{"id":5131,"date":"2017-03-08T10:42:53","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T15:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5131"},"modified":"2017-03-08T10:42:53","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T15:42:53","slug":"scumbag-teacher-meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5131","title":{"rendered":"Scumbag Teacher Meme"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The scumbag teacher meme<\/a> is one of the classic tu quoque <\/em>memes on the internet.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s regularly: won’t accept late work, but takes forever to return papers; berates students for wasting time, but chats with students about stuff through class; has a Ph.D., but uses ‘irregardless’.\u00c2\u00a0 There are other non-tu quoque<\/em> versions, too, like requires that you learn cursive, cancels class just 5 minutes before or with a note on the door, requires an expensive but never used textbook.\u00c2\u00a0 Most of the instances are misunderstandings about how education works and why teachers need more support (and more pay), but they are stand-ins for some frustration folks have with the current educational climate.<\/p>\n

In a new instance of the scumbag teacher meme move, Jim Geraghty at NRO<\/a> has an objection to how the Day without a Woman Protest is affecting schools.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, because so many women are teachers in the Alexandria schools, they ‘ve had to cancel school for a ‘teacher work day’.\u00c2\u00a0 Geraghty then identifies the troubles facing the schools:<\/p>\n

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Alexandria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s public schools underperform the statewide average in subject after subject. In the 2015\u00e2\u20ac\u201c16 school year, 80 percent of Virginia students passed English proficiency exams; 73 percent of students in Alexandria did. In math, 80 percent statewide passed; 68 percent of Alexandria students did. Statewide, 77 percent of students passed a test of writing proficiency; 69 percent of Alexandria students did. In history, 86 percent of students passed statewide; 77 percent of Alexandria students did. In science, 83 percent of students statewide passed; 69 percent of Alexandria students did.. . .<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[T]he ills that plague Alexandria schools and, indeed, schools around the country… [are] unlikely to be solved by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Day Without a Woman.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here it is in a meme:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Here’s Geragthy’s final analysis:<\/p>\n

\n
Apparently, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve decided that standing up to the sexist menace across the river in Washington and nationwide is more important to them than doing their actual jobs. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a shame they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t more concerned with the tangible problems those jobs present every day<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
But the trouble is that people can walk and chew gum at the same time.\u00c2\u00a0 Teachers can be worried about X and it can be at the top of their priority list, but they can also be worried about Y and Z, too.\u00c2\u00a0 And that means that they can even make some room to do Y and Z, too.\u00c2\u00a0 John had a nice observation about this a few weeks back with the ‘think of the children<\/a>‘ trope.\u00c2\u00a0 In\u00c2\u00a0 this case, however, it’s a case of a red herring of assessing the importance of X with the greater importance of Y.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Another way to see this would be as an instance of a perfectionist’s false dilemma<\/a>, or as John termed it a few years back, argumentum ad imperfectionem<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 That it would be preferable for teachers to be in class for every day of scheduled school is correct, but this is not a perfect world.\u00c2\u00a0 And teachers are at liberty to use their personal days as they see fit.\u00c2\u00a0 That they all use them on the same day for a political purpose, well, is in an important way, exactly the point they were trying to make<\/strong>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The scumbag teacher meme is one of the classic tu quoque memes on the internet.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s regularly: won’t accept late work, but takes forever to return papers; berates students for wasting time, but chats with students about stuff through class; has a Ph.D., but uses ‘irregardless’.\u00c2\u00a0 There are other non-tu quoque versions, too, like requires … Continue reading Scumbag Teacher Meme<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,642,9],"tags":[2095,1974],"class_list":["post-5131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tu-quoque","category-argumentum-ad-imperfectionem-ignoratio-elenchi-fallacies-of-relevance-fallacies-argument-problems","category-false-dichotomy","tag-perfectionism","tag-red-herring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5134,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131\/revisions\/5134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}