Not everything that counts can be counted...

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." -- Albert Einstein

Rupert Murdoch wants to replace teachers with computers. He said "you can get by with half as many teachers."

Jersey Jazzman, a New Jersey teacher wrote a list of things that computers can't do...things you need teachers for. It's one of the best lists like this I've seen...

I present to you, Rupert, a list of all of things a computer can't do that a teacher can:

• Listen.
• Give a hug to a five-year-old who scraped her knee. 
• Give notes to a 17-year-old who slept through the last lecture class because he was up all night working to support his family. 
• Care. 
• Coach the JV girls basketball team to a 3-14 season, but make the #12 girl on the squad feel like she was the deciding factor in those three wins. 
• Direct the seventh grade talent show, and watch as the other kids' jaws drop when that shy girl who always wears her hair in her face belts out a show-stopper. 
• Take the high road when, during a call about a seven-year-old's behavior problems, a parent breaks into an obscenity-filled tirade that ends in tears. 
• Teach a third grade class that putting away materials properly is the most important job an artist has. 
• Find a way for a kid with cerebral palsy to play kickball. 
• Command respect. 
• Counsel and console a first-year colleague who swore she'd never raise her voice in her classroom, but just did. 
• Volunteer to lead yet another committee on yet another state-wide initiative with yet another professional-development goal. 
• Bag everybody's jacket, hat, backpack, and mittens separately to prevent another outbreak of head lice. 
• Break up a fight before it starts between two two-hundred-and-twenty-pound football players over something so stupid that neither can remember exactly what it was. 
• Stand on conviction. 
• Share in the pride an eighth-grader feels when she finally figures out what "x" is. 
• Make pain au chocolat sound so good that it's worth learning French just to order it. 
• Help a 15-year-old see that he has something in common with Hamlet. 
• Move a class of six-year-olds around a mound of puke and out the door. 
• Listen.