"The End Of My Way Of Life And Purpose Are Near"

Teacher Karen Scalf responding to the criminals at the NY Times who knowingly published false and misleading data as a "public service":

AS a public school teacher , I am holding on to real teaching and learning amid this crisis of "accountability." I feel like a Native American who knows the end of my way of life and purpose in life is near. The beginning of the end of good public school education is near. "Real teachers are a dying breed," a co-worker says softly to me as we walk into the school house together. We spend training time looking at testing data, noting the gaps in scores from October and December. Are we preparing our own guillotine as we note how many points a student's score went up or down, just waiting until that student's score in part of our worth? Another co-worker says, "Soon they won't need teachers, just facilitators for the test-takers formerly known as students." You can't measure compassion, patience, emotional endurance, humor, rapport, the lyrical quality of a teacher's words or her ability to turn on the "lightbulb," create motivation for globally aware lessons that access many learning styles while allowing students to ponder the intricacies of the world and the human condition.

Indeed.