Illiterate teacher taught high school for 17 years »
Posted by: AlphaGnosis 6 months, 1 week ago126 Comments Report this Story
Teacher reveals he taught high school for 17 years without being able to read, write or spell!
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Goppy6 months, 1 week ago
I ken relate very well to this story.
I myself was home skooled by my parents who dint want me associatin with seculirists.
When I applied to The College of Creationism, they dint ask me of any grades or nuthin.
They just asked me ifn I beliefed that the world was 6,000 years olt and if I believed everthing in the Bible was true.
I said yes.
I believe in the fore Gospels, Matthew, Mike, Luke, & that guy in the Davinci painting that David Brown says is Mary Magdelen.
Of course, I hadta promise I would vote REpublican - and work on Gary Bauers campaign if he ever ran for Presdient.
(Assumin he dint get indicted for his malfeesance on accounta his cheatin them Indian tribes - him and Jack Abramoff, and Tommy Delay.)
Ive really enjoyed my life so far and it jus shows to go ya that you dont havta have an edjamacation to enjoy a life of bliss.
GO HUCK!!
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madmaxine6 months, 1 week ago
My daughter was home schooled for the first two years of school and when she entered public school in the third grade she was the first child in the entire elementary school to read and take a test on a Harry Potter Book. She made 98% on the test.
Christian Schools have very strict admission standards. While the Creationist schools stink in science, they excel in every other area, and in my state they make on average 75 more points more on their SAT's then public schoolers. Schools that teach intelligent design do even better. By the way my daughter also spells better than you do.
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AlphaGnosis6 months, 1 week ago
"Corcoran's life of secrecy started at a young age. He said his teachers moved him up from grade to grade. Often placed in what he calls the "dumb row," the images of his tribulations in the classroom are still vividly clear.
"I can remember when I was 8 years old saying my prayers at night saying please god tomorrow when it's my turn to read please let me read. You just pretend that you are invisible and when the teacher says, 'Johnnie read,' you just wait the teacher out because you know the teacher has to go away at some point," said Corcoran."
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not2needy6 months, 1 week ago
This reminds me of a girl i graduated with. She could read and write, and she graduated from college with a degree in business.
When she retired from teaching, my sister hired her to work in her office keeping books, doing payrolls, etc. The woman couldn't do a simple payroll. She couldn't even do an invoice to order supplies, YET she taught business in high school for 27 years.
This is why i say teachers are so underpaid. Low pay for teachers deters the more intelligent people from teaching in favor of other areas where they can make more money.
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nostalgia6 months, 1 week ago
not2needy
That was true at one time but not any longer in many parts of the country
New teachers here are starting at over $40,000/year
When you take into consideration the time they are off over the summer and all of the holidays, their hourly rate is higher than most college graduates
Incompetant teachers are rarely if ever fired. They are simply moved from school to school or to another district
My friends who are teachers have a name for it - "passing the trash"
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not2needy6 months, 1 week ago
I am truly glad if that's the case where you are, unfortunantly, it's not the case here.
Entry level pay is NOT even near 40,000/year here, and even though that's the case, new teachers are required to have a MA within 5 years of their teaching tenure.
Where my sister teaches... she is required to be at work by 6:30AM and is often there until 5:00PM every day, and even later on days they have meetings, which is generally once a week.
Very often, she and other teachers she works with, have to go in on holidays/weekends to do lesson plans to have them on the principals desk before school starts on the next school day.
There is pay extracted from their MONTHLY pay in order to cover them for summer time off, so it's not JUST paid to them without service, it's pay they already worked for, just put aside to cover time off. HOWEVER, their summer vacation is only 2 months here, not the 3 months it is in some other places.
This is just a short description of what they do here, not all.
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not2needy6 months, 1 week ago
Most of my family were/are teachers, not because they couldn't do anything else, it is/was the love of doing what they do.
One of my sisters still teaches, and says she doesn't know if she will ever retire because she loves what she does.
I know it's rare though, many teach because they can't do anything else, my sister tells me about some of those.
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Goppy6 months, 1 week ago
I liek that phrase - "Those who caint, teach'.
It was coined by the ancient and famous Latin, anti skool levy misanthrope, William Bennetus.
William Bennetus was there at the beginnin of tiem, roughly 6,000 years ago.
As part of a campaign to demean teachers, (he had a particularly rough teacher who kept correctin him on how to spell HYPOCRITE) he made the case that teachers coulnt DO the stuff they taought.
Course, when he took this dog & pony show on the road, it was pointed out to him that those who were supposed to be able to DO ... COULDNT!
It was mentioned that Kenneth Laytus and led a corps of employees, whose greed so overwealmed them, they ruined their own company, and made ONE TRILLION dollors evaporate!
Then you got the bankers - liek the Lincoln Savings fiasco. That was in the 80's I think. Charles Keatinglus runed that bank.
Theres Dennis Kozlowskitus. He runed TYCO.
World Com.
Adelphia.
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Goppy6 months, 1 week ago
Man Alive!
The list of those who say they COULD - but turned out to be COULDNTS is pretty ding dang overwealmin!
Maybe ifn they had paid more attention to TEACHERs, when they was in skool, maybe our nation wouldnta had to bail out these Corporate Losers to the tune of many TRILLIONS of dollors.
Heres a salute to TEACHERS!!
I know we Christian Conservatives do our best to undercut ya! Callin ya a bunch of heathen libural seculirists and all.
But thats just cause we are frustraded we caint seem to make The United States into a Religious Oligarchy!
We came close with GW. But turned out he werent even a Christian!
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Mdiar6 months, 1 week ago
Very nice find. Interesting and sort of sad. I know my first grade teacher refused to let you leave her class unless you could read, write, add and subtract! The students to this day still hate her (I always liked her actually) but she got serious results. I think she was made to quit for being to "strict" eventually. I never had a problem with the reading portion of the class... but I was always a B Math student, at best.
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mozzer6 months, 1 week ago
Amazing story, and kind of sad that he had to live a lie for most of his life.
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MichaelRhodenteComment removed: User banned.2 Replies
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aniokly6 months, 1 week ago
As soon as we Unionized the Teachers we had teachers who cover for the bad teachers. Chicago Public School system is full of them.
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Dionys6 months, 1 week ago
As soon as we decided as a nation that Teachers, the people who decide our childrens's and country's future, should be paid less than garbage men and often less than minimum wage when you take into account prep time, we as a nation failed our children and our teachers.
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MichaelRhodenteComment removed: User banned.7 Replies
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amazed6 months, 1 week ago
where, exactly are teachers being paid either less than garbage men or even more unlikely, "often less than minimum wage"?
Average teachers' salary in CT is over 70K -- a smidge more than minimum wage, I think and even more than the garbage men (who by the way work 4 day weeks approx. 5 -6 hours per day for 40 hours pay -- at least in my city)
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ranchhand6 months, 1 week ago
Hey I know how he feels. I can grill just about anything you want. But tell me to cook something on the stove. I go into vapors. Burn the heck outta everything. Except Tea .
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Nixie6 months, 1 week ago
Who was grading his papers? If I was one of his former students, I'd probably ask to have my grades reviewed. Unless, of course, I did well, lol!
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ML20076 months, 1 week ago
Great story and doesn't really surprise me in the least The man, although illiterate, certainly was smart. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't an excellent teacher. We, as a nation, have always had our education backwards. Most of our learning comes between the ages of 2 and 5 years old during our primary developing years, so, what do we do? Start them at 6, just right after their synapses close for good. Our teachers are some of the lowest paid people in the US, and they have taught all of those skilled people who now make twice what they do and without limits. Teachers know what they will be making all the way to retirement, now is there any wonder all the smarter teachers have gone on to bigger and better things? Even Cochran went on to bigger and better things. See, he was one of the smarter teachers.
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amazed6 months, 1 week ago
you know, once upon a time (when I started teaching) this was true. And pretty much what it meant was that, when the teacher burned out, they could go and get a job that paid them enough more to make up for what they were giving up --
Christmas vacation, February vacation, April Vacation, summer vacation -- so the burnouts left. Now, by the time they burn out, teachers are making more than most other jobs that they can get. They can't find a job that will pay nearly what they make, let alone that much more, so they stay -- and our children suffer for it.
And all the while, while they are making more than most of the people paying their wages (you know, the taxpayers) with better benefits and almost absolute job security (yeah, that happens in the private sector) they continue to moan and complain about how under-paid and over-worked they are.
Used to be true, but not any more -- at least, not in the Northeast.
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Mdiar6 months, 1 week ago
I can see it being true in some of the more urban areas. But I know that in the area of Missouri I lived in the teachers would actually solicit us to convince our parents to vote for higher wages for them. Then they'd complain about how little money they make and at the same time be making almost as much as both of my parents- who had a superior education and worked more hours- combined. They had all those days off and all those benefits and I always found it laughable. They had all the students so brainwashed into believing they were so mistreated though so it was kind of sad. I plan on teaching myself and I don't care what I'm paid because I enjoy teaching people things. But these people acted like it was so tough to live on a teacher's salary, particularly the young ones who were unmarried and had no family. Those who had family and were married actually seemed to complain the least. Maybe it was a generational thing.
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ML20076 months, 1 week ago
I can't speak for all the teachers, but I am also a former teacher. I quit after 12 years of teaching making $27000 a year. That was in 1998. I coached, and my time figured out at $.25 per hour for coaching. It is true contracts were for 10 months of the year, but I put in 50 to 60 hours a week. If I stayed with the school system here in Texas, I would retire in five more years which I would be making $40,000 per year at the last school year teaching with retirement of about half of that. That would be after 27 years of teaching. Working for myself, I can easily make $40-50 k per year working part time. What are you people talking about? Yes, my sister has taught for close to 30 years and makes $65,000-$75,000 per year plus in Ohio after moving from Texas where she put in half of her teaching time, but her expenses to live in Ohio are higher. She is better off in Ohio, but I doubt New Yorkers are. Teachers are underpaid.
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BB646 months, 1 week ago
Just another example why public schools don't work. 17 years on the job and he couldn't read? Then again looking at Milwaukee Public Schools, he could be an English teacher. Even if he couldn't read or write.
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JenMurdock6 months, 1 week ago
Those who can...do. Those who can't...teach! Sure gives me lots of confidence in the 'teachers' out there, along with the child molesters the school districts hire. :P
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JenMurdock6 months, 1 week ago
They get paid low when they start out, but once they are there for awhile they get TONS of money, get all holidays off, summers off, are UNION, tons of perks and once they are tenured they are almost IMPOSSIBLE to fire!
Most of my teachers were so boring and useless. I think in my whole career I had about 8 teachers that were good. Then we had LOTS of them that were drunk during class, teachers that only showed films (loved those, time to sleep!), clipped coupons, some teachers were so lazy they wouldn't even assign homework (loved those ones too!). Then we had the 'mentally disturbed ones'...LOTS of those in High School...not sure if they were 'normal' before they started teaching kids and THEN went loony after the fact or what....
HOW DID HE GRADE PAPERS??? Did he have other people do that too? Wouldn't surprise me, most teachers are on petty power trips.
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