I’m talking to you, Wisconsin.
I bet the union thugs shutting down learning in Wisconsin, taking students out of school for political reasons the kids don’t even understand and sabotaging the process of education, are the same teachers who usually claim to “love” their students, being extra kind to them and making sure that class is fun.
I’ve known tons of teachers like this. They look at their work as a “calling.” They likely embrace all the latest watered-down edu-fads sponsored by the experts, and look down their noses at the cynical conservative teachers who are just here to do an important job and do it right.
The thing is, teachers who revel in the warm, fuzzy side of the profession are rarely the selfless shepherds of youth they want you to think they are. They’re in love with an image of themselves as the cherished, inspiring heroes of society.
And when such a worldview is threatened by the painful realities of budget cuts, union frustration, and the restriction of public employee perks, their cognitive dissonance sends them through the roof.
You can be a noble martyr or a penny-pinching professional, but not both at the same time.
By the way, I consider myself neither kind: I’m just a guy doing a job. I’m not claiming to sacrifice myself on the altar of serving the next generation, nor am I a member of a teachers’ union (not that all union members are bad, but these thugs in Wisconsin represent all that can be bad about them). I’ll complain and agitate for improvements to schools until I’m blue in the face, but I would never, ever participate in a “sick out” so I could attend to my politics or bank account.
Embarrassing debacles like the dog and pony show in Wisconsin expose such teachers for what they are: frauds, who demand your respect for their holiness while they’re ready to abandon all else to make sure their own safety net is good and comfy.
As I’ve been saying lately, it’s those honestly pessimistic workhorse teachers that you can really trust, and who are ultimately doing the most good for everybody’s children.
Gently Hew Stone 
For someone who usually makes fact based cases for your point of view, this post is a disappointment. There is too much broad-brush, self-righteous generalization in this past to be useful for anything other than the thousand’s of other opinion pieces published in the last several days on this ‘uprising’ which ultimately will line the bottom of America’s proverbial bird cages.
But then again its your blog isn’t it!
Ken, fair enough–I see your point. Glad that you see mine.
Consider this: a letter ran in my local paper today from a teacher defending our Wisconsin colleagues. She ends her letter with this bit of purple prose, typical of the kinds of teachers I’m talking about:
I will remain a teacher for as long as I can, even if I have to get another job to survive, because I also believe that education is the only hope for a better world.
Who’s being self righteous now?
I don’t know the letter writer, so I can’t speak to her teaching or political leanings, but I can say that teachers who talk like this tend be touchy-feely (and, thus, pretty ineffective), and are often left-leaning union lovers. Again, there’s nothing wrong with being a union member, but my point here is that it’s hypocritical to call oneself a suffering servant while you’re also actively demonstrating in the streets for your rights at the same time.