Okay, now I’m just mad. And I’m trying — as always! — to do something other than just fume. Here it is, my attempt to address grievances.  It’s far too late in the game to redress them….:(

Here’s a link to an interview w/ that spokesperson for the ultra-conservative, Ann Coulter. In it, Coulter dismisses what kindergarten teachers do. It’s not ‘real’ work, she says. Not ‘manly’ work. Really? This woman who has never entered a kindergarten classroom, most likely (she has no children), assumes she has a CLUE??

I am sooo tired of people bashing teachers. But kindergarten teachers? Really?? These incredibly hard-working men & women who not only wipe noses, tie shoes, hug and comfort and intervene and love, but also guide our most precious resource — our children — through learning how to learn? Who work on pre-reading skills (yes, that’s a real job); who introduce numbers to children whose idea of counting is 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, eleventy, 100; who teach how to sit in seats, how to collaborate, how to take turns; who cope w/ the fears of school some students enter with… The list of what kindergarten teachers do would frighten an American president!

Seriously? When did teachers become fair game? When did the honour that by far the majority of the world has for those who help our children enter the worlds of the mind become hostility? And why? I don’t get it.

I don’t know a single evil teacher. Really. And I know THOUSANDS.

(Yes, thousands… it’s my JOB) I know some I don’t care for — many who disagree w/ my faith & politics. But they are unfailingly tolerant of me and my ideas and ideologies. On the other hand? I know MANY evil politicians. And I use the word ‘evil’ knowingly. I firmly believe that there are people in office whose major objective is not the good of the American people, but the success of their individual party and their individual office. Men & women who are willing to sacrifice human lives and decency for power and gain. I don’t know of a single teacher who would ever do that.

So here’s what I propose: if Ann Coulter believes kindergarten teachers have it sooo easy, find some financially strapped neo-cons who have children, and let Coulter teach them for a year. Let her cope w/ IEPs, lackadaisical and even abusive parents, district paperwork, the chaos that is 5-year-olds, and then let’s evaluate her … as administrators feel all teachers should be evaluated — by how well her students do. NOT on how hard she has worked to overcome the poverty, the bad facilities, the lack of materials, but on how well someone who has no education in teaching, knows only the ‘law’, and has no kids of her own is able to work w/ the restless, literal, creative minds of 5-year-olds. Oh! And then let’s ask her how she feels about teaching as ‘real’ work…