I was almost late to Jefferson’s baseball game last night because Bell Road in Glendale, Arizona was clogged up with rubberneckers trying to take live video with their phones from their cars as they passed the #redfored demonstrators who lined the sidewalks on the busy street.
Crappy drivers and silly demonstrations are normal in Phoenix, in case you’re reading this from a different city.
Welcome to the Arizona Teacher Walkout. It’s Important Because It’s On Facebook.
For a few weeks, I thought “#redfored” was a group of teachers who wore red to show that they were for some politician named Ed who had presumably promised them something.
Since I homeschool my 8th grader and my 5th grader, we’re outside the drama. To me, this #redfored business is ridiculous and juvenile. I have to admit that the Arizona teacher strike provides one benefit to families: the opportunity to discuss What in the world is going on here?!
- I printed out an exchange between a teacher and a neighbor from a volatile Next Door thread and asked the kids to find all of the logical fallacies the teacher made. (They found four fallacies and we’re only halfway through their logic book.)
- We get to have lengthy, boring conversations about personal responsibility and the correct channels and methods for effecting political change in the U.S. (that’s effect with an e, not affect with an a for that teacher who posted two paragraphs of gobbledygook on Next Door).
The #redfored situation is so simple to break down that I was able to illustrate the foolishness of this entire spectacle for 11-year-old Jameson during ten torturous minutes in the car on the way home from the baseball game:
How I Explained the Arizona Teacher Walkout to my 5th Grader
Let’s say you want to be a pharmacist when you grow up. When you’re getting ready to go to college you’ll start researching what it really takes to become a pharmacist. A good rule of thumb is not to spend more on college than you’ll make your first year in your career, so you’ll need to research pay scales for pharmacists.
If you find out that the average pharmacist in New York makes $200,000 a year and the average pharmacist in Kansas makes $50,000 a year, you’ll have to research the cost of living in New York vs. Kansas, then decide which paycheck and lifestyle you’d rather have. That will help you choose the price of your degree too.
Let’s say you decide to be a doctor instead of a pharmacist. You move to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and you see five patients a month. You know that your brother who is a doctor in a big city makes more than $500,000 a year. Do you whine and cry that you should be making as much money as your brother? No. You chose to move to the middle of nowhere, right?
Let’s say you want to be a teacher instead of a doctor. You know that your aunts and uncles who are teachers in California make plenty of money. Since we moved to Arizona you’ve heard a lot of people say that Arizona teachers don’t make very much money. So what should you do before you start taking classes for your teaching degree? That’s right! You should call all of the Phoenix school districts you think you’d like to teach in and find out how much they pay their first year teachers, and all the benefits each district’s teachers get, like health insurance. Remember that article we read from the teacher who makes a ton of money taking the extracurricular jobs at his school that nobody else is willing to do? He explained that your starting salary makes a huge difference in how much money you’ll make during your career.
What if you find out that the Phoenix school districts you would be willing to live in only pay new teachers $30,000 a year? That’s not a lot of money, even in Arizona. What if you interview a bunch of new and old Phoenix teachers and find out that most of those teachers never get the raises that new taxes always promise to cover?
You’ll have a choice to make. You know the cost of living is much cheaper in Arizona than in California. You might appreciate the more conservative political attitude here in Arizona. You might have found the one home in Phoenix that doesn’t have scorpions.
In the end, you decide to live in Arizona instead of moving back to California. You get your teaching degree, knowing you won’t make much money here. (You also make sure you get the cheapest degree possible because you know there won’t be any way to pay off student loans as an Arizona teacher.)
Do you whine and cry because teachers in other states make more money than you do? No. You knew what you were getting into when you decided to teach in Arizona.
Do you whine and cry and walk out of your contracted job because you didn’t get all of the raises and bonuses you were promised when you got hired? No. Grownups don’t do that.
A grownup can quit a job with proper notice to take a new job, but a grownup should never walk out on her job and think she’ll still have that job when she’s done throwing her tantrum.
Could you work hard to find ways to make the school boards and state government use the money that is already in the education system go toward higher teachers’ salaries? Sure, but you’ll probably make more money putting all that effort into an easy side job like tutoring, writing, or waitressing during your 170 days off each year instead of fighting a crappy education system.”
The Arizona Teacher Walkout from a Homeschooling Mom’s Point of View
I worry that your kids’ school classes are being led by “adults” who are easily misled, in this case of #redfored, most likely by the teachers’ unions that are trying to gain power in Arizona, a right to work state.
I wonder how those teachers will feel about their sob story circus if it is discovered that a child died because his mom (who would never even think of walking out of a day of work) had to leave him at home instead of taking him to school today, and he burned the house down trying to make popcorn on the stove.
I hope as a homeowner I don’t get stuck with another sales tax “for education” which proceeds are diverted to other government spending.
I am shocked and appalled that teachers are teaching their students that when you don’t get your way, you throw a fit and share it on Facebook and then you’ll feel like you really did something important.
Today, on the first day of the Arizona teacher walkout, I’m so very thankful that since we homeschool, Arizona’s immature teachers don’t get to influence my kids 35 hours a week, 185 days a year.
A Note To Arizona Teachers: It’s Not About You.
Clogging traffic on Bell Road by calling attention to your red shirts won’t change anything for the better.
A stupid hashtag certainly won’t change anything for the better, though if you teachers have to use a hashtag, I’d prefer you try #adulting.
Walking out on your job doesn’t prove your point. Walking out on your students shows parents that you do not, in fact, teach “for the kids”.
For a cheerier topic, Read all Disneyland posts on All Day Mom here! Phoenix families can get to The Happiest Place on Earth in 6 hours and go where the red shirts have Mickey Mouse on them!
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