Matt Damon DefendsTeachers, Lashes Out at Journalists

On Saturday, the 'Save Our Schools' march was held in Washington, D.C and hosted by actor Matt Damon who gave the keynote address after an introduction from his mother, a teacher herself.

"As I look at my life today, the things that I value about myself, my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity, came from the way that I was parented and taught," Damon said in regards to educators.

After the address, Damon gave an interview with a Reason.tv reporter who asked if he works hard because actors have no job insecurity, whereas teachers, in a tenure system, don't have that incentive. Damon replied, "So you think job insecurity is what makes me work hard?"

He continued by saying, "I want to be an actor. That's not an incentive. That's the thing. See, you take this MBA-style thinking, right? It's the problem with ed policy right now, this intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that. It's like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when they have tenure. A teacher wants to teach. I mean, why else would you take a (crummy) salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?"

When Damon finished his comment, a cameraman jumped in, saying "Aren't ten percent of teachers bad, though?"

Damon's mother responded to the cameraman asking where he got his figures from. The cameraman responded, "I don't know. Ten percent of people in any profession maybe should think of something else."

Damon countered, saying "Maybe you're a (crummy) cameraman."