Naïve Teacher Believes In Her Students (Onion)
Posted by Bobby Kuechenmeister on March 9, 2008 
Comments(5)
Comments(5) “I remember when I started here,” said Jim Hawes, who has taught math at Bishop Kelly for 11 years. “I thought I could get the kids to appreciate the symmetry of math and the intrinsic beauty of a balanced equation. That got beaten out of me midway through my second year, when my car was keyed, my house was TP’ed, I got 12 magazine subscriptions I never ordered, and someone phoned me at 1:30 in the morning and called me a faggot. Now, I’m just happy if they can parrot back the quadratic formula and don’t put soap in my coffee.” –The Onion
[Amen! I honestly love teaching English in college, particularly composition, but bad students ruin everything for everybody. BK]
category: Humor, Pedagogy, Popular Culture, Rhetoric and Poetics
I agree with you, but am rather offended by the Onion’s take on public education. I usually think their articles are funny, but the Onion’s assumptions about the inevitability of stagnation and failure are nothing to laugh at. I saw teachers like that, who turned into drones because they just didn’t want to care anymore. The public school system is the way it is because of assumptions like the Onion’s–that it is a failure which can only get worse–which leads to less funding and less parental and community support. That, to me, is not funny at all.
Maybe now you understand why I become so upset about bad students and bad days teaching. My reactions remind me that I still love my career and my students. I know I said it before and I say it again: I don’t have kids, I have students.