Matt Damon had some strong words at last Saturday's Save Our Schools march in Washington, D.C.
Following his keynote address, the actor took offense to a Reason.tv reporter who contended that, as opposed to the environment faced by teachers in a tenure system, the lack of job security in acting functions as an incentive for hard work.
Here's what Damon had to say:
So you think job insecurity is what makes me work hard? 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 shitty salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?
The interview got a little tense from there. After Damon's comments, the cameraman broke the invisible wall and chimed in: “Aren’t 10 percent of teachers bad, though? Ten percent of teachers are bad.”
When Damon's mom, a Boston-area teacher, asked where the cameraman got his numbers, he responded, "I don't know. Ten percent of people in any profession maybe should think of something else.
To which Damon struck back: “Maybe you’re a shitty cameraman.”
Matt Damon!
For more on the Save Our Schools March, click here for HuffPost's complete coverage and photos.
Scroll up to WATCH the video and check out Damon's keynote address, below.