Video of Chicago teachers being treated like children in meeting. It's humiliating.

[SheilaT]

49. Except, it doesn't look as if the teachers in the video

did anything other than sit there and repeat what they were told to say.

Don't get me wrong. The push back against testing is a good start. But only a start.

I was fortunate enough to send my kids to an independent school. There was no teaching to the test. New content was being taught as late as the next to the last day of classes. Class size was no more than 15 students, and often a lot less in high school. I saw what schools should be like, were we only to fund them properly.

The other thing I was struck by was how happy the teachers were. Don't get me wrong. My kids attended public schools in three different states before we made the switch to an independent school. Overall, the vast majority of teachers were dedicated to their jobs and to teaching kids. There were exceptions, of course, and they had a disproportionate impact on the kids. But I digress. In the independent school the teachers were just as dedicated and noticeably happier than their counterparts in the public schools. And were paid less money But they knew they had the support of parents and administration, which mattered a great deal.

I've been saying this for years, but workers in all jobs need to be willing to walk out, to stand up to management, to take the chance they'll lose the job, but they need to do what's right. It is the reason we need unions, of course. But I'm reminded of the saying that goes something like: all that's needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Another quote: Silence implies assent.

To do nothing, to say nothing, is to acquiesce.