I'm really puzzled by this quote. To me, what you do pretty much is who you are. I am, first and foremost, a teacher. That's how I see myself.

I did get some pushback on this when I posted it on Facebook. People said, hey, I go to work every day, but I hate my job. So people don't see themselves as drawbridge oilers, clerks, fortune tellers or whatever the hell it is they do for a living.

I'd argue that what you do is not necessarily simply what your job is. For example, I do a whole lot of other things besides teach. At this very moment I'm blogging. You may know me more as a blogger than a teacher. I'm also an activist. And believe it or not, I can play the fiddle. I have a lot of bad habits. You may see yourself as a mother, father, churchgoer, anarchist, civil war enactor, public nuisance, or pretty much anything. It doesn't necessarily matter if you spend your days doing something else.

I guess I'm lucky. I love my job. I don't dread going to work each morning. I hate a lot of the nonsense that swirls around my profession, but I have no complaints about the kids I serve. Sure, some of them are a pain in the ass sometimes, but I'm a pain in the ass all the time.  So it doesn't really faze me.

I teach my students to find what they love and pursue it. I teach them to be open and pay attention. I teach them to try new things and see if they like them. You never know when you're going to fall into something you love. I hated math, but if my students love it maybe they can build careers around it. And I'm grateful if they do, because then people like me won't have to. The world is a better place for that.

It makes me very sad to hear from people that they hate what they do every day. That's a big chunk of your life to surrender to drudgery. One of the reasons I support union so strongly is that it offers options to working people. While the exterior conditions and pressures of our job are increasingly ridiculous, what we do still matters, and the kids never change.

The only thing that really changes is when reforminess creeps into our classrooms and makes it harder for us to serve them. That's why we have to be open and pay attention just as the kids should. We need to seek opportunities to stop demagogues like Trump's VP and his ilk so as to do our jobs better.

And I think we need to dispense with the legend that teaching is a calling and thus different from other jobs. The main difference, as far as I can tell, between a calling and a job, is that a job pays more. There's really no crime in asking for or getting more money. This may be a calling or not, but NYC still owes me around 40K it's not paying until 2020, and the people who collect my tax bills want their money now, calling or no calling.

I don't think Joe Biden had bad intent when he said that. But I'm not exactly sure what he was talking about, and I'm not entirely persuaded he knew either.

It's incredible to read that even 4-year-olds are now taking tests, due to the brilliance of common core. No more of this play nonsense, no more discovery, and no more fun for children. Unless, of course, they go to schools like Sidwell Friends, where the president's kids, and the VP's grandchildren go. For the rest of us, it's get ready for a life of sheer drudgery as a Walmart associate, and no wonder the Walmart folks put their big bucks behind this.

My daughter took four days of standardized tests called the Terra Nova when she was in kindergarten. Granted, she was five rather than four, but I was very surprised by it. When I got the results, I was even more surprised. My daughter, who certainly did not know how to read, was deemed excellent in reading. However, she had no English language skills whatsoever. Now I'm not a testing expert, having never actually run a hedge fund, but to my limited understanding reading is an English language skill, and a rather vital one.

I went to the school and spoke with the teacher, who told me these results were typical of the class. Apparently, the reading skills test had been given the first day, when the kids were focused. The English skills test was given on the last, when the kids were well beyond their comfort level. The teacher clearly had as much regard for the test as I did, and had no choice but to administer it.

Of course kids at that age should be pushing trucks on the floor, blowing bubbles in their milk, and out playing with their friends. But in this test-oriented society, as we fervently try to erase the twentieth century in our drive to bring back feudalism, that's unlikely to occur.

But it's nice to see pieces like this one by Tim Clifford featured in Schoolbook. Apparently there are people paying attention, wanting to add real value and engagement to education. The more of us who push back against the rantings of corporate-backed garbage designed to reduce our children to automatons, the more likely we are to capture the limited attention of a country more focused on American Idol than the education of its children

These are the interesting times of the apocryphal Chinese curse, but there are those of us who are standing up, and what we lack in money, we have in numbers. Parents, teachers and students have a common cause, and that is what's good enough for Obama's children and Biden's grandchildren--reasonable class sizes, worthwhile instruction, focus on education rather than test and punish nonsense--is good enough for our children and grandchildren too.

As Vice-President of the United States, I'm pleased to address all you teachers! I know you're here because you have a calling, a dedication to teach our kids. Otherwise, why would you be facing pay cuts, additional fees for pensions and health care, and be buying supplies out of pocket?

When President Obama and I see the things Republicans are doing to you, we're horrified, and that's why we're out there every day, paying teachers valuable lip service. And let me assure you that, when and if President Obama finds his comfortable shoes, he may or may not be out there with organized labor, protesting the loss of collective bargaining rights!

Now I can see there are those of you who object to some of our programs, specifically Race to the Top. Sure, you say, it brings more testing, and that your very jobs depend on getting better grades on those tests. While that is certainly true, remember that our priority is to make the United States the best educated country in the world. That's why we do whatever Bill Gates asks us to, whether or not it's been tested or disproven. After all, if he didn't know about this stuff, why would he have all that money? And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that President Obama said in his State of the Union speech that he wanted less testing! So what more do you want? For Chrissake, he's the goshdarn President of the United States!

Remember, the President's kids and my grandchildren go to the Sidwell Friends School, where there is less testing, so we're putting our money where our mouth is, and anyone else who wants to can just move to DC and pay 33K a year to send their kids there too! This is the land of opportunity!

So don't be a Gloomy Gus! Some things we do may not please you, but the important thing to remember is that the things Romney will do may be even worse! He doesn't care about class size! Arne Duncan cares deeply about class size, which is why he said class sizes should be raised just one week after Bill Gates said so. And I know you all admire Bill Gates, since he was the keynote at your last convention! Can I get an amen? No?

Well, anyway, I realize the whole merit pay, teachers getting fired for no reason, and school closing thing doesn't resonate among teachers, and I truly regret that those troublemakers from Chicago are actually saying so out loud. Honestly I was not prepared for that. So let's put our differences aside and take a real look at what I've done since I arrived here.

As I look around me, I notice many of you are smaller than me. In fact, I've seen many of you walking down the stairs, and I chose not to push any of you. Not only that, but I saw several of you walking by the fountain, and I didn't toss any of you into it. This was my choice. Could you say the same for Mitt Romney? Nobody knows, right? Let me tell you something about Romney. He supports high-stakes testing, charters, merit pay, privatization, decreased teacher voice, and vouchers. Let me make one thing perfectly clear--President Obama and I DO NOT support vouchers! That is a promise.

So God bless America, God bless teachers, and remember, when you're in that voting booth, Joe Biden has not pushed any teachers down the stairs, as far as you know. And thank you, AFT, for endorsing us without asking us for any concessions whatsoever! Those goshdarn LGBT and Latino communities actually pushed the President to change his positions, and that was pretty freaking inconvenient!

So believe me when I say this administration really appreciates teachers!

This week, UFT chapter leaders and delegates received an extraordinary invite:

Vice President Joe Biden invites you and your colleagues in education to join him for a conference call on Monday, Sept. 12 to discuss the administration’s commitment to preventing teacher layoffs.

Wow. A chance to discuss what this administration has done to prevent teacher layoffs. A chance to ask why they would praise a school for firing the entire staff. A chance to ask why on earth they would pick an Education Secretary with  failed local program and replicate it for the entire country. A chance to ask why they would bypass Linda Darling-Hammond for for Arne Duncan simply because an anti-labor, anti-teacher group asked them to.

But then there's this:

This will be a listen-in-only call for UFT members.

You know, it's kind of frustrating when we see a spectacle like NBC's Education Nation largely exclude the likes of Diane Ravitch from what's purported to be a discussion. It's even more frustrating to be invited to a discussion in which you cannot participate. Frankly, if VP Biden wishes to "discuss the administration’s commitment to preventing teacher layoffs" with union members, why the hell won't he entertain their questions?

This administration has sold out to DFER and the "reformers." Admirable though it may be that they're trying to save teacher jobs now that election time is rolling around, their motives are nothing if not transparent (and cynical). While I certainly won't be voting for Michelle Bachman or Rick Perry, Barack Obama fooled me once and, absent some spectacular sea change,  I won't be voting for him again either.

Time for more than desperate last-minute gestures and one-way discussions, Mr. Biden. The very least you can do if you want our support is listen to us.

Biden suggests we should vote for him because he, and Obama, and Duncan are not Scott Walker. He says they should work with us, not against us. And he's right, of course.

Why, then, do they applaud Hurricane Katrina for bringing us more charter schools?  Why do they cheer when the entire teaching staff of a Rhode Island school is fired? Why do they allow Duncan to use his plainly failed Renaissance 2010 program as a template for America? And how on earth can they take marching orders from Bill Gates rather than we, the people?

NEA is contemplating an early endorsement of President Obama. I hope they decline. During the last campaign, Obama promised NEA to do things with us, not to us. He's broken that promise, and repeatedly. He fooled me once. Will he fool the NEA twice?

I hope not. If we support people who stab us in the back, who take orders from billionaires, who stab us in the front, we can expect and deserve only more of the same.

On this Independence Day, let's not only celebrate; let's also declare ourselves free of politicians who do not support us, be they Democrats, Republicans, or whatever.

Update: Fred Klonsky reports the NEA has endorsed Obama.