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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]
Full Transcript
- 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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