Bort - 2011-08-02
Five stars for that final swipe there.
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Toenails - 2011-08-02 It's even better because he *is* a shitty camera man.
All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and film. But apparently he couldn't even manage that.
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dr_mr_vandertramps - 2011-08-02
As a teacher, I fully endorse this video.
I could have gone for my PhD - I was accepted, and a month away from starting - but when I looked at my life goals, treating mental illness wasn't even in my top ten. Despite 6 years (Undergrad and MA) of psych, I made the conscious and deliberate choice to go into teaching. I love my job, and it's really disappointing how unimportant education seems to be these days.
That said, there are definitely more than a few teachers who are in it for the summers off (which is stupid, considering the hours you put in throughout the rest of the year).
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The Mothership - 2011-08-02 Been teaching university for 7 years, have yet to meet these people you speak of.
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Baldr - 2011-08-02 I teach college, and the summers off are definitely a factor for me. It isn't the only factor, but I'd say it contributes between 10 and 20% of my interest in the profession. I need time to work on my personal projects, and the summers are a fantastic time to do that.
Regarding tenure at the college level, there are a handful of people who go into "fuck you" mode at some point after receiving it. When I was in graduate school, one professor in my department closed down her lab and stopped doing research after being tenured. She taught the occasional class, but aside from that she just sat in her office and became increasingly unhappy. It didn't seem like a very rewarding life, and most of her peers didn't seem to respect her.
I've also read about a case where a tenured faculty member saved up a decade worth of sick days, and used them to take every Friday of the semester off. His students were pretty pissed about this.
That said, those people are a very small minority, and the amount of tenure abuse is incredibly small compared to the opportunity for it.
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Kandalor - 2011-08-02 What sort of demand for a faculty member would lead students to be pissed off by a professor skipping Fridays? What the hell does a student need from the faculty on a Friday that they couldn't get on Thursday or Monday?
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Baldr - 2011-08-02 He was supposed to teach classes on Fridays. Apparently his students kept showing up, only to find that no one was there.
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Jellyneck - 2011-08-02 Tuition at UC campuses has gone up over 40% in the past few years. Some students are understandably pissed at what they are getting for their money at this point.
Also, classes do not meet every day. So if an instructor decides to have a fuck you friday every single week, you would be paying a lot more for a lot less.
I would be furious.
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dr_mr_vandertramps - 2011-08-02 I don't teach at the uni/college level. I'm in a k-middle school.
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Postureduck - 2011-08-02
"Where'd you get that number?" "I don't know."
Five for "reason".
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The Mothership - 2011-08-02
Who are these awful, awful people? I am so angry I could strangle a manatee.
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fatatty - 2011-08-02
Very classy throwing in the shot of him crying. I think from now on news outlets should throw in Boener crying in the middle of all his interviews.
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Born in the RSR - 2011-08-02
""Maybe you're a shitty cameraman!"
Bless you Matt Damon! Bless your heart!
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decoy - 2011-08-02
I like Damon, he's a good actor and clearly a bright, articulate guy. But I don't want to hear his opinions about anything other than filmmaking. Maybe if he'd work in a "job-job" for 10 years or so he'd understand that most people don't work b/c they "love what they do." That includes many teachers, and I say that from experience in that very difficult field.
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IrishWhiskey - 2011-08-02
CEOs and hedge fund managers need massive bonuses, golden parachutes and job security even when they screw up, for incentives.
Teachers need pay cuts, slashed benefits and job insecurity even when they do well in a broken system, for incentives.
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Xenocide - 2011-08-02
Libertarians stole Matt Damon's hair and he is NOT having it.
There are people in the world who have never felt any real passion for anything. They do their jobs because someone hands them a check every two weeks, and it's never occurred to them that there are people for whom this isn't the case. People for whom the check isn't a motivation, it's almost some kind of small miracle, because with it comes the twice-monthly realization that someone is paying them to do this wonderful thing that they would gladly do for free.
But the "everyone works for the incentive" crowd has never cared about anything enough to experience that type of joy. So they assume it doesn't exist, that everyone, from actors to teachers to artists to scholars, is just doing it for the money. And that the people who devote their lives to educating the next generation should be regarded no differently than dogs doing tricks for pieces of meat.
Fuck.
Those.
People.
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Spoonybard - 2011-08-02 A central theme of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" is that people who work because they love their jobs are better at those jobs than people who do them for the money. Roark, the protagonist, gets shit on for decades while his sycophantic antithesis, Peter, becomes wealthy and successful.
Randroids would be somewhat more tolerable if they didn't consistently embody the worst traits of her heroes AND villains.
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Syd Midnight - 2011-08-04 In the book, do these jobs by any chance involve coming up with some over-ambitious idea, then making other people do all the work while you take all the credit and make all the money while avoiding pesky taxes, morals, and regulations?
'Cause I've never read The Fountainhead, but people who love The Fountainhead seem to think of that as the ideal job, if not their destiny, because anyone could do that if they had enough money and didn't give a shit about anyone besides themselves. Also lower taxes, small government, Google Ron Galt etc.
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Spoonybard - 2011-08-16 Actually the jobs in question involve creative expression and a refusal to compromise ones own aesthetic integrity even when it costs you a sorely needed contract
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Toenails - 2011-08-02
I'm having trouble trying to figure out what this gotcha question is suppose to be about. Why isn't there incentives for teachers?
Besides the ability to help mold kids into responsible humans beings?
Is she saying that teachers need to be paid more?
Is she trying to take a cheap shot at the Unions and say that teachers need to be more like people in Hollywood that aren't (in her fantasy world) part of any union?
That teachers somehow have job security?
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jangbones - 2011-08-02 She is implying that if you are not motivated by greed, you cannot possibly be trusted to produce.
The relationship between "Reason" and actual reason is equal to the relationship between Fox News and "Fair and Balanced".
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Caminante Nocturno - 2011-08-02
I want to push an ice auger through that girl's face.
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dek863 - 2011-08-02
Props to Matt Damon.
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heyitslozeau - 2011-08-02
I'm a teacher. I'm a passionate, young and motivated teacher. I'm finishing up my summer recovery period and going through my inevitable "oh god, another year". It's not because I hate teaching, I love teaching, I hate the system that I'm stuck teaching in that seems to be doing everything in it's power to ruin me. Thanks Matt Damon for making me feel a little less shitty.
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Burnov - 2011-08-02
I know quite a few teachers who got into it because they didn't know what else to do, and yeah there's a certain level of job security.
And yeah, they're what I would consider -bad- teachers.
Matt Damon is full of beans sometimes.
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dairyqueenlatifah - 2011-08-02
Holy shit, how many POE residents are teachers?
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jangbones - 2011-08-02 Few, but most "POE residents" apply actual reason to political disagreements.
Also, many enjoy the public humiliation of those trying to make a very childish political point by tripping up a Hollywood actor.
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heyitslozeau - 2011-08-02 You also dont have a lot of the shit that goes with teaching minors and dealing with education policy.
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Nikon - 2011-08-03 I also teach.
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dek863 - 2011-08-03 I start TAing this Fall.
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The Mothership - 2011-08-03 I teach university, and thankfully have benefits. I get paid shit, though, and I cannot tell you how lucky I am to have benefits. I feel for you, Ursa.
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joelkazoo - 2011-08-02
There's no need for that poop talk, Mr. Damon!
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heyitslozeau - 2011-08-02
Another thing: the whole "if you have tenure you cant get fired!" argument isn't quite that. All tenure really means is that you get to know why you're being fired and you have a chance to appeal it.
The fact that administrators have turned tenure into that is (strangely) a symptom of the problem tenure sought to fix in the first place. We have yet to really come up with a decent way of evaluating teachers (yes, evaluating a teacher's abilities is far more complicated than evaluating many other's), hell we really don't have a good way of evaluating students abilities. Tenure prevents someone who observes you twice a year for a combined hour and a half from hastily firing you. Half the administrators I know have little to no classroom experience whatsoever. I'm all for more merit based incentives for teachers, but only if they're judged in a fair and comprehensive way and we haven't even figured out how to properly do that with students yet.
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kingarthur - 2011-08-03
Yes.
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gmol - 2011-08-03
Even Anderson Cooper is getting in on the Damon lovefest.
Reason TV are a bunch of douchebags...but critically evaluate some of Matt's statements. Why would teachers do jobs with "shitty salaries"?
Don't presume any of my motives here, but first let's take a look at the average GPA which colleges most teachers graduate from (and the administrators of the public system). Compare that to, say, medical doctors or Wall St. professionals.
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memedumpster - 2011-08-03
No wonder Trey Parker and Matt Stone make fun of him, he's a decent human being.
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