sapienthetero's Blog

I'm amazed by how many class periods are wasted at Timber Creek High School by teachers who put on a video instead of teaching.  And I'm not talking about educational videos; one of my kids watched "JackAss 2.5" in class this week.  I suppose that's better than he got in most of his other classes during FCAT week...since classrooms were co-opted for testing purposes, some of his classes didn't even have a room to meet in.  And in one case his teacher couldn't even tell him where he was supposed to be during her class period!

It's a joke that we spend millions of tax dollars for an extended school year when teachers waste so much of the time our kids are there.  Teachers complain constantly about how they have to do without and spend their own money on supplies.  Let's just cut the school year, reallocate the money saved to supplies and require that teachers spend every day that school is in TEACHING.  No videos unless they're part of the curriculum. 

So many of our kids' teachers present no lesson the day before a break that we don't even bother sending them to school on those days anymore.

Are we alone in thinking that we're asking far too little of our kids' teachers and allowing them to waste millions in tax dollars?  Or does this happen at your kids' schools too?