In case you haven’t already seen it, this post of teacher misbehavior caught on cell phones from Dangerously Irrelevant has been making the rounds. I saw it on Seth Godin’s blog, of all places.
Seth’s assessment is that the teachers have a marketing problem. Cam Beck thinks the problem is deeper than simply marketing. He says that the public schools have a product problem. I think we may be getting at the core of the issue with that. It’s uncomfortable to address, but somehow it needs to be addressed.
Personally, I see it as a combination of the two. Many public schools have a definite product problem. Many teachers have a marketing problem. My assertion is that this has been the case since the first days of education. Cam also asserts that the public schools suffer from the same “free problem” that Seth so frequently addresses. The biggest concern to me with the entire system is a value problem. The students, and it seems just as often the parents, do not value the service we provide.
Fixing the produce problem and the marketing problem are immediate steps that can be done, fixing the value problem will have to take some time. It will not be an overnight fix, and I just don’t know if the system can be fixed short of a complete overhaul!
Just for fun, I thought I’d see if I could find some other interesting videos on YouTube. I came across this news report. I think this is the correct way to respond.
