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Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

wsj.com

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Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#11

Post by shados »

Articles like these, while only loosely related, always make me think that the software engineering bubble has to pop. You have people with ton of education busting their behind dealing with little brats all day to try to make sure they have a future... During that time, some bro who read a couple of books and hammered on his keyboard, and MAYBE did a 3 months bootcamp gets bummed if he can't pull in 100k in one of the coasts with a flex schedule and free lunches/coffee/smoothies/whatever. God forbid they get paged in the middle of the night, they'll scream bloody murder. Same contrasts with trade workers: hiring qualified carpenters/plumbers/painters/whatever is becoming incredibly difficult.

Obviously I'm only considering the extremes here, but those extremes are...very common.

Society can't go very far if the ONLY thing people do is write keywords in a text editor all day. We need to properly value other professions too.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#12

Post by wallflower »

It is not mentioned in this particular article and my teacher friends say that dealing with parents is a constant pain. Of course, not all parents are a pain. Only a few.

Teachers are not in the profession to listen to why little high school age Johnny did not get an A on his paper, not the least because you, the parent, helped him write that paper.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#14

Post by allcentury »

There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire.

I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning.

Now though, over the last 8 years, she told me that parents have ruined the job she loves. Especially now that she has to post everyone's grades online, instantly emails roll in when a student didn't perform as well as the parent expected.

She told me of an email she received that said "X is trying to get into Princeton - an A- isn't going to get her in. What extra credit can she do to make this an A?".

It's endless and my mom, for fear of a lawsuit, doesn't know what to do. The teachers union in Massachusetts made all the teachers sign liability waivers and arbitration waivers if a lawsuit happens. My mom is scared stiff and either bends over, or doesn't and let's the vice principal or principal take the heat, ultimately it leading to an extra credit assignment.

My mom's job sounds miserable and if you were to ask me 15 years ago, what I might do in my retirement - I would have said taught CS at a disadvantaged high school. Now though, I'm seconding guessing that retirement plan.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#15

Post by allcentury »

wallflower wrote: post #12

It is not mentioned in this particular article and my teacher friends say that dealing with parents is a constant pain. Of course, not all parents are a pain. Only a few. Teachers are not in the profession to listen to why little high school age Johnny did not get an A on his paper, not the least because you, the parent, helped him write that paper.

I just commented the same thing - parents are a major problem right now.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#16

Post by allcentury »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #7
ancorevard wrote: post #5

“It’s a more boring place now, and they see their friends finding exciting opportunities,” Ms. Pollak said. So in other words, this is a healthy thing. If people are bored being teachers and they quit, that should be celebrated.

No way. Teaching is really, really important for society. And we've made it low-status, because we are morons. If it were higher-status, you'd see fewer people being 'bored' and seeing the 'excitement' elsewhere. The fact that we've screwed this up should not be celebrated.

In Germany, being a teacher is the best job you can have.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#17

Post by ineedasername »

gammateam wrote: post #6

Thats because teaching was the fallback plan and all the students they work with daily already realize it. Every teacher that brags about their prior dream in their specialized trade is immediately shot down by middle schoolers asking "so why are you a teacher" "Well Jimbo, as you suspect, it's because something went horribly wrong and I've rationalized my acceptance of this low wage life teaching this nation's futur…

Many thousands of students entering directly into teacher ed programs when they get to college refute your unsuported (or only anecdotally supported) claims.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#18

Post by danso »

ancorevard wrote: post #5

“It’s a more boring place now, and they see their friends finding exciting opportunities,” Ms. Pollak said. So in other words, this is a healthy thing. If people are bored being teachers and they quit, that should be celebrated.

It’s a sign of a healthy economy and strong job market, which the article states. It’s not necessarily healthy for the education system, especially if increased government funding isn’t available (despite increased revenue from a good economy) to boost incentives to work in education.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#19

Post by yourbandsucks »

jseliger wrote: post #10

I believe we see this article every time we have a strong economy. When the economy is strong, teaching is unappealing. When the economy is weak, many people cannot find other gigs and so flood into the relative security of teaching. Teaching may also be less pleasant in the social media and smartphone age, for reasons enumerated in The Coddling of the American Mind (a highly recommended book). There may also be a ge…

A friend of mine, male teacher, randomly met Obama back in like 2006 at some function. In their 5 second conversation, Obama was ecstatic that he was a teacher, saying specifically that 'we need more male teachers'.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#20

Post by toomuchtodo »

allcentury wrote: post #14

There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire. I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning. Now t…

You might consider still teaching in retirement, but in another country with more respect for educators and less tolerance for the parental behavior currently exhibited in the US (Western Europe perhaps?).

We still need good teachers as a species.

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