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Sept. 7, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
09:50
2214 Watching a Chicago Teacher's Brain Die
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Alright, so this is a few arguments that have been put forward by a teacher in Chicago about the strike.
So remember, these are the people who are in charge of teaching your children critical and intelligent thinking.
So let's, you know, this is great.
Let's give them a chance to air their grievances and explain just why they are on strike.
So here we go.
I do believe we're getting criticized unfairly because we are not greedy people.
Okay, so she's not greedy people.
She's not part of a greedy group.
Fantastic.
So let's hear her make the justifications for that and see what her reasoning is like.
We're extremely passionate.
We're extremely passionate.
Well, I think actually technically greed is a passion for more and more.
So greed is not the opposite of passion.
But, you know, that would take a fair amount of philosophical thinking or at least two or three seconds of it.
So let's let this lady continue.
She's an eighth grade teacher.
I wouldn't do this job for the money.
I don't get paid $71,000 a year.
I wouldn't do this job for the money.
Well, then you should do it for free.
If you're not going to do the job for the money, then you should do it free.
And now she shows us her wonderful grasp of mathematics.
I don't know of anyone else over here, my staff, anyone else that does.
I don't get paid $71,000 a year, and I don't know of anyone else over here, my staff, anyone else that does.
Okay, so what she's saying here is that the average wage for a teacher in Chicago, Illinois, is $71,000 a year.
That's for about a five-and-a-half-hour workday.
That's even pushing it with a couple of months off in the summer.
Massive benefits, health care, pension, job security, tenure, blah, blah, blah.
So, I mean, the true value is it's over $100,000.
Easy peasy.
Now, she's saying, I don't know anyone who makes that much.
In other words, this is a woman who's teaching eighth-grade math who has absolutely no idea what the word average means.
In other words, she'd be saying, well, nobody I know is a dentist and therefore...
There's no such thing as dentistry.
Well, nobody I know is 6'8", therefore the NBA is just a computer-generated fantasy.
She has no idea what an average means.
I mean, what does she do when she marks tests?
Well, the average mark would be about a B-, so I guess I'll just give everyone a B-, and go and get my teeth whitened.
So, again, massive failure in terms of even a remote capacity to grasp basic concepts.
Let's keep going.
We feel like the press is really bashing us a little bit and telling us that we're lazy when we're obviously not.
We've been out here since 6.30 in the morning.
Okay, so the press is bashing her a little bit.
And calling her lazy because she has been out there since 6.30 in the morning to not teach.
Ooh, it makes my brain hurt.
I'm not lazy because I got up at 6.30 in the morning to not go to work.
And I think that's quite important because they were called out early to do a strike action.
So, you should try that.
You know, next time you're at your job, you go to your boss and you can say, listen, man, I really, really need a 16% raise next year.
Because remember that day that I called in sick?
I wasn't actually sick.
I went to go fishing.
And I got up at like 6.30 in the morning to go fishing.
And so, that proves that I'm a really hard worker and deserve a raise.
You know, give it a shot.
Let's try the public sector approach in the free market.
Let's continue.
We get to school on time every day.
Oh, I should get a 16% raise because I show up to work on time.
You don't get to get a raise for showing up to work on time.
You get to not get fired for showing up to work on time if the time that you put in is productive.
That's just astounding.
It's getting an A-plus in this economy to get a massive raise.
And so, what does this mean?
This is so clueless.
This is a woman who's been through the public sector educational system For probably close to two decades.
I mean, she, you know, kindergarten through high school, college degree, teaching certificate or teaching degree.
So, this is someone who has gone through about two decades of government education who is saying completely absurd stuff like this.
So, if getting a 16% raise is kind of like getting an A +, then clearly her students should come to her with the following argument.
Look, I showed up to the test on time.
Therefore, I should get an A+. I don't know.
Maybe ChowderheadCupieCakes would actually do that.
Let's keep going.
We are extremely hardworking and we're there for our students.
So, okay.
Hardworking and there for their students.
Okay.
Except you're not actually there for your students.
You're striking.
And seem to be having a pretty good time striking as well.
Anyway.
We believe in education and we believe in public education and we believe in fairness.
We believe, we feel...
I mean, there's not a single rational argument here, not a single statistic, not a single comparison of any kind.
It's all subjectivist, emotional, collectivist garbage, which of course is exactly what you'd expect from people who've gone through two decades of...
Government education.
We believe in education and therefore we should get more money.
One woman was saying that she has 43 five-year-olds and she's one teacher.
Well, that's mad.
That's completely insane.
And you try that in sort of a free market daycare, see how far you get.
Of course, when you charge more for teachers, you end up with fewer teachers.
Of course.
Illinois is completely broke.
But even sort of passing that aside, if you are charging more for teachers, then you're going to end up with fewer teachers.
So actually there's fewer of you there for the children if you demand these raises.
But of course, how could the woman understand this?
She's never had any exposure to voluntarism in the market sense in her life.
Straight from school into the...
Amniotic, union-shielded sack of infinite protection and so on of the public sector unions.
Let's see what else I should say.
Just like for them to support us in our cause of making their schools better.
So making their schools better.
She's not, of course, mentioning the just catastrophic facts that only a little over half of those who enter high school graduate.
That 8% of students in the Illinois public school system actually end up completing a four-year degree.
I'm not saying a four-year degree is the be-all and end-all, but, you know, that is sort of a...
And people have been telling me, oh, Steph, you don't understand.
It's the family.
Of course the families are problems.
The families are huge problems.
This woman, I would guarantee you, supports the same welfare policies that have produced these bad families, so she has cause in the matter as well.
And if you read the biography of Michelle Rhee called The Beat Eater, you will find out that even though...
In Washington, the families are arguably as bad, if not worse.
There was still a huge turnaround in education when they got rid of bad teachers.
See, students can fail.
Teachers can't fail.
And this is one reason why we grew up so insane, is that those in power use that power to exclude themselves from the very standards they impose upon those who are dependent on them.
Anyway, let's hold our nose and finish up.
I really invite the mayor to come into my specific school, my specific classroom, and see the amount of students that are in my room at a time, the working conditions that we have.
So she's saying that there are too many students in her class, but raising teacher salaries is not going to fix that.
What they could do, of course, is they could get rid of overhead, right?
So $10,000 plus per student.
43 students in a class.
I mean, it's close to half a million dollars per year, and the teacher is getting paid $74,000 plus benefits.
Where's all the $300,000, $350,000, $400,000 going?
It's going to overhead, and it's going to teachers' pensions, right?
So almost three-quarters of every new dollar put into the Illinois school system goes to pay teachers' pensions, like retirement pensions and healthcare costs.
Of course this is a government system, so you end up with the greatest cost being people who aren't even working.
And the lack of support from him.
And if he believes in things like merit-based pay, I would invite him to do the same.
He can take merit-based pay if he would like, and then I will follow suit.
But until he does, I'm not going to.
So, Rahm Emanuel has to take merit-based pay along with the teachers.
I mean, I think that's perfectly fair.
And this really is an argument against these kinds of state protections, both for politicians and for public sector unions.
But of course, this is part of the hypocrisy of the entitled political class with gold-plated pensions and benefits attacking schoolteachers for pensions and benefits.
Anyway.
It's all nonsense, but it's really chilling.
This is like watching a fish in the bottom of a boat flopping around thinking it's swimming.
Or, you know, there's a scene in the movie Parenthood where Keanu Reeves crashes a car in a race and just comes out half-dazed and says, Did we win?
This is where it is.
It's a horrible thing to watch, just how broken and futzed up people's brains are.
But, of course, this is how it replicates itself generation to generation.
This is Stefan Moller from Freedom Main Radio.
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