Matt Damon's speech to teachers
 

Matt Damon gave this speech to thousands of teachers who attended a Save our Schools rally/march in Washington D.C.

The speech is courtesy of the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...home_multiline



I flew overnight from Vancouver to be with you today. I landed in New York a few hours ago and caught a flight down here because I needed to tell you all in person that I think you’re awesome.

I was raised by a teacher. My mother is a professor of early childhood education. And from the time I went to kindergarten through my senior year in high school, I went to public schools. I wouldn’t trade that education and experience for anything.

I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself — my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity — all come from how I was parented and taught.

And none of these qualities that I’ve just mentioned — none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success — none of these qualities that make me who I am ... can be tested.

I said before that I had incredible teachers. And that’s true. But it’s more than that. My teachers were EMPOWERED to teach me. Their time wasn’t taken up with a bunch of test prep — this silly drill and kill nonsense that any serious person knows doesn’t promote real learning. No, my teachers were free to approach me and every other kid in that classroom like an individual puzzle. They took so much care in figuring out who we were and how to best make the lessons resonate with each of us. They were empowered to unlock our potential. They were allowed to be teachers.

Now don’t get me wrong. I did have a brush with standardized tests at one point. I remember because my mom went to the principal’s office and said, ‘My kid ain’t taking that. It’s stupid, it won’t tell you anything and it’ll just make him nervous.’ That was in the ’70s when you could talk like that.

I shudder to think that these tests are being used today to control where funding goes.

I don’t know where I would be today if my teachers’ job security was based on how I performed on some standardized test. If their very survival as teachers was based on whether I actually fell in love with the process of learning but rather if I could fill in the right bubble on a test. If they had to spend most of their time desperately drilling us and less time encouraging creativity and original ideas; less time knowing who we were, seeing our strengths and helping us realize our talents.

I honestly don’t know where I’d be today if that was the type of education I had. I sure as hell wouldn’t be here. I do know that.

This has been a horrible decade for teachers. I can’t imagine how demoralized you must feel. But I came here today to deliver an important message to you: As I get older, I appreciate more and more the teachers that I had growing up. And I’m not alone. There are millions of people just like me.

So the next time you’re feeling down, or exhausted, or unappreciated, or at the end of your rope; the next time you turn on the TV and see yourself called “overpaid;” the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that’s been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything. ... Please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you, and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt. We love you, we thank you and we will always have your back.


All I have to say is...

Matt Damon you frickin rock!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, I have no respect for anything that comes out of Matt Damon's mouth. And I used to teach.

You have your opinion and I have mine. :)

I like him for standing up for teachers!

I would comment further but my brain is fried from studying for the Praxis II :)

Just curious why.

But him aside, I agree with everything he said. And I'd agree no matter who said it.

Out of curiosity, why does it matter whose mouth it came out of? His speech is defending teachers and the BS that they have to go through.

YES.

BOO.

YES.

YES.

I completely agree with him about standardized testing. Drilling, practicing, hell, even telling the kids in advance that they're going to take them defeats the whole purpose of these tests and can greatly mess up the result!

We had standardized tests too, but with none of this present-day garbage. We literally came in as for any other school day and were told "we're going to take standardized tests today." Period. No time to get worried about them or flustered or think too hard about how we SHOULD approach them. They might have told us a day or two in advance once we got to jr & sr high, just because of athletics/activities and such, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had not.

Ditto. We knew roughly the time of year we would have them then were told like a week ahead of time so it didn't conflict with sports. Even knowing ahead of time didn't do much because the teachers made it clear this wasn't a test we could study for and therefore there was no reason to worry.

MommyCG was a public school teacher for over 40 years. Even in her retirement, she's still at the school volunteering nearly everyday. She just can't stay away because she loves the kids too much. However, as someone who spent most of my life helping out in her classroom, I've seen an unbelievable amount of stress in recent years to get kids up to scratch or be doomed. It makes me smile to see someone who understands the struggles they face and shows their support.

Thankfully I've always been a good test taker and rocked the ITBS every year, but like 33girl, it was not crammed down our throats. It was just something we did one day a year. My brother, on the other hand, HATED them and would make pictures out of the circles. My Mom would just go crazy that he could get such a phenomenally low score when he was perfectly bright enough to get a good score. What would a teacher do with him today?

He made some very good points. Standardized testing takes up a lot more time and more emphasis is placed on it now in comparison to when I was in school. It is kind of embarrassing when idiots post on our local news blogs that all teachers should be fired, how horrible classroom instruction is, etc. There are a lot of different reasons as to why students are not performing, but there is not enough time to cover it all.

It's nice to feel appreciated ;)

My mom always used to say that if you went by standerdized test scores she would have one kid who went to harvard and another kid that failed out of high school.

I always scored way higher than my grades would indicate because I test well. I am a fast reader and have good comprehension which helped. My brother got barely passed/failing scores even though he was a b /c student and excelled in classes that interested him.

It's a measurement, but it's not the only measurement and I hate that it's tied to funding. There are other ways to measure success at a school but everything can't be quantified. A high school has so may moving parts in it. You have home life, lack of funding for other activities and occasionally just luck of the draw in what students are in your class. Not to mention with charter schools and private schools potentially diluting the pool of public education to those who can't afford private schools or not able to utilize their resources. My best teachers were the ones who were creative and made sure that there were assignements that varied so that if you were weak in one area, you had opportunities to make it up in another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFHJk...layer_embedded

"Maybe you're a shitty cameraman, I dunno..."

Oh Matt Damon. That was fun.

"MBA style thinking"

Matt Damon, if you feel a big pair of arms encircling you, it is my dad giving you a hug from the Great Beyond. :)

I love that he attacked a (supposed) logical fallacy (reducing education and its complexity to "MBA-style thinking") through a series of his own logical fallacies. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, thine own mother teach the way.

While I think the initial logical fallacy was the one expressed by the reporter (basically "as an actor, work isn't guaranteed so you work hard so that you'll have job security, right?" -- an interesting question to pose to someone who doesn't have to work at all), I concur he answered it with another logical fallacy.

Still, though, I agree with the general points he's trying to make. The heavy reliance currently placed on standardized tests results in teaching to the test and should not be the measure of whether teachers are performing well, especially when a student's performance depends on so many variables, many of which are way beyond a teacher's control.