Was recently subjected to four hours of academic torture known as the CTEL examinations 1, 2, and 3. Never in my life have I faced such a worthless pile of convoluted and insignificant questions as spewed forth from my testing monitor the other day. Easily three-quarters of the questions were of the subjective aspects of what is “most likely” or is “least beneficial” in such-and-such a case as I have never and will never encounter in my long and outstanding teaching career.
It is no surprise to me that California is losing important teaching talent because of the totally unimportant drivel it is making their prospective teachers regurgitate. Some spend over $2000 in tuition and books to take such a dreadfully meaningless $260 test. What fools these mortals be!
Many present and future educators leave the computerized testing site without a clue of whether they passed or failed the travesty, including myself. The others I interviewed after the exam were angry, frustrated, and disillusioned, complaining the exam did not measure what they were taught in their university classes, that their practice tests were completely out-of-line, and how they felt (as I did) that many of the questions had more than one arguable answer, depending on the individual student encountered in the scenarios posed.
NONE of the vapor-headed bureaucrats who either designed this crap or deigned it important enough to require can do what I can do in the classroom. (So don’t think you can!) And whether I teach music, art, calculus, or graphic design, it matters little to me whether the child of an illegal alien gets *more* than their fair share of my attention or taxpayers’ dollars to see they can read and write English.
This is a perfect example of the tail wagging the dog. Why we cater to this segment of our population to such a degree is a mystery to me, except that we have allowed minority rights and arguments to cloud our judgment regarding the future of our state and country. But that is another issue for another time.
It isn’t awful enough that the California Teaching Credential program is already fraught with 80+% fluff and baloney classes, now they have added this smelly pile of manure on top of it. Instead of increasing teachers’ instruction into methods for teaching their particular subject area (there is only one course required), something that is actually useful, the pimple-brained paper pushers in Sacramento decided to foist three more classes of this English Learner garbage down our throats instead. It couldn’t be about the money, could it?
Oh, I can hear those of you yelling “Insensitive, thoughtless racist!” To you, I smile and raise my middle finger. For I have taught over 5,000 English learners successfully already, and easily 10,000 students overall, students who loved my teaching and my teaching methods, and for you knuckleheads who think that I have to pass your stupid, vapid examinations thirty-seven years after the fact to be qualified to do so, I gladly yell “F*** Y**!! I’m taking my talents elsewhere!” And I have, too!
And lastly, if you are reading this and considering teaching in California, get out of Dodge before they add even more bull-oney on top of the odorous heap that already exists here. Lord help us, you can witness the death of Western Civilization from just about anywhere nowadays…