Teachers = Robots

My school's latest conformist fad comes from something called Capturing Kids' Hearts. This training is run by the "Flippen Group," which of course is the brunt of a lot of jokes pertaining to the name. In a nutshell, our school forced all the faculty to attend a three day training during the summer, during which we were told that it would be expected of us to shake every kid's hand EVERY day. This might not be so hard for an elementary teacher with 20 students, but for a music teacher who sees 260 or more students on a given day, this gets a little old. And there is the germ factor. How many of these lovely middle school kids actually wash their hands after using the restroom? My guess is a very small percentage. Not only are we getting germs from every one of these children, but we are passing them down the line of children. It reminds me of sex... when you sleep with someone you are also sleeping with everyone else that person has been with. It's the same idea.

On top of that, there is the fact that the students see right through this tactic. They know the teachers are all being forced to do it and they know it's completely fake and cheesy. The teachers are doing it because they are being forced to by administrators who think this will miraculously save their struggling schools. This is just another in a long line of gimmicks that someone is making a ton of money on and selling off to desperate administrators of schools. Administrators are supposed to be setting an example and shaking teachers' hands every day as well. I found it insanely ironic that my principal called me in and reprimanded me for not shaking hands when he didn't bother to shake my hand as I came into his office. He'd rather just bully all the teachers around and justify his job. 

Don't these people see what is really wrong with education today? It's the parents! Parents have stopped being parents. They somehow think it's the teacher's responsibility to teach their children about life and how to be good people. Guess what? We can't teach that in a school day. We are trying to teach academics. Imagine that! Teachers who teach academics in a school? Parents have to take initiative and teach their children how to be decent human beings. Yes, there are lots of great parents out there, but they are greatly outnumbered by a vast majority of lazy idiots who think they have some entitlement to have their children in school daycare. 

So many times I hear kids say they don't like something they joined and that they are quitting. How can that even be an option? Parents obviously don't care about teaching children about the importance of making a commitment and seeing it through anymore. My parents would never have allowed me to quit something I'd started. 

Of course there are also the parents who think their children can do no wrong, and obviously something must be wrong with the teacher. Yep, teachers have nothing better to do than plan ways to ruin your kids' lives. That's what we do in all our spare time. Oh wait, actually, we're in it for the millions we make on our salaries, right?