Survivor: Education!

I read the following article in our school's weekly newsletter and thought it was amusing, so had to share it here. Keep in mind that it is a bit "American", but it still fits in well with teachers everywhere. What are your thoughts on it?

Have you heard about the next planned Survivor show?

Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped into a primary school classroom for six weeks. Each business person will be provided with a copy of the curriculum, and a class of 28 students.

Each class will have five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three will be labelled with severe behaviour problems.

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least three days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organise and create appropriate classroom resources.

They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents and arrange parent conferences.

They must also supervise recess and lunch and monitor the hallways. In addition, they will complete drills for fires or other emergencies.

They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, union meetings, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment at all times. The business people will only have access to the golf course on weekends, but on their new salary they will not be able to afford it anyway. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to 20 minutes.

On days when they do not have recess duty, the business people will be permitted to use the staff restroom as long as another teacher is supervising their class. They will be provided with two 60-minute planning periods per week while there students are learning elsewhere. If the photocopier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials at this time.

The business people must continually advance their education on their own time, and pay for advanced training themselves. This can be accomplished by moonlighting at a second job or marrying someone with money.

The winner will be allowed to return to his or her job.


The scary thing is that so many parts of this joke, are actually true. So many people think that teaching is an easy job; I would love to see what they thought of it if they actually stepped inside the room and did our job for a single day.

I would love to give them a handful of our syllabus documents and have them take a look at what we need to teach their children. I would love for them to see how often their darlings are distracted, are cheeky or are downright naughty. I would love to see how they keep their eye on a classroom full of children at once.

So this is a shoutout to all the teachers out there, infants or secondary - what you're doing isn't easy and you are so, so important. And hey, let's think about it - if this really was a Survivor game, we'd be easy contenders for that one million dollars!


13 Comments • Labels:  

13 comments:

kirby said...

I was confused after the second paragraph... but I'm easy to confuse lately... is this an actual TV show?

Jess said...

That was great! Awesome read.

reformattingmybrain said...

No thanks! My Mom's in teaching and let me tell you, I'll surely take my work stress over the work stress she deals with. I'm tellin ya, parents need to be more involved and discipline their kids! If I were a teacher I'd have to teach little kids, I think I'd strangle the older ones. :-) I don't think there would be any survivors left on this game! LOL

heidikins said...

All ya'll teachers are amazing. There is no way I'd ever have the patience and motivation to get through a week of teaching.

xox

lara said...

and having to deal with PARENTS! i wish some of my students' parents could have my job for a week, just so they could see what it's like to deal with THEM! they're bigger monsters than the kids sometimes! :-P

nancypearlwannabe said...

Yeah, it's the parents that kill me. It's like they forget that we're not some baby-sitting service provided for their (free) convenience.

VirginiaGal said...

IMHO teachers don't get paid enough for all the crap they have to deal with. I'm sure that's as true in America as in Australia.

Thank you!!!

Laurel said...

After living with 3 elementary school teachers for two years, I have no illusions about my total inability to do your job!!!

Give me a chair and a desk to zone out at any day of the week.

B said...

I think that would be awesome! My best friend is a teacher- she'd probably love that!

Lady M said...

Three cheers for amazing teachers!

Business people don't have it so easy either - and their colleagues have no excuses for acting like children. I think people get more credit in business though, and teachers never get enough praise.

Ngaire Brown said...

Sure puts things into perspective for the rest of the world on what teaching is really like doesnt it!

Sijbrich said...

Too funny, and too true. I once worked for a non-profit organization that recruited business people to volunteer in classrooms to teach kids about economics. I heard that even those with the fanciest, most important jobs would often find themselves shaking in their boots when they found themselves in front of 30 second-graders. Teaching is a tough job, but a challenge I love.

Lel said...

Wow, how poignant! Caring for our youth is the hardest job out there and the most underappreciated.





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