Getting Fired, Again

I HAD, ADMITTEDLY, a sometimes rocky career as a public school teacher, a seemingly never ending roller coaster ride of blissful intellectual connections with students, and often disharmonious relationships with administrators. Throughout my twelve years as a public school student, I didn't much like administrators, being somewhat vaguely afraid of them, like cops, the thought that I could get in trouble even when doing nothing wrong always lurking. I tended to stay away from administrators. Nothing changed when I started teaching. American public school teachers are closely monitored nowadays, by cameras and computers, as well as administrative overlords, state laws and curriculum requirements, as well as the ubiquitous administration overlords. Every state has a veritable bevy of laws requiring teachers to teach in such and such a manner, using such and such textbooks and educational materials, and to teach a particular, specific body of information, by the book. The purpose of this is to make sure that our billionaire corporate overlords are in full control of public education, as they are every other aspect of American society and culture. We have traditionally been required to teach American history, for instance, from the viewpoint that the United States of America sis nothing but a glorious virtuous entity, with a glorious and proud history. that nothing could be further from the truth matter not: we the common masses must be patriotic and fully investe4d in obeying the established powers that be. Only in recent decades have some shreds of truth and balance crept into American history classes, and even that has the right wing establishment types wailing. I got in trouble for teaching that Thomas Jefferson, by being a "deist", was, essentially, a non religious atheist who was hostile to Christianity. Growing up, nobody ever bothered to teach me that fact, and really, somebody should have. Even as we speak, if I were still teaching, I would encourage high school students to walk out of class in order to protest the slaughter of our nation's students. and, of course, I'd probably get fired, again.