - translation - “The teacher should be able to entertain my child while she teaches him. How can a teacher with a piece of chalk not be able to entertain and stimulate my kid as well as do video games, TV and the internet?”.

“Why can’t the schools resolve social problems? We certainly pay enough taxes!” - translation - “Why can’t the schools solve the drug problem, teen sex, bullying, child obesity, teen suicide, date rape and relationship abuse (and also check for vision problems, hearing problems, scoliosis, etc.) .
We’ve given them these assignments (along with teaching the children) and they don’t seem to be curing the problems? They must be poor teachers!
We’re paying them enough, why should parents have to help? It’s the teacher’s job!”

“You need to be connected to get a teaching job” - translation - “Teaching jobs are readily available in chemistry, physics, math and languages but I’m not good at those subjects - translation - It requires too much work to get a teaching certificate in these areas. It’s much easier to just bash teachers and the school system”.