Teachers as they are portrayed by the media. Hmmm. Is it a topic even worth tackling?

I mean if we teachers are looking to the media to give us a fair and sensible shake, I think we’re gonna be holding our breaths a long freakin’ time.

Truly, as I have said before, when I look at schools across the country (I am fortunate to visit lots of them) and see the work that is being done, I think, “Ya know, teachers, for the most part, are the good guys.”

But to listen to the media one would we think we are the cause of all that is wrong as opposed to the reason that so much is right.

I guess that’s why I love this blog. I get to say what I think and feel in an unvarnished manner. Really, I don’t give a damn if I hurt a lemon teacher’s feelings because if you are not carrying your own weight on campus, someone needs to call you out… because you are shortchanging the kids!

However, most teachers are carrying their own weight. Plus a hell of a lot more. It’s insane how much we do. It’s even more insane how much is being asked of us to do.

And the “to do” list just keeps growing.

Do I really think the media wants to grasp the complexity of this situation? No. Because media in this day and age is filled with lots of smart people trying to dumb down complex ideas into simple, clear-cut, concrete boxes of ideas around which they can sell advertising space.

Teachers in the media need to be over-simplified. Either they are nice, sweet, tea-sipping, apple pie eating church-goers or they are low down, dirty, conniving, reprehensible scoundrels.

So where do the rest of us (and by that I mean the other 98% of us; 1% at each end of the spectrum) fit in?

In a topic that is dear to my heart for a variety of reasons I saw this article and immediately flashed to a, “Why can’t all the kids who have made bad choices in terms of getting embroiled with gangs see the same light?”

When I was writing Homeboyz, a book unfortunately inspired by too many true-to-life violent circumstances involving my own students, I uncovered more and more and more “things” in the course of my research than anyone ought to know. And basically I came to realize that the relationship between youth violence and education is inextricably tied.

You may poo-poo my insights, you may think I am a bleeding-heart liberal who is opining for more government spending, you may think I am one of those softee folks who doesn’t see the side of the victim and their pain when I advocate for felonious kids. Well, that may be true. However, gangs are a scourge on our nation and as society gets more polarized between rich and poor, have and have-not, well-educated versus poorly schooled, realize that the price being paid by not being more effective with our children while we have them in our classrooms is costing our communities immensely.

Here’s a class project (an enhanced podcast) my students did about gangs in Lynwood. Great work about a tragic topic.