When I retired from teaching in 2005, I decided that if for any reason I ever had to go back to work, I’d rather be an old U.S. Marine fighting in a war zone like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. In fact, to avoid teaching again, I’d be willing to volunteer and strap on explosives and blow myself up along with a group of al Qaeda or Taliban terrorists before I’d go back in the classroom to be demeaned and abused by students, parents, administrators and our nation’s elected leaders, who make all the decisions for the public schools but accept none of the blame for anything that goes wrong and doesn’t work.
There’s an old proverb that disparages teachers. It goes like this: “Those who can, do; those who can’t teach.” It means that people who are able to do something well can do that thing for a living, while people who are not able to do anything that well make a living by teaching.
I’ve worked in both worlds—the private sector and the public, and I can assure you that old proverb is wrong and anyone who disagrees with me, well, those will be fighting words.
I started at fifteen washing dishes in a coffee shop nights and weekends thirty hours a week for three years while I went to school days until the day the mean boss told three of us that we had to stay later than usual and do someone else’s job who didn’t show up for work, and he wasn’t going to pay us. All three of…
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The Soulful Veteran's Blog 
Of course you’re right. I think this saying originated from those who’ve had bad experiences in school. Certainly there are many bad teachers out there – my Welsh math teacher, who was often very insulting, or my driving instructor in grade 12 – he made me so afraid to get behind the wheel for several years after high school. However, I treasure the many good instructors that I’ve had in the past, especially some of my professors at Vancouver Island University.
According to guesstimates—because there is no reputable scientific study of any kind—about 1 to 2 percent of teachers are incompetent. This number comes from one of the Harvard PhD’s who was a witness at the recent Vergara trial in Los Angeles where the judge ruled that having 1 to 2 percent of the teachers incompetent denied children their U.S. Civil Rights to a quality education, so the judge stripped 100% of public school teachers in California of all job protection making it easier to fire any teacher considered among that one or two percent without any evidence the teacher is really incompetent.
There are about 300,000 public school teachers in California. Crunch the numbers and if that theory without any evidence is correct, that means 3,000 teachers in California are incompetent and 297,000 were punished by the judge, and another theory—again unproven by any studies or facts—claims that all it takes is one or two bad teachers in a row to destroy a child’s education for life.
Both of these theories come from college professors who admit those are just unproven theories that are their own opinions and they have no evidence to support them.
But no one has even talked about mean or insulting teachers. I wonder how many of those there are. I think the ratio would be about the same as the percentage of mean spirited people in the world. I can’t think of any teachers that I had while I was a student in the public schools but I do remember a really mean teacher teaching in the classroom next to mine during my early years as a teacher. The room’s walls were think and me and my students could hear her loudly insulting one student after another day after day. She was mean. She also was fired from her job before she could earn due process job protection that’s called tenure. Due process just means that a teacher has the right to defend themselves in court against the accusations that they are incompetent.
Back to the two professors who have their own unproved theories. Because both of these professors teach at highly rated universities (Harvard), and they have published papers on their theories, the fake education reformers led by President Obama’s administration or by Bill Gates, because Obama calls Gates his partner in reforming public education, the critics of public education throw these theories around in the media all the time but don’t bother mentioning that they are just opinions without any facts to support them.
What happens if those two university professors are incompetent? I think the odds are very good that would be true. I’ve spent about nine years in college as a student earning first an AS degree, then a BA in journalism and then an MFA in writing and I remember many boring professors that droned on endlessly who I would consider incompetent as teachers. These boring professors couldn’t teach their way out of a paper back if they were in the public schools. The kids would fall asleep or riot.
According to guesstimates—because there is no reputable scientific study of any kind—about 1 to 2 percent of teachers are incompetent. This number comes from one of the Harvard PhD’s who was a witness at the recent Vergara trial in Los Angeles where the judge ruled that having 1 to 2 percent of the teachers incompetent denied children their U.S. Civil Rights to a quality education, so the judge stripped 100% of public school teachers in California of all job protection making it easier to fire any teacher considered among that one or two percent without any evidence the teacher is really incompetent.
There are about 300,000 public school teachers in California. Crunch the numbers and if that theory without any evidence is correct, that means 3,000 teachers in California are incompetent and 297,000 were punished by the judge, and another theory—again unproven by any studies or facts—claims that all it takes is one or two bad teachers in a row to destroy a child’s education for life.
Both of these theories come from college professors who admit those are just unproven theories that are their own opinions and they have no evidence to support them.
But no one has even talked about mean or insulting teachers. I wonder how many of those there are. I think the ratio would be about the same as the percentage of mean spirited people in the world. I can’t think of any teachers that I had while I was a student in the public schools but I do remember a really mean teacher teaching in the classroom next to mine during my early years as a teacher. The room’s walls were think and me and my students could hear her loudly insulting one student after another day after day. She was mean. She also was fired from her job before she could earn due process job protection that’s called tenure. Due process just means that a teacher has the right to defend themselves in court against the accusations that they are incompetent.
Back to the two professors who have their own unproved theories. Because both of these professors teach at highly rated universities (Harvard), and they have published papers on their theories, the fake education reformers led by President Obama’s administration or by Bill Gates, because Obama calls Gates his partner in reforming public education, the critics of public education throw these theories around in the media all the time but don’t bother mentioning that they are just opinions without any facts to support them.
What happens if those two university professors are incompetent? I think the odds are very good that would be true. I’ve spent about nine years in college as a student earning first an AS degree, then a BA in journalism and then an MFA in writing and I remember many boring professors that droned on endlessly who I would consider incompetent as teachers. These boring professors couldn’t teach their way out of a paper back if they were in the public schools. The kids would fall asleep or riot.