...has not a single thing to do with Tim Walz himself, about whom I could not be more enthusiastic--here's a gift link to the Washington Post talking about him as a social studies teacher, plus here is more from The New York Times, and I hope by now you've seen the video of his signing Minnesota's free lunch bill--but an implicit comment from my fellow educators about his being a social studies teacher.
It goes something like this: of COURSE he was a social studies teacher! He was a football coach!
The implicit assumption here is that someone is hired as the football coach, and then the school administration has to find a place to stick that person for their full time job, so they stick them in a social studies classroom because (and I have seen this said!) it has either the lowest standards or is the easiest to teach.
Whew, educators, do you hear yourselves?
I am not discounting your experience of the coach at whatever school where you saw this.
What I am doing is asking that we all take a minute and note that there are thousands of educators who go to school and get themselves certified as social studies and history teachers, and they do a damn good job at a very difficult subject to teach.
And from what his former students are saying, Tim Walz was good at that job*.
Wishing him all the very best as he works to get this next one!
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| Headwaters of the Mississippi. They're in Minnesota, dontcha know. |
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*Walz attended Chadron State in Nebraska for undergrad, which started as a teacher training college, or what we used to call a normal school. Please enjoy that detail.
