Guest Post by an American Teacher: A Crash Course in Being a Teacher

This guest post by an anonymous American Teacher does not reflect my opinions. I present it here for the purpose of encouraging discussion.

Everything I do is for the sake of expedience.  So when I go to work, I’m on sleep mode.  I have a passionless day.  For seven hours, I feel what it is like not to feel anything. I move on the fringe and stay out of the limelight.  I am very close to being off everyone’s radar, completely unimportant. I am not to be condemned for that.  Reality, after all, is on my side.

Plenty of people switch off at their jobs.  Just because I am not actively contributing does not mean that I am screwing things up.  I’m not doing any harm. So what if the future stock boys of America don’t know when the Civil War ended?

I have seen teachers who don’t survive.  They don’t know how to get through outrage after outrage and they give up.   I have seen young teachers suffering, drained of energy, older teachers struggling years into a nightmare, wrung out like a soiled dish cloth.  So many teachers are like cases of walking pneumonia.  I could cure them.

The burned out, the fed up, these are the people I would like to teach.  Don’t live that life, I would tell them.  Do not agonize and do not quit. Leaving a job like this doesn’t make sense.

I would show them the successful prototype of the disengaged teacher:  Me.  I am the ne plus ultra of the lax and uncommitted.  I’d raise the consciousness of the downtrodden and show them how to shake off their old ways.  My methods are 99.9% foolproof.

Teachers, there is such a thing as survival.  I have the answers. I will be your most important guide.  Hang on to my every word.

First, don’t embrace your job.

A high school is a place where people move closely with people about whom they know little. Some of the students won’t know your name for months.  And you will quickly be forgotten once summer arrives.  The only mark you will leave on them is akin to a snail leaving its slime. Their connection to you is threadlike. Keep it that way.

Your students are freeloaders.  They are punks, snitches, and will turn on you when convenient.  Some of them may even be spies for the administration.  Nothing they do can be taken seriously, as many of them are on Aderall and Ritalin, yet they govern you and not the other way around.  Far from being encouraged to teach, you will be encouraged to pass them with the highest grades possible, A’s and B’s.  Do it.

If you don’t follow this diktat, you will frequently hear complaints, from students, administrators, and parents. You are not trusted by them.  The claims of the student will always be prioritized over the claims of the teacher.

The administration just wants to use you as a tool to do their dirty work, enforce the dress code, have standards, and when you do so, they will throw you right under the bus.  Don’t ever try to discipline a student. You will be overturned. Self-preservation should should be your first instinct. Your first priority should be to safeguard your psyche from stress.  Your peace-of-mind should override every other consideration.

So don’t dive into your class. Operate at a remove.  Lots of ways to shave time off a class.  Look around your room and think of some. Linger in the hall as long as possible after the bell rings. Shut the door slowly.  Pass out papers slowly. Collect them slowly. Seconds add up.  Shorten the amount of time you interact with kids to a minimum. Some of them can’t even count to ten. Show lots of video clips and at least one movie a marking period. Don’t take teaching seriously. You can look to everyone else like you are teaching when, of course, you’re really not. Hunch forward over your desk with a batch of papers to make it look as though you are correcting when all you are doing is playing on your phone.  Look like the hardest working and be careful not to use the school wifi. Trawl the news. Read the newspapers on your school computer and pretend you are doing work.

Stay focused on some narrow goals, like never giving anyone less than a B-.  Teaching in a public school is less about having students master a subject and more about winning a popularity contest.  It’s not about math and grammar; it’s about you having a rapport with these hellcats.  A teacher is a fiction in today’s world. You need little academic background to teach. You need to play the game.  Working well in a public high school is a public relations job. You should become familiar with two important words: support and succeed.  Even though you don’t mean it, you always want to be sure to say that you are there to support your students and that you want to help them succeed.  Practice saying those phrases on your drive to work.

Choose your words with students carefully.  They can be used against you.   Hone your use of language so that you communicate as little as possible with kids.  Try not to allow them within spitting distance of you.

You will want to spit on parents, but make your encounters with them frictionless. They are another area on which to cultivate your hypocrisy.  Students either just don’t stand out or they stand out in the worst way possible.  You can know absolutely zilch about them, be completely unable to distinguish one student from another, and still manage to say the right things to parents.  Praise the worst idiot in your class.  Say good things, great things if you can manage it.  Be careful.  Great things might make you choke unless you have mastered the art of hypocrisy.

Everything your education professors told you is hollow. Teaching is inspirational only if students answer the call.  They never will. The best teachers are useless when students are not driven.  You are not going to change these kids’ minds. You are mistaken about your ability to contribute to society and change someone’s life.  You do not have any power. There will never be any evidence that the stuff you were taught in teaching school is working so cultivate the inner life.  If you actually think that teaching will lead to change, you are a fool.  You are a footnote in your students’ lives.

There are teachers who arrive at the building while it is still dark out.  Don’t do that. At the end of the day, rush to leave.  Gleefully skip out.  It will be an exhilarating moment, but if it’s not and you’re leaving exhausted, you have done your job badly.  Apathy can now end. You can start to feel again.  Enjoy your private life.  Fill it with your own interests, with love and happiness. Take a walk at sunset.  Admire the silhouettes of the trees in winter, the sulphurous pink flowers in spring.  Have a glass of wine, a cup of tea.  Enjoying yourself is the only revenge.

Every week, submit yourself to some self-examination.  How secure are your practices? Are you tightened up?  Can you be blindsided?  Be rigorous about your laxness.

There will be days that you need to set multiple alarms in order to get up.  If you need to power up with more than one cup of coffee in the morning, don’t go in. Take those days off.  Those are the days that you’ll trip up. Don’t ever throw cold water on your face in order to wake up. Go back to bed.

Work on your skill at softball. You can play on the team and brown nose the administrators upon whom you would like to throw battery acid.  Be as appealing as possible whenever there is an administrator around, but learn how to evade them.  Don’t question them ever. A smiling face is a defiant face.

Your skill at brownnosing can make you the envy of the other teachers. Don’t be a show-off.  Pretend you disdain administration.  Watch the other slackers in your building. They are your school’s true professionals.  Admire and respect them.

Once you start doing these things, the fire will go out and the oilier you will become.  Soon there will be nothing left of your former convictions. The best part about apathy is that once it settles in, the harder it becomes to shake. The days will bleed into each other and before you know it, it will be June.  It’s time to be giddy with delight.

Stick to this process–like glue–and you will survive. If you do not, you will grow sad and sour.  You will be wiped out. Let others serve as a cautionary tale to you.

If you get through a year without a parental complaint or getting called down to an administrator, congratulate yourself. Job well done.  Surviving is an art.

This is the only path forward, and the good news is that many of these things can be learned by osmosis.  You don’t have to purchase a how-to guide.  A pound of commonsense and a dash of experience, and you can do these things well, too.  Teaching can be fun, in its way, when you follow my basics.

I am not offering you any motivational nonsense.  I offer you the cleverest tips for keeping your job and your sanity. Do not let any book, any workshop change your mind about this.  You can only be miserable and enslaved if you allow yourself to be.  Do not repeat the mistakes of other teachers.  Your biggest mistake can only be not listening to me. I am your light in the dark.

73 Comments.

  • FlemingBalzac
    June 4, 2018 10:49 AM

    Still trying to get a read on this guy. At present, three possibilities exist.

    1) He was passed over for a promotion or perk in favor of a co-worker who he feels is inferior.

    2) He was terminated for poor performance and is in full Dunning-Kruger mode in trying to rationalize it.

    3) He’s being ironic about the virtues of a strong work ethic.

    • 2) He was terminated for poor performance and is in full Dunning-Kruger mode in trying to rationalize it.

      I think your diagnosis is correct – he keeps insisting he’s a great teacher while simultaneously proving the exact opposite.

      Unfortunately, I do not think he was fired.

      • American Teacher
        June 4, 2018 1:51 PM

        @Crazy Horse

        You talk about my reading comprehension?

        The point of these pieces is that you cannot be a great teacher in the public schools. But you can survive.

        No, I have not been fired and I just got my evaluation. Accomplished, as always. 99% of teachers always are. It would be too much work to make us otherwise.

        Haha.

        So much for education reform.

      • > You talk about my reading comprehension?

        Yes. Yes, I do – we’ve got Darwin’s own words, in his own handwriting; the testimony of his family and people who actually interviewed him. Yet you are unable to *comprehend* the simple fact that he lost his faith. You are incapable of processing new information (“learning”) – which leads me to suspect that you are not a good candidate to judge others’ learning abilities.

        > The point of these pieces is that you cannot be a great teacher in the public schools.

        WHAhahahahhahahah. Wrong again, the point of these pieces is that *YOU* cannot be a great teacher. You don’t even meet the bar of ‘mediocre.’

        Other people can and do become great teachers.

      • FlemingBalzac
        June 5, 2018 4:07 AM

        The only other possibility that comes to mind is that this is Ted polishing up some sort of Alt-Right alter-ego to get in on the “Intellectual Dark Web” page traffic and Patreon lucre.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 4:22 AM

        @FlemingBalzac

        This is entirely the work of American Teacher.

        Do you not read Ted’s disclaimers at the beginning of these pieces?

      • FlemingBalzac
        June 5, 2018 2:11 PM

        American Teacher – Yes, I read the disclaimer. I also read that Illuminati Lizard Men run the world. Care to guess how much stock I put into what I read online?

  • American Teacher
    June 4, 2018 12:31 PM

    @Balzac

    It is my students who suffer from Dunning-Kruger Syndrome and I cannot wait for them to graduate from this adolescent day center.

    They are too stupid to know how easy they have had it and how it is all about to end. They trot off to college, flunk out in a semester, and wonder what happened.

    Their failure is my solace. I love having them bag my groceries.

    • FlemingBalzac
      June 5, 2018 4:03 AM

      Whatever, dude. I’m just here for the popcorn.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 4:11 AM

        And I’m here for the nachos.

        But don’t be that guy. Get angry. Fight the Apathy.

      • EvilWizardGlick
        June 5, 2018 6:32 AM

        I’m here for the clowns.
        Full boat load here and not the scary ones but the slapstick kind.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 9:06 AM

        A clown, like a teacher, is an icon for American society.

      • EvilWizardGlick
        June 5, 2018 1:48 PM

        A clown, like a teacher, is an icon for American society.

        Only the really hot teachers.
        Funny how you never see nipples on a clown.
        But hot teacher images abound.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 4:55 PM

        @wiz

        Clowns don’t have nipples.

        Hot teachers….maybe that’s why everyone tries to get into my class and guidance has to turn them away. They are hot for me.

  • > I’m not doing any harm.

    Horse.

    Shit.

    You actively teach superstition over science and you practice homophobia where innocent children can see. You’re more worried about your arsenal than the kids’ lives – let alone their education. You have a learning disability coupled with low reading comprehension; actively spewing misinformation instead of the facts the kids need to make it in this world. Dog forbid you ever teach civics or history, you understand neither. If the kids needed to learn the dates of the Civil War, you’d launch into a rant about how blacks were better off under slavery.

    You only have two real skills: mooching off of taxpayers and blaming others for your abysmal failure in life.

    Those aren’t skills I want my kid to learn.

    • American Teacher
      June 4, 2018 1:46 PM

      @Crazy Horse

      Hopefully, you do not have kids. Atheism is genetic deviance and must be bred out of the herd.

      I always get in a few lines about conversion therapy when we study homos. Hope I don’t get caught.

      I’m not worried about these kids at all. The point of these pieces is I don’t give a damn. Didn’t you get that?

      As for slavery, please read Unfree Labor by Peter Kolchin, a professor at the University of Delaware. Dr. Kolchin compares the American institution of slavery favorably to Russian serfdom, noting its Christianizing effects, its regulation of the slave owners, and its relative benevolence towards slaves.

      In any event, can American slavery be any worse than what blacks do to each other in Cicago and Bamtimore on a daily basis?

      • American Teacher
        June 4, 2018 1:52 PM

        Chicago and Baltimore

        My bad

      • I can always tell when I hit a nerve, it affects your typing.

        But that’s not the only reason you need a proofreader – you’re singing praises of Christianity while preaching about torturing children and justifying slavery.

        Yeah, I’m sure Jesus would have approved of clamping electrodes to underage boys’ genitals.

        > I don’t give a damn. Didn’t you get that?

        Loud and clear (that’s my point … duh?) Sociopaths like you shouldn’t be allowed contact with children in the first place. You’re enough of a danger to society even without allowing you to infect another generation with your disgusting diseases.

      • American Teacher
        June 4, 2018 2:09 PM

        @Crazy Horse

        Or maybe I’m just a poor typist.

        It seems that I really hit your nerves. Sociopath, indeed.

        Ooh, I didn’t know that’s how conversion therapy worked. I guess that will cure the little faggots.

      • so·ci·o·path
        ˈsōsēōˌpaTH/
        noun

        A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.

        Symptoms include: Lack of empathy; Manipulativeness; Deceitfulness; Callousness; Hostility and Irresponsibility.

        http://www.health.com/mind-body/sociopath-traits

      • > I didn’t know that’s how conversion therapy worked.

        So you would recommend it without having a clue what it entailed, and now that you do you’re still in favor.

        I rest my case.

      • American Teacher
        June 4, 2018 3:45 PM

        @Crazy Horse

        I thought that you just prayed the gay away. I’m glad indeed that there is more to it, sir, glad, indeed.

        Sociopath: you forgot to add that it can’t be cured and that it is a lifelong condition.

        These kids have at least ten more years of me!

    • American Teacher
      June 4, 2018 4:01 PM

      @Crazy Horse

      I have several skills which you do not have. Football. Guns. Boxing.

  • American Teacher
    June 4, 2018 4:05 PM

    @Crazy Horse

    Not in the public schools. These public schools need need to be closed after I retire, of course. If you spawn a satan, you pay to have it educated.

    Go read the Gopnik biography on Dsrwin. Next you’ll try to out him.

    • American Teacher
      June 4, 2018 4:05 PM

      Darwin

    • Stop It! STOP IT!!! If I laugh any harder I’m going to piss my pants!

      Okay, so you will take the word of someone who was born 75 years after Dsrwin died, over Dsrwin’s *own* words. A guy who never once met him knows him better than he knew himself, better than his own family, and better than the people who actually interviewed him while he was still alive.

      … seriously?

      I could not possibly dream up a better demonstration of your learning disability than *your* own words.

      • American Teacher
        June 4, 2018 4:40 PM

        @Crazy Horse

        I don’t get after you for typos, of which I find many.

        In any event, I will never convince you as you will never convince me.

        But, Buddy, I wrote a great survival guide to teaching in the public schools!

  • EvilWizardGlick
    June 4, 2018 8:37 PM

    CrazyH American Teacher
    Just fuck already.

    • American Teacher
      June 5, 2018 12:11 AM

      Ewww. No, thank you.

      But I think you are on to something when you allude to the homosexual nature of Crazy Horse’s correspondence. He does seem to be looking for more than an internet acquaintance.

      Leviticus tells us that men sleeping with men is an abomination. The Good Book is filled with condemnation of unnatural desires, which Crazy Horse does evince towards me.

      Fortunately, I am armed and ready.

      • EvilWizardGlick
        June 5, 2018 6:02 AM

        You won’t be sleeping.
        And if the bibles say not to lie down with a man do it standing or doggy.

        The bible also says kill your neighbor for working on the Sabbath? Have you done that yet?
        How about not suffering a witch to live?

        “Leviticus 11:9-12 ESV / 100 helpful votes
        “These you may eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat. But anything in the seas or the rivers that has not fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you. You shall regard them as detestable; you shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall detest their carcasses. Everything in the waters that has not fins and scales is detestable to you. ”

        No Lobster for you.

        “”Then you grew up, became tall and reached the age for fine ornaments; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare.” (Eze 16:7)

        naked=no clothes
        bare=shaven

        “Have them shave their entire body and wash their clothing. Then they will be ceremonially clean.” (Num 8:7)

        “And suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her and want to marry her. If this happens, you may take her to your home, where she must shave her hair, cut her fingernails, and change all her clothes.” (Deut 21:11-13)”

        Your wife and daughters FULLY SHAVED? Grandma?

        “Lev. 19:27, ‘You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard” ”

        Fuck me do you look like an old hillbilly or homeless person?
        I do.
        Man am I holy.

        “Deuteronomy 23:12-14 ESV / 38 helpful votes
        “You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you. ”

        How long and how far has your family been taking a dump away from the house?
        Do they each have their own trowel or just share one?

      • EvilWizardGlick
        June 5, 2018 6:30 AM

        I am sick of people picking and choosing what parts of their religion to enforce.
        It’s either ALL OR NOTHING! Bitches, there is no middle ground.
        Those who do not accept and live by every little law and directive are not truly religious.
        Doesn’t matter if you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Mormon, Satanist.
        I would rather see an honest zealot than modern dishonest religious half-assed practicing fucking liars.
        And it is called religion because it is HARD TO LIVE BY THE FULL PRECEPTS!
        It isn’t Dickies pick and choose a way.
        God knows all and he is goddamned pissed off so many people fuck up his ways.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 7:06 AM

        @Wiz

        Nothing angers the Lord like unnatural desire.

        P.S. I am vegan.

      • @Awesome Teacher – you’re not a Christian, you’re a Jew. Jesus never once mentioned homosexuality … but he did hang out with twelve men and a hooker. (never once touching the hooker)

        Connect the dots.

        https://www.google.com/search?q=was+jesus+gay

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 9:23 AM

        @Crazy Horse

        It is unfortunate that you are more interested in my sexuality than you are in my column about the tragedy of our nation’s schools.

      • @Awesome:

        I don’t give a rat’s ass about your sexuality – it’s your raging homophobia that’s the problem.

        … and yes, that *is* a tragedy in our schools – specifically YOUR school.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 9:34 AM

        @Crazy Horse

        You must have a child who is gay. You are the one who is raging.

        This column does not address the sex ed curriculum and the teaching of deviancy in public schools.

        This column is a teacher’s survival guide because decent people in the profession are berated and bullied by the likes of you.

      • What this column is is a hissy fit – “oh boo hoo hoo. Poor little me, I’m a teacher – has anyone ever suffered so much?”

        I’ll make you a deal – you quit bullying and berating your gay students and I’ll commiserate with you on how hard your life is.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 10:43 AM

        @Horse

        Did you read the piece? It was all about how to have a great day.

        But deal.

        Public schools must do more to support gay teens who have high rates of suicide because they are bullied

        Your turn

      • EvilWizardGlick
        June 5, 2018 10:56 AM

        AT
        Unnatural desire?
        If god created everything, then god created desire.
        If god created desire then it is natural.
        Can god create a stone so big he can not lift it?

        You can have two but not all three of the following:
        God is all good
        God is all powerful
        There is evil in the world.

        I was a Vegan but required real protein. I eat fish, eggs, cheese, drink milk. No Chicken or Beef or Pork.
        Been that way since the early seventies.
        Soy is bad for you.
        I also wear leather.

        Anyway are Grandma, Mom and the girls fully shaved? Pictures otherwise it’s a lie.
        You don’t want to be a henri sitting at 75 Courics.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 11:55 AM

        @EvilWizard

        There is always free will. You can choose the right thing.

        Some soy is bad.

        I would never under any circumstances want to be Henri.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 12:09 PM

        @Horse

        Oh No.

        The Supreme Court supported Masterpiece Cakeshop owner’s free speech rights over gays.

      • > The Supreme Court supported Masterpiece Cakeshop owner’s free speech rights over gays.

        One small step backwards for man, one giant leap into the dark ages for mankind.

        Discrimination is not free speech, and the Supreme Court should know better than to support it. If the proudly bigoted cake shop owner refused to serve blacks, would that be okay?

        Wait, don’t answer that one – you’ve already confessed to being a racist as well. How about if the only wedding cake maker in town refused to make a Cathy Lick wedding cake? Would that be okay? If everyone in town refused to do business with Cathy Licks … would that be okay? Baptists in the front of the bus, Cathy Licks at the back? No Cathy Licks allowed on the football team? Health class teaches that STDs are caused by Cathy Lick sex?

        No, I”m not expecting any sort of cognizant answer. Among other personality defects you are incapable of putting yourself in others’ shoes. You lack the basic, human, compassion that Jesus taught; and critical thinking is right off the table. I’ll bet you think you found a loophole in the Golden Rule – he didn’t mean *all* others, he only meant straight, white, Christian males, amirite? (even though he was a brown Jew, himself)

        > Public schools must do more to support gay teens who have high rates of suicide because they are bullied

        Yes! That’s very good, coach. You *are* part of the problem. It’s so nice when we can agree like this.

        So, are you going to quit bullying teens?

        Or are you going to continue whining about the problems you – yourself – cause?

      • EvilWizardGlick
        June 5, 2018 1:37 PM

        CrazyH on June 5, 2018 at 1:17 PM said:

        > The Supreme Court supported Masterpiece Cakeshop owner’s free speech rights over gays.

        Fuck off.
        If I own a business I can pick and choose my clientele. This was one of the stupidest Gay rights cases ever.
        If he is a Jew should he make swastika cakes? Black making KKK cakes?
        Just go to another store. He loses business and gets a bad yelp review.
        And it makes you an even bigger MORON for whining about the SCOTUS decision.
        It ain’t like being busted while Black now is it?
        The cake thing is one of the biggest pieces of Gay dumbfuckery ion in the legal world.
        I notice you didn’t mention the Black family who’s father was killed and they received only four cents in a court decision.
        Progay racist are you?

        “The family of a father-of-three who was shot and killed by cops through his garage door have been left heartbroken after a jury awarded them just four cents in damages.

        Gregory Hill, 30, was gunned down in his Florida home by St Lucie County Sheriff’s Deputies Christopher Newman and his partner Edward Lopez while they were responding to a noise complaint.

        Shocking photos show the garage door ridden with bullet holes after the deadly shooting on January 14, 2014.

        But on Thursday a jury ruled that Hill was 99 percent responsible for his death, because he was drunk. They determined the cops were only one percent liable.

        As a result, Hill’s relatives were awarded just $4 in damages, including $3 for the suffering of his three surviving children.

        The sum was then reduced to just four cents when that total was multiplied by .01 because of the one percent finding of liability on the part of the Sheriff’s office by the jury. ”

        Now off you fuck.

      • excuse me, wiz? Are you familiar with the concept of ‘false equivalence’?

        Forcing someone to support discrimination is the exact, opposite of requiring someone to refrain from discrimination … duh?

        If you & coach’s mammas had taught you to treat others with respect, we wouldn’t need such laws in the first place.

      • EvilWizardGlick
        June 5, 2018 1:45 PM

        American Teacher

        Soy simulates estrogen.
        Thus the “Soy Boy” name floating about.
        ( Man was NOT given free will. In the Garden of Eden man was kept in ignorance and forbidden to eat from the tree of KNOWLEDGE.
        Man had no self awareness and was nothing but an animal filling his animal desires.
        Modern society is due to Eve eating that Apple, or better yet Lucifer pointing the way to the evolution of the human mind for a beast to thinking reasoning being..)

        The Four Aryan (or Noble) Truths are perhaps the most basic formulation of the Buddha’s teaching. They are expressed as follows:

        1. All existence is dukkha. The word dukkha has been variously translated as ‘suffering’, ‘anguish’, ‘pain’, or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. The Buddha’s insight was that our lives are a struggle, and we do not find ultimate happiness or satisfaction in anything we experience. This is the problem of existence.

        2. The cause of dukkha is craving. The natural human tendency is to blame our difficulties on things outside ourselves. But the Buddha says that their actual root is to be found in the mind itself. In particular our tendency to grasp at things (or alternatively to push them away) places us fundamentally at odds with the way life really is.

        3. The cessation of dukkha comes with the cessation of craving. As we are the ultimate cause of our difficulties, we are also the solution. We cannot change the things that happen to us, but we can change our responses.

        4. There is a path that leads from dukkha. Although the Buddha throws responsibility back on to the individual he also taught methods through which we can change ourselves, for example the Noble Eightfold Path.

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 4:39 PM

        @Horse

        Your religious bigotry and lack of respect for POF knows no bounds.

        The SCOTUS ruling(7-2) was supported by liberal judges, Breyer and Kagan.

        As the Court noted, businesses have the right not to create messages they deem hateful. If Phillips did not want to make a swastika, you would have supported that. (Then, your reasoning has no principles)

        People get to object on religious grounds, you bigot.

        And you reneged on our deal, another trait of the dishonorable leftie.

        So.

        Gay boys have higher rates of suicide and depression because they know that there is something wrong with them. (The American Diagnostic Manual used to classify homosexuality a mental disorder.) I am a teacher, here to help. I’d get these boys a little tea and sympathy, if you know what I mean.

        Btw, buddy, are you gay? You always manage to bring everything back to homos.

        I’m praying for you.

      • > Your religious bigotry …

        :: shaking my head with a wry smile ::

        So, the biggest, baddest, football coach in all of High School doesn’t understand the difference between offense and defense. I’m not surprised.

        Fighting bigotry is the exact *opposite* of practicing bigotry. By your … uh … “logic” cops are the same as robbers and arsonists are the same as firemen.

        Bigots HARM people, while gays (blacks, Jews, Muslims…) are just trying to live their lives. They don’t do YOU any harm whatsoever, yet you will do your best to deny them the same privileges you take for granted.

        Gay boys (and girls) commit suicide not because there is something wrong with them – but because assholes like you TELL them there is something wrong with them. And no, that’s not “help” nor is it “sympathy” – it is unreasoning hatred. It’s a disease.

        You want to pray, pray to be cured..

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 5:00 PM

        @Wiz

        What was Gregory Hill doing and why were the cops called in the first place?

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 7:04 PM

        @Crazy

        Still praying.

        In all seriousness, I do hope you didn’t have a gay kid that offed himself. This matter seems to weigh heavily on you.

        Or maybe you are a sex offender. You manage to take all AT posts and bring them back to buggery. You do realize that the Greek word for homo relationships was PAIDERASTEIA, don’t you?

      • American Teacher
        June 5, 2018 7:20 PM

        @Wiz

        Again, some soy is good although true, men should eat limited amounts lest they develop feminine characteristics.

        Wonder is Crazy H consumed too much soy?

      • American Teacher
        June 6, 2018 1:15 AM

        #Crazy, truly crazy

        People like you will use the flimsiest of pretexts to try to make their case.

        If you think you upset me, you are wrong.

        Why don’t you get a job? But please don’t teach. Enough people like you in the schools.

      • EvilWizardGlick
        June 6, 2018 6:15 AM

        “Forcing someone to support discrimination is the exact, opposite of requiring someone to refrain from discrimination … duh? ”

        Grasp at straws much.
        No shirt, no shoes, no services.
        Take those people to court.
        Gays have rights get over it.
        But you don’t seem to care how minorities are treated, or the homeless.

        “It’s a well-documented fact that lesbians, on average, make more than straight women—what economists have taken to calling the “lesbian premium.”

        Two Vanderbilt economists, Christopher Carpenter and Samuel Eppink, linked self-reported sexual orientation with earnings for employed US adults in the 2013-15 National Health Interview Surveys. They found that gay, full-time employed men made, on average, 10% more than similarly employed straight men. The difference in pay persisted even when they controlled for a variety of factors: presence of a partner, the sexual orientation of a partner, race, age, ethnicity, and the size of one’s firm and family.

        Their analysis showed a lesbian pay premium of about 9%, too, similar to earlier studies. Bisexual men and women, however, were not so lucky, earning less than both their gay and straight counterparts.”

        “Nathaniel Hendren, who co-authored the study, told NPR’s Leah Donnella that black and Native American children have the lowest rates of upward economic mobility. Whites and Asians came out at the top, he said. “For Asians and white children, we find very similar processes of mobility,” Hendren said. “For Hispanics, we see slightly lower incomes for children at the same level of parent income.”

        The researchers found that the racial wealth gap applies even to the country’s wealthiest families: Black children whose parents were in the top 1 percent of earners, with incomes at an average of $1.1 million, grew up to have incomes 12.4 percent lower than white children who grew up in households with similar incomes.

        Hendren says for the U.S. as a whole, the odds of a child raised in the bottom fifth of the income distribution rising to the top fifth are about 7 percent. But that chance at upward mobility varies widely across race. The study found that about 11 percent of white children raised in the bottom fifth end up rising to the top. For black children, that number is 2.5 percent.

        The results are also gendered. The income gap between black and white Americans, the study finds, is almost entirely driven by differences in earnings between black and white men. When the researchers controlled for parental income, they found black women earn slightly more than white women. Meanwhile, white men are far out-earning black men, even when they start out in families with similar income levels.

        For Native Americans, Hendren says, the gender difference is not as stark, but low rates of upward mobility and high rates of downward mobility persist.”

      • American Teacher
        June 6, 2018 6:50 AM

        @Wiz

        This disparity, the gay wage gap, needs to be addressed. Perhaps a gay tax.

      • > But you don’t seem to care how minorities are treated, or the homeless.

        Uhhh, wiz? It works a lot better if you respond to things I’ve actually said, rather than pulling this shit out of your ass.

        I’ve written here a number of times about minority rights and the plight of the homeless. Gays *are* minorities – and you obviously don’t care about *their* problems.

      • American Teacher
        June 6, 2018 9:14 AM

        @Crazy

        This comment section is for MY piece.

        It is not the LBQT whatever forum.

        And clean up your language.

      • > You manage to take all AT posts and bring them back to buggery.

        Last round – this is getting tedious.

        One of the warning signs of chronic conservatism is a complete lack of self-awareness. YOU are the one who obsesses about butt sex. Talk about a wedding cake, you think butt sex. See two men holding hands, you think butt sex. Gay rights: butt sex. Gay halfback: butt sex. Rainbow: butt sex. Butt sex, butt sex, butt sex. You, personally, spend more time thinking about butt sex than do gays.

        Maybe you should spend some time thinking about WHY you think about butt sex so often.

        My progeny are straight – not that it matters, if they were gay I would still love and accept them. Would you? Or would you send them off to be tortured? Shoot him with that great big gun of yours?

        If you threw a gay kid off the team and he subsequently committed suicide – would you feel the slightest shred of guilt? Of course not, you’d manage to see it as some sort of vindication. “Look! See? I told you gays committed suicide!”

        BTW – the suicide rate for graduates of conversion torture is higher than the national average. (But as usual, you won’t let mere facts get in the way of your opinions)

        Here – educate yourself. (dog knows you’re not going to educate anyone else)

        http://www.nclrights.org/bornperfect-survivor-stories-and-survivor-network/

      • American Teacher
        June 6, 2018 10:20 AM

        @Crazy House

        Butt sex-never mention it. It is your obsession.

        My offspring would be left on the far side of the mountain if they were gay. And I might shoot myself.

        But I am really not interested in gays. I am interested in the depths to which I have been by the public schools. That is why Ted lets me post here.

  • After this post and the comments, I’m convinced that American Teacher is not really a teacher. It seems that Ted is just looking for controversy and to get his comments up which is why he’s had this entity post so many times in recent weeks.

    The tells? One was AT’s assertion that he’s a Godly person. The other is his comment that he tries to bring up conversion therapy surreptitiously whenever the topic comes up.

    Someone who professes to love God will try to glorify him in all ways. That includes his professional life. He will try to be a beacon that shines and inspires others.

    Someone who is trying to lay low and slip through unnoticed will not invite the potential controversy and fallout that can come from even mentioning homosexuality and conversion therapy.

    Therefore: AT is not what he professes to be.

    • American Teacher
      June 5, 2018 7:03 AM

      @ChrisS

      The writer of these columns knows things only a teacher can. The writer cannot be Ted unless Ted has become a teacher. He has not.

      The key to success, if you read the column, is being surreptitious. You can do anything as long as you are sneaky about it.

  • I would love to see AT’s essays posted in a teachers’ discussion board and see what the fellow teachers write in response.

    • American Teacher
      June 5, 2018 1:25 PM

      @No

      We all talk like this and I am comparatively kind because this is Ted’s blog.

      A friend calls his students fucktards and assholes.

    • EvilWizardGlick
      June 5, 2018 1:30 PM

      No on

      Wouldn’t the union rep need to ok any reply?

      “I had one buttock-clenchingly embarrassing moment when the head called me in to tell me one of my pupils had nominated me for the prestigious Teacher of the Year award.

      “The pupil had to fill in four pages of documentation, but on the form she had simply written one thing. It said: “Mr Davies is a well good laugh, and he don’t make us do no work.” The head wiped away tears of laughter before throwing the form in the bin.”

  • American Teacher
    June 5, 2018 4:22 PM

    @Fleming Balzac

    Since you do claim to read, hopefully with full comprehension, you note that Ted and AT have very different writing styles?

    • FlemingBalzac
      June 6, 2018 10:34 PM

      You betcha g-unit. These peepers be seein a whole new way o’ word-slingin’ outta ya sound-pipe. aint no way no how a feller c’n writ different n’ all. Any groovemeister thinkin’ different it’s like they gotta screw loose or somethin’ yanno wot I mean?

      Seriously, Ted, get Disqus already.

      • American Teacher
        June 7, 2018 2:09 AM

        @FlemingBalzac

        Ted is no more American Teacher than you are Honore de Balzac.

        Use your brain. How would Ted have the info that I have?

        Why would Ted take on a completely different writing style for the sake of a couple of columns?

        American Teacher is 100%, Grade A, The Real Thing

      • American Teacher
        June 7, 2018 5:48 AM

        @Balzac

        You are just trying to smoke me iut.

      • American Teacher
        June 7, 2018 5:49 AM

        Out

      • FlemingBalzac
        June 7, 2018 7:45 PM

        Then there’s nothing to smoke out, yes?

        Well, there’s obviously no way to prove anything either way, so we’ll just stick with the other alternatives.

      • FlemingBalzac
        June 7, 2018 7:50 PM

        Could you at least pass on to Ted to get Disqus? The way these comments nest is mind-boggling.

      • @Fleming –

        Last time I was posting on Disqus it had some pretty bad security holes. People could/can spoof your account & determine your email addy relatively easily.

        I wrote to their tech support & they obviously had no clue what I was talking about. That’s worrisome. But it’s been awhile, maybe they fixed it.

      • American Teacher
        June 8, 2018 2:42 AM

        Hey, dudes

        Anonymity is of the utmost importance to the American Teacher.

        Discus sounds like it would violate my rights.

      • FlemingBalzac
        June 8, 2018 1:04 PM

        @CH Meh, there are ways to spoof anything, really. And there are ways to keep as much privacy as possible. The internet – despite the romanticism to the contrary – is the least secure method of communication and nothing is perfect.

      • American Teacher
        June 8, 2018 1:19 PM

        Guys,

        Ted assures me that I will never be caught.

Comments are closed.

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