A coach that teaches versus a teacher that coaches

Life is all about priorities. Do we buy the car, focus on family, or the career? In teaching it is also about priorities. For some teachers those priorities are whether they should put in the extra effort for the next day or not. For others it is whether they should teach at all.

  In every profession there are the people that are just in it for the wrong reasons. In teaching we have a stereotype that coaches are not good teachers. These coaches put in no effort and leave their kids without the skills for the next year. I have met several coaches that these stereotypes do not apply to. They balance both well and teach as well as coach. Part of the problem that we have is that these coaches are overshadowed by the ones that do not. Today was one of those days where the two types of coaches clashed. Both are math teachers. One has just recently stopped coaching to spend more time with his family. The other is a baseball coach. These two were paired together to help administer the TAKS test today. One of the coaches said that they were not going to distribute the test or help at all because his duty was on the baseball field. He then watched movies all day while to other teacher was left to himself. Now I think that we can all agree that the coach sitting and watching the movie was a jerk, but it shows how some of them think. He later went on a rant in front of other teachers about the "academic" people and how they were a problem.This infuriates me. Teachers are being laid off right and left from other districts, and next year when my number is up, it very well might be me before him, as he has over three years under his belt. I am not saying that he should not coach, but someone like that should not be a math teacher. Our system is broken when someone like that keeps his job while others do not. People point the finger at teachers a lot of the time and say that we do not put in the time. Well some of us do and some of us don't. He puts in the time after school on the baseball field. I put in the time in the physics room. The end result is that he gets paid more for being a coach. The system is broken, and it is up to us as the people to fix it.

Until tomorrow,
An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life.  ~Author Unknown