Heather Callaghan
An award-winning, nationally recognized teacher gave a "mic-dropping" speech that ends with the announcement of her teaching resignation at Elyria, OH public schools.
Stacie Starr was not just any teacher, however. She was the number one finalist in 2014's “Live with Kelly and Michael” 'Top Teacher' award, a people's choice and enviable contest of sorts. It's like the "American Idol" for teacher contestants, and it drove her into the national limelight. This prompted many news segments to ask her how it felt to win that kind of recognition. In multiple pieces you can see her getting tearfully choked up at the honor, and calling it one of the greatest days of her entire life. Furthermore, she did not simply download information into her learning-disabled, at-risk students - she taught them how to think. That is why she was recognized!
That was near the end of the 2013-2014 school year, so for her to announce her resignation the following year, nowhere near retirement age, is astonishing and enough to make the greater majority of people to say, "what gives?" In the speech below, she will tell you exactly what gives.
But more than that, this speech is utterly heart wrenching because it erupts in tears of another kind.
Chris Hedges
Truthdig
A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.
Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.
Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.
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Heather Callaghan
