Teachbad’s Secret Project
For all the right reasons, I am trying to write a book about teaching in the modern era. I’ve been working on it for a long time and now it’s getting a little more serious. I don’t have anything to post because I’ve been working on that, so I’m going to give you a little taste of the book proposal.
This is the first page; where I must grab a publisher’s attention so completely that she is compelled to read the second page. See what you think. (Maybe add a comment about what a great idea this book is and how you know at least 10,000 people who you’re sure would buy it.)
Teachbad Book Proposal: Page One
Teaching and education are undergoing a series of radical, poorly-implemented and logically incoherent structural reforms. Well-intentioned, but having failed on all counts and by their own measures, more than a decade of reforms are now sustained by political power, corporate money, wishful thinking and inertia. Intended to fix education, they are harming both students and teachers; two groups whose fates are intertwined and together make or break education.
The reforms intended to fix education over the past 12 years have irrefutably made teaching a worse job for most teachers. Public school teachers live in a suddenly bizarre world of public scorn, emotional blackmail and professional castration. Our heads are spinning a bit…and we’re a little confused as to exactly what happened. But we’re sure we didn’t like it. And it’s not just a handful of disgruntled teachers in a handful of cities. Multiple polls show historic drops in teacher satisfaction nationwide. We should also mention that the reforms are not working.
Teaching in America: I Don’t Recommend It is a sharp, funny and pestiferously serious sociology of teaching and the damaging change being done to it. Its central argument is that the recent earthquake of reforms has not only made the working lives of teachers unnecessarily more difficult, it has also been bad for students and shockingly unsuccessful as public policy. In no meaningful way can it be argued that these reforms, begun now 12 years ago, are closing the Achievement Gap. The Achievement Gap is more or less exactly the same as it was before; even in Washington, DC, the epicenter of the Michelle Rhee urban school reform movement.
The Achievement Gap was caused by a devastating series of natural disasters outside the classroom. Now, in trying to close the Achievement Gap and fix education, we’ve decided to fire-bomb the classroom itself. A perfectly executed plan may yet fail if it is not a very good plan. We have fundamentally misunderstood the problem. With this profound misunderstanding as our guide, we have devised a very bad plan. Even now, with a demoralized workforce and no evidence the plan is working, there remains an enormous amount of political power, confidence, and cash behind it. And this should concern us.
Teaching in America is a sometimes uncomfortably close and honest portrait of teachers, children and our national plan to fix education in the era of Michelle Rhee and No Child Left Behind.
It is the story of teachers whose responsibility it is to now turn a deeply flawed plan into practice. They are to follow the plan exactly and fix the Achievement Gap. The administrative panic and chicanery induced by the need to be seen as a can-do reformer who has successfully implemented this terrible plan adds to the already strange professional environment of a school, contributing a healthy dose of hostility, nausea, paranoia and comedy. My boss was like a cross between Mr. Bean and Richard Nixon, with all the personal pizazz of Keanu Reeves.
What doesn’t kill you only makes you wish you were dead.
In Teaching in America, your guide through this mess will be a renegade teacher from the experimental education madhouse of Michelle Rhee’s Washington, DC. It is a study in lunacy and regret by one whose daring intellect and comic timing might be surpassed only by his longing for truth and crippling mastery of the ironic and logical.
Mr. Teachbad
I will buy your book and donate it to our school library. Thank you!
Looks like you’re off to the right start. Let me start by saying I also thought of writing a book on the horrors of teaching in today’s system. However, I’m just not up to dealing with citations lol
On a serious note about your book, one thing I worry about (in terms of it being any kind of success) is that…..most people simply do not care to hear a teacher (current/retired/ex) “b*tch” about how crappy they think the system/job is. Remember, “teachers get summers off”. That’s something that the public just can’t get past, no matter how convincing and sincere you may sound in your discontent.
That being said, if writing such a book will be gratifying to you (it was the number reason I considered doing the same), then go for it. You’ve not much to lose in that case.
Good luck and I will certainly pick up a copy and spread the word if you do follow this through. :O)
Most teachers don’t get summers off. Saying they can’t complain because they get time off is like saying a torture victim should not complain if they pull the bamboo shoots out from under their nails for a few minutes a day. School can be torture for teachers and students. It does not stop hurting just because it is Saturday or July.
Most teachers DO get summers off. Also, I’m stating what the public tends to think. All of us teachers (still employed or otherwise) have heard or read the summers off comments endlessly from the public.
Clarification:
Better put: We are not employed in the summer. We “get the summer off” from our 10 month salaried job. That creates an summer income gap that needs to be filled by _______________________ (bartending, tutoring, landscaping, handyman odd jobs, waitressing, summer camp counselors, or, good love them, those who teach summer school.)
Correct, but the public has no clue about that. They think we are on a 12-month salary and simply get summers off to do as we please. Little do they know 1) we NEED that time just to partially recuperate 2) many of us spend that time stressed with the thought of going back to another year of hell.
I have also heard, “why should teachers complain? They only work nine months a year”. Well, if I have to teach kids who can’t read at grade level, have no motivation to learn, etc. That “work” is torture. Let’s take the reading and other skills at grade level. If a majority of my students can’t read at grade level or don’t have the math skills needed to take algebra but are still placed in algebra, that means I have to reteach constantly what they should already know. However, this means that I am will be behind where my curriculum tells me I where I should be and they won’t be ready for the end of course test. That EOC is one way a teacher is evaluated. Very frustrating. Because we have bosses who are constantly asking why my students are doing so poorly and what we are doing about it. Even if you keep in contact with parents, keep after the students for missing work, make up work, etc. it can be a frustrating workday because you are the only one held accountable.
Imagine you are a construction foreman. Every day you have to reteach your workers how to use your tools, or how to paint, or . . . How much work do you think you would get done? Would you be on schedule? Yet you would be fined for not being on schedule. You would be hassled by your boss and your clients for not meeting schedule, or for being off budget on your jobsite. That’s how teachers feel. Frustrated. They are working with students who have no work ethic, no desire to learn, haven’t learned yet their bosses are also hounding them as to why those students are behind. Yet, these same teachers are expected to work miracles and get these students to succeed. Schools are ratings are based solely on one year end test. A test no teacher has control over and yet they are the only ones held accountable, praised, or scorned and blamed for the results.
Yup, I agree. Teachers are held accountable for which they have little control. Period. How I did it for 4 years is not understandable even to myself.
Can’t wait to buy your book!
I know at least 40 people who would buy this book. It’s not 10,000 but it’s a start!
This is in no way a constructive comment, but I would absolutely buy the hell out of this book.
Also, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you wish you were dead”? You made me laugh out loud. For real. A one sentence description of my current year at school.
As a former public school teacher, I am SURE this book would be a bestseller. Not one of my friends, and they are all teachers, is a happy teacher. They are the best of the best – constantly seeking professional development, organizing and running teacher inservices, but they are simply burned out. These are people who, ten years ago in their 20s, were full of fire. They are barely able to keep up in the current climate, and I think this book would provide a realistic look into what we’re facing here in America. The students and teachers deserve better than what we are currently giving them. I am a private tutor who has a waiting list of 18 students whose schools can not meet their needs – by no fault of the teachers.
Would it be worth mentioning how administrative “leaders” have limited classroom experience? Or how this new education movement has actually caused teachers to turn on each other? How can education work when you fear that working collaboratively can lead to your downfall?
Chock full of zingers and wit sure to get the page turned. If you finish it , I’ll buy and read it and tell all my former teacher friends about it.
I cannot believe, when I look back, that I made it seven years in that lunacy. It really only took a week to realize it was not for me. I suppose it took seven years to realize it is not for anyone. No one should have to bear that burden for that pay. Americans have created an anti-intellectual culture. We cannot continue to delude ourselves that we can fix the structural problems of the home/society through the schools and blame teachers when the crappy plans fail.
“Americans have created an anti-intellectual culture.”
That explains everything from education to road rage to media journalism to grocery lines.
Nice. Thanks.
I think what will make it an even better seller, is to give us “burnt out” teachers some advice of what we do next to get out of our jobs. You alluded to it recently with a couple of posts, I remember thinking at the time if you would only set up a group for us stressed out teachers to meet and talk about “life after teaching”, “financial planning for teachers trying to quit”, “Skill assessment”, “networking”, etc. I’d pay to join such a group. Ready and waiting in DC.
I agree. Definitely thinking about that, too.
Hey! I just left teaching and I have plenty of time and energy to join a group like this! Please let me know when (ha – not if
this happens.
(I love you, TB. You have no idea how many times your humor got me through some dark days)
@Ms.
It (career switching) can be done in most cases. Perhaps difficult, but certainly not impossible. If interested, I’d gladly share what I tried/did. Tell you one thing, nothing like feeling normal again. I honestly forgot what it felt like. Seriously.
I love it, and would definitely buy several hundred copies. More comments to follow some other time.
Maybe instead of spending in inordinate amount of money on another book for all the teachers to read in their “spare time” we could purchase a book for administration… and oh wait, parents…
sumthin ain’t rite with this system. them what caint teach rite laws about teachin. rite yur book, mr teachbad. I like whut someone else said, buy it and give it to the school library
I would buy 2 or 3 copies
You’re a fraud. You don’t exist.
You write better than I.
And NO ONE writes better than I do.
Ergo… you’re a fraud.
I’m onto your game, Buster.
I would totally buy this book and several more as gifts!! Wouldn’t this be a fabulous gift for the school white elephant game!!
Esteemed Sir. Greetings again from Australia… I write to encourage you to complete your tome asap. the system here is dutifully following the US model with “Reform” the mantra of the day.
You are correct in your analysis of the public perception of teachers… ‘x time off’ etc. In the state of Victoria teachers have had a union claim for a 12% wage rise over 3 years which has been in ‘negotiations’ for over 2 years. The state government is offering 2.5% and trying to bring in performance based pay. A state-wide strike was held 2 weeks ago.
So please get the book out there…it will offer much encouragement to the staff in the educational trenches who are being bombarded from all sides.
Regards and keep up the good work!
Martin [dual citizen and retired educational practitioner]
Your “page one” hit it over the fence.
This current stumbling attempt at reform is poorly conceived and even worse in execution.
After 20 years in the trenches of the public high schools, I’ve reached the end of my patience and sanity. I’m retiring at the end of the current year. My original plan was to put in five more years, but the admin in this district has let it slip that the current level of intolerable “blame the teacher” BS is going to be mightily increased next year. I qualify for a meager retirement and will gladly live a minimalist lifestyle rather than plod on and participate in the madness.
Starting next fall, teachers in my district will need to keep a manual logbook of all email contact with parents. It isn’t explained why the electronic record in the email system is inadequate. But “you’ll have this logbook readily available for administrators to view during walk-through observations.”
WTF!
But that’s not enough. All teachers will also complete a 10 page document for each student with a failing grade. This document will include a log of parent contacts (phone or personal) because the email logbook is somehow lacking for this purpose. In addition, a detailed account of personal interventions (yes – including differentiation) aimed at preventing Sonny or Suzy from accomplishing their goal of failure is required. Try as I might, I can’t come up with enough different ways to say, “Sonny won’t DO anything” to fill those 10 pages. I teach physics, not creative writing.
So, I’m done.
To the youngsters entering the profession, I wish you all the best in the continuing battle against the mindless bureaucratic monster that is devouring the souls of teachers and students across America.
As a ten-year Chemistry-teacher veteran, I have to say that I may be in love with you.
Hysterical! I quit music teaching 8 years ago and I have a definite man crush. Teachbad is the Shiz.
Love it, TB. I would question the word “well-intentioned” in the first paragraph. I am not of the opinion that most of the reforms are at all well-intentioned, but rather are a tool for opportunists who see a weak system they can use to make money, gain notoriety, and satisfy a primal need for power and control. Granted my geographic survey is limited, but most of the admins I have seen come and go in my district (a lot) fit this criteria. There have been a very few well-intentioned ones, but their stay was even shorter than the others. “Well-intentioned” is a trait few genuinely have, and many exploit.
I would question the use of the word “intended” at the end of that same paragraph for the same reasons. Don’t give the mofos more credit than they don’t deserve to begin with!
Oh, and definitely lead with : What doesn’t kill you only makes you wish you were dead.
Oh, and make sure Rhee gets a copy. Publish her denouncing critique on the back cover. Sell more books.
Heart, T-22
The proposal is definitely an attention grabber and sustainer (bonus for all us recently acquired AADD sufferers- yet another byproduct of the new educational reform’s increased demands on teachers). Hopefully, my timing is perfect and I will get to give published copies as Christmas gifts the year I switch careers to pharmacy-tech. Question –will you also do an audiobook read by you?
DOUBLE POST!
Please allow me to explain…
On the first submission, I was greeted by a large SERVER ERROR 500 message. When I returned to this site to see if the message posted, the cupboard was bare.
Accordingly, I crafted a second similar post. Once submitted, BOTH posts appeared.
It’s magical!
Will this book be written in various leveled text? I hope so. Nothing more important to potential readers than differentiated materials.
A long time coming- I am waiting on pins and needles for this book to be published. Finally, an honest voice in education.
Hi TB and All. Not directly related but I wanted to get a sense of what teachers thought of KIPP. The Washington Post just reported on what sounds like a comprehensive 5 year study. The results seem positive and to me are logical considering the emphasis KIPP puts on both behavior reform and academics. However, I know nothing about the teaching environment. Any thoughts?
And here’s the article for reference: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/study-says-kipp-student-gains-substantial/2013/03/01/661cde02-8146-11e2-a350-49866afab584_story.html
Looks like THE ANSWER. No really, this must be the answer this time. I mean, there was a 5 year study done. Usually it’s only a 3 year study…or something like that.
All I read about are programs for low income students. What about students who are not low income, nor high income? Do they even count anymore?
KIPP?
My initial reaction is “analysis paralysis.” Getting bogged down in minutia while the obvious is conveniently overlooked. This is a study of charter schools, which would not be a representative sample of students in public high schools. It’s a somewhat select population.
Looks like just another of the “flavor of the month” approaches to finding ways to not look at student responsibility for their performance/learning.
American education just turns itself inside out trying to understand why every student isn’t a Rennaisance man eager to continue on to a PhD. Must be the teachers’ fault. If only they’d try this new, thoroughly researched whiz-bang method, all would be peaches and cream.
Pull-EEZ!
Would it be worth mentioning how administrative “leaders” have limited classroom experience? Or how this new education movement has actually caused teachers to turn on each other? How can education work when you fear that working collaboratively can lead to your downfall?
I will DEFINITELY buy your book.
I’m not sure how serious this is, but if you are serious, you should significantly modify your proposal. Your text reads more like an extended blurb for the book cover, or an introductory section of sample chapter; however, it isn’t a proposal. In a proposal, you should outline the scope of the entire book, and I would suggest in a less ironic and less acerbic, but more concise and better structured fashion. A sample chapter or section that would illustrate the writing style of the actual book should be submitted separately.
I know. I’ve got all that other stuff in various forms…and this has itself been rewritten again. It’s supposed to be sort of the back cover kind of thing. Let me know if you’d like to read something else. Thanks