{"id":8965,"date":"2013-06-21T11:58:18","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T15:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=8965"},"modified":"2013-06-21T11:58:18","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T15:58:18","slug":"the-difficulties-of-science-ed-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2013\/06\/21\/the-difficulties-of-science-ed-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"The difficulties of science ed for all"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 12th, the DW Steele chapter <\/a>of the Air Force Association named a preK-6th grade science teacher named Jason Pittman, from Alexandria, Virginia, \u201cAerospace Teacher of the Year<\/a>\u201c. General Mark Welsh, chief of staff of the Air Force, came in person to thank Pittman for his service to his country \u2014 for choosing to teach. Pittman was very touched, as he told Ira Glass from This American Life<\/em>. \u201cI couldn\u2019t bring myself to say that this was going to be my last week of teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pittman chose teaching over a previous career in tech because he loved it, and loved the kids. This is apparent in his storytelling <\/a>(he\u2019s also a champion of the local Story League). He\u2019s been teaching for 10 years and he\u2019s won a bunch of awards. Michelle Obama visited his class. He was commended <\/a>by the state Senate.<\/p>\n

The problem is, he teaches science to underprivileged kids in low income neighborhoods of the Fairfax County Schools, and the money that supports his position is rocky. So rocky that five years ago, the community he works in started a non-profit<\/a> to raise money from local businesses and keep him at their school. It\u2019s a big second job to run around raising cash to support your first job. It just got to be too many jobs, he said.<\/p>\n

Ira Glass<\/strong> Do you feel like you\u2019re doing a good job and you feel like you have to grovel?<\/p>\n

Jason Pittman<\/strong> [LAUGHS]<\/p>\n

Ira Glass<\/strong> Is that too strong? Is that word too strong?<\/p>\n

Jason Pittman<\/strong> No, that\u2019s exactly what it feels like. And we are not allowed to say that. We\u2019re not allowed to say that we feel like that.<\/p>\n

This American Life<\/em>#497: This Week<\/a>, aired 06.14.2013<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"This<\/a>The 6 minute segment<\/a> aired on NPR a week ago last Friday, June 14th, and is still available for streaming if you hustle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Pittman loves teaching preK-6th grade science. He’s won a bunch of teaching awards. And he’s leaving — exhausted by the unending groveling for funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":8967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ecology-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}