Naive Teachers

The stories this weekend in the Times and News have Chancellor Walcott quoted as saying to teachers "I won't say 'a bad thing about you'" and teachers attending the event Walcott was at reacting with cheers and visible signs of relief.

Naive teachers, cynical Walcott.

Because right after that "Make Nice With Teachers" jive, Walcott went on to say he needs to fire 6,100 teachers, he wants to make sure the "bad" ones go, he wants to see more charter schools because they give parents "great" options (notice the charter school buzzword "Great"), and that he loves standardized testing and they will be a fact of life under his leadership.

Show me how any of that stuff is different than the garbage Klein or Black hawked.

One teacher at the Walcott event - who maybe should be on the list of layoffs because she is too stupid to see through Walcott's jive - said the following:

"It's a privilege that we are being acknowledged. It's much appreciated, because it's tough working in schools," said Brunettea Watson, 37, a special education family worker at Grace Dodge High School in the Bronx. "He came just in time, it's a blessing."

Ms. Watson, besides being incredibly naive in her readiness to listen to the pats on the head from Walcott while ignoring the rest of the remarks that could have been delivered by Klein or Black, perhaps needs to look up the word "co-dependent" in the dictionary and go for some counseling herself.

Just because a guy pats you on the head and coos nice words while he is kicking your teeth in and holding you by the hair and bashing your head against a desk a couple of times doesn't mean you should believe the nice words and coos.

Instead you should believe the the kicks in the teeth and the bashing of the head against the desk.

Walcott is still doing the latter, and until ALL teachers see that this guy is NO different than Black or Klein, they are going to continue to be abused and take it like the co-dependent battered spouses they are.

Not all the teachers at the Walcott event were as naive as Brunettea Watson, however:

Weg Wint, a long-serving teacher in the Bronx, asked Mr. Walcott how he planned to address what she called the “revolving door of teachers” at her school, in which young teachers are trained at the city’s expense and then leave after several years.

“Those who remain faithfully behind,” Ms. Wint said, “those are the ones who in the end are being blamed for what goes on in the system.”

Mr. Walcott responded by talking about tougher rules for teacher tenure and stressing that he would give all teachers more respect and support.

“I still did not receive my answer,” Ms. Wint said afterward.

Indeed, Ms. Wint did not receive her answer.

It is good to see that she, unlike Watson, called Walcott on his bullshit.