A Modern-Day Humanist on the So-called Greed of Teachers

First there was John Stuart Mill, a British philosopher and wit who believed “the whole point of education is to determine the future free actions of the individual,” as “it aims through the associative processes to determine the person’s motives and actions.” Now we have Jon Stewart, a whip-smart son of a teacher, with a brother who is the New York Stock Exchange’s chief operating officer.

In the following video clip, our modern-day Stewart interviews Diane Ravitch about reforming education, and in full-on Stewart fun, he highlights Fox News’ unconsidered perspective on teachers (summers off! easy work! guaranteed pay raises!). It's particularly entertaining (and tragic) when he compares teachers to Wall Street bankers: “Regardless of the greed based, almost slightly sociopathic ‘job’ the bankers did wrecking our economy, those people were there every single day, 12 months a year, not that nine month...!”

For Diane Ravitch,  scroll to 13:15.
Or go directly to Good magazine's education blog for the “Teachers and Wall Street” clip.

Image source: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart