The Pot and The Kettle

Things are not looking good for our nation's hardest working professionals, the teachers!

WASHINGTON - Not a single state will have a highly qualified teacher in every core class this school year as promised by President Bush's education law. Nine states along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico face penalties.

More here. But I am sure the teachers will get around to it next year. Something probably came up. Maybe they had too many papers to grade and couldn't become qualified just yet. Maybe they were too busy drinking away their fears and anxieties; I mean, the kids just keep....coming.....back. Or we just kept daydreaming about the cute, dumb boy in the back of class.

And can someone please define "highly qualified." Are we saying it is bad to show lots of movies? What if you just want to sit around and chit-chat? How bout giving us some highly qualified students??? Has anyone in Washington thought of that???

The Pot's 2 cents

If by "hardest working professionals" you mean those people who have a 6 hour work day (almost half of which is taken up with lunch and "free periods"), work less than half the year and make more money than the average chump working 52 weeks a year, then yeah, teachers are our nation's hardest working professionals.

Of course, referring to teachers as "professionals" is a misnomer. The world's oldest profession aside, there are only two professions -- medicine and law. To be a profession, you must attend a professional school and graduate with a professional degree. Last time I checked, anyone with a college degree could be a teacher.

As for a definition of "highly qualified," all it took was a simple search from Yahoo!

To be deemed highly qualified, teachers must have: 1) a bachelor's degree,
2) full state certification or licensure, and 3) prove that they know each
subject they teach.

These aren't exactly the toughest of criteria. I mean, hello?!?! Shouldn't a teacher know each subject they teach?? And imagine if your kids were being taught by a teacher who didn't have full state certification or licensure! An outrage!

Finally, from looking closely at the picture above, it looks like the teacher is not only hard working, but working while hard. Excellent choice, Kettle.