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Transcript

00:00

smell kindergarten teacher a la shmoop while you begin every morning by looking

00:08

out over a sea of small smiling faces most rational adults would run screaming [teacher enters room full of small children]

00:13

from the room they know what's coming you however managed to think your class [woman runs away]

00:18

of two dozen kindergartners is adorable for a full five seconds a new record

00:23

that's when you notice that three of your students are lice-infested another [three happily infested children]

00:27

has pink eye and two more going mano a mano on the rug over who should have

00:32

possession of Curious George gets a divorce well you simply smile and break

00:37

up the fight while delivering a lecture on the joys of sharing for you Oh

00:41

kindergarten teacher are a good person maybe we should go so far as to call you [halo above teacher's head]

00:45

a saint but don't you kind of have to die for that first right perhaps you're

00:48

also kind of clueless why else on earth would you get your bachelor's degree

00:53

jump through the many hoops required to earn a teaching certification and then [diplomas on table]

00:57

resign yourself to a life of near minimum wage pay in substitute parenting

01:02

feral five-year-olds what's wrong with you [children running around]

01:05

well maybe you thought your glaring side I wasn't epic enough to handle a roomful

01:09

of middle school kids maybe the very thought of teaching calculus makes you

01:13

break out in a cold sweat or maybe it's less about being clueless and more about

01:16

being what is it called oh yeah an idealist you believe that every child

01:20

should have access to an excellent education from the get-go you believe [pictures of children]

01:24

that every child can grow up to be a responsible taxpaying American with

01:28

morals intellectual curiosity and a six-figure salary your idealism is

01:33

admirable truly we scoff at you we're pretty confident your blind faith in

01:38

humanity isn't gonna survive long let's start with the money hey there is none [empty money vault]

01:42

you know that we know that aliens on Pluto know that but it isn't just that

01:46

your salary is laughably low given that you turn unsocialized little monsters

01:51

some of whom don't even speak proper English and some of whom have learning

01:55

disabilities yeah into smart savvy students who can survive the stresses of

01:59

any school subject you can't even get the funding and the resources you need [teacher holding upturned hat]

02:03

to get crayons in your classroom an aid to help you wrangle 24 kids ah books

02:09

that don't fall apart when you touch them and well crayons that aren't in a

02:12

million pieces double ha it's a ha ha and what about that pet hamster you know

02:17

the one so that kids can learn that fighting animals on fire is a no-no yeah

02:21

dream on not gonna happen oh and then there's the question of whether or not

02:24

you'll even have a job in your school district next year oh sure there's a

02:28

union that represents you and claims to look out for your interests when it

02:32

comes to ending renegotiating your employment contract every year but your

02:35

reps fight with the district constantly because again there are too many line [men boxing]

02:39

items in the budget too many administrative bureaucrats standing in

02:42

line with their hands out ahead of you and not enough cash to go around

02:45

speaking of money where in the world did it all go well sadly your fanatical [money vanishing in vault]

02:50

devotion to public education is not shared by every Joe taxpayer Joe you see

02:55

has other things he'd like to spend his tax money on maybe he'd like to take a

02:58

well-deserved vacation and keep some of the money instead of paying it out his [happy man on beach]

03:02

taxes or maybe he'd like to put a new roof on his house average Joe isn't rich

03:06

either you know or maybe he'd rather stick that extra cash in the bank for

03:10

when the next big hurricane smacks into Louisiana all these things are good for [family around house]

03:14

Joe his family the local economy and the not so local economy but because

03:19

America's public education system is funded by taxpayers Joe's thriftiness

03:22

doesn't necessarily want to benefit your kindergartners and while getting the

03:27

money you need to educate your students is like pulling teeth you don't even

03:31

need to ask anyone to get reams of new standards and tests and curricula let's

03:35

just appear like magic well all of that paper serves a purpose but it can be [stacks of paper falling onto desk]

03:39

frustrating trying to run your classroom when the foundations beneath your feet

03:43

are always slipping away and have we mentioned the parents oh boy yeah [parent alert]

03:47

parents are awful as a teacher you'll spend hours before you fall asleep every

03:51

night debating who's worst is it the overprotective parents who question your

03:55

every move or the parents who should never have been parents in the first

03:58

place and who think it's totally kosher to send Little Jimmy the school empty

04:02

handed for show-and-tell either way they will do their utmost to

04:05

keep you from doing your job so why did you want to be a kindergarten teacher [parents mobbing teacher]

04:09

why burn through your best years teaching over sugared kids who will pick

04:14

mom's iphone over a book every single time why deal with parents who do

04:18

nothing but shout criticisms in your ear even as you try to civilize their

04:22

children why teach when so many of your fellow citizens think of you as little

04:26

more than a glorified babysitter well the answer is simple you teach

04:30

kindergarten because your inherent a decent person with a martyr complex oh [halo'ed teacher]

04:34

and also some of the kids are pretty cool some of the time but maybe there's [kid leaves apple on desk]

04:37

something else driving you maybe when you sit down at your desk at the end of

04:40

the day to drink your herbal tea and look over the next day's lesson plan you

04:44

allow yourself to close your eyes for a moment and dream in your dream you run a

04:48

private kindergarten your students are a diverse group rich and poor male and

04:52

female black and white Giants fans and losers parents fight with each other to

04:56

get to volunteer in your classroom and you teach mindfulness gardening and art

05:01

along with reading riting and rithmetic the snacks are organic the nap times are

05:06

long and there's no standardized curriculum thrown together by some

05:09

bureaucrat in Washington telling you how to teach kids it's a beautiful dream but

05:13

then it turns into a nightmare sure if you owned a home you could run

05:17

your kindergarden out of your living room but as a teacher you can barely [small apartment]

05:20

afford your shoebox-sized studio apartment renting a space in the local

05:24

strip mall for your private kindergartens out of the question way

05:26

too expensive to compete with Starbucks and all of that delicious and nutritious

05:30

goodness from Whole Foods while that costs a fortune and the salaries and

05:34

benefits of the other teachers you'd have to hire in order to teach more kids

05:37

while that costs another fortune in registering with the States or your [teacher bleeding money]

05:40

private kindergarten is legal oh that's another fortune financial reality forces

05:45

you awake it would cost as much as you earn in a year to start your own [teacher falls out of chair]

05:48

kindergarten maybe even as much as you earn in two years and even as the owner

05:52

of a private kindergarten the margins on your business would always be so thin or

05:57

take home salaries probably less than 40 grand a year so let's face it you're

06:00

better off sticking it out with the mediocrity of the public school system

06:04

you open your eyes and discover that your tea is cold and you too

06:07

have lice there is no fame no glory there is no money there was only the

06:11

commitment to the ideal and the nits we salute you sucker [teacher with lice shampoo in bathroom]

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