Are teachers underpaid? It depends. • Hacker News Board

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#21

Post by shaggyfrog » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 3:51 AM UTC

T-R wrote: post #15

maeon3 wrote: post #7

The reason teacher's salaries are set incorrectly is because supply and demand has been pushed out of the equation. 1. some teachers can't be laid off. 2. schools don't get proportionally more money for exceptional work. 3. most parents are indifferent to maxing out their child's education quality. 4. most of the teachers effort must be applied to the hellions and problem-makers. optimization for max output requires…

I agree with your overall points, but sarcasm and characterizations of those who disagree with you as communists isn't conducive to conversation.

Couldn't agree more. The nonsense at the end is a disappointing postscript to an otherwise thoughtful comment.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#22

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 3:54 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #17

When I was in college several of my friends majored in early childhood education. Without a doubt it has to be the easiest major out there. While I was writing papers, my friends were learning how to make name tags with construction paper and crayons, and learning kiddy songs (this is not an exaggeration). The problem is that once you get the degree and jump through the hoops, you're in. That's all there is to it If…

I gather it depends on how you're entering the field. My mother studies early childhood development with a focus on how it can go wrong (I forget the technical term, but things like severe autism)

It doesn't seem to be a 'hard' science, but it's still a science. As such, there's no glitter and construction paper involved, except when they are interacting with the children!

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#23

Post by vacri » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 3:56 AM UTC

redxaxder wrote: post #11

aik wrote: post #4

> "The first time you teach a class, it’s incredibly hard and time consuming, but the difficulty drops like a logarithm to a relatively low plateau after you’ve done it a few times. This appears to be reflected in data." I'm not entirely sure if this is a good reflection of the teaching role, or at least what it should be. Also, this statement to me gives the impression that teaching is a fairly static or fixed proce…

As another graduate student who teaches, I can confirm jseliger's claim. Teaching difficulty drops of insanely fast. Don't think of it as making the task automatic, but rather having familiar territory off of which to base the things you say. After one semester teaching a class, you discover what ideas the students tend to find most confusing and what types of errors are the most common. Having leftover notes from th…

I used to teach as a graduate student. It's nothing compared to what actual teachers do. Someone else has set the syllabus and usually has set the lecture notes. There was no teaching work for me to do during my "holidays". And while I didn't mark papers at home, the other grad students who did got paid - something that salaried teachers don't get. Sure, there's a bit of a hump in getting used to standing up the front of a class, but it's only a part of what being a teacher is.

The main article also neatly skips over the risk that teachers do have - excluding tertiary, they have far more job roles than they used to and get sued or abused with monotonous regularity, particularly in regards to their new-found 'nurse' role.

The whole article reeks of "teaching as a profession is just being a glorified graduate student TA" when it's clearly not. It's like a bricklayer saying that there's nothing special to being an architect.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#24

Post by jseliger » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 3:56 AM UTC

aik wrote: post #16

redxaxder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another graduate student who teaches, I can confirm jseliger's claim. Teaching difficulty drops of insanely fast. Don't think of it as making the task automatic, but rather having familiar territory off of which to base the things you say. After one semester teaching a class, you discover what ideas the students tend to find most confusing and what types of errors are the most common. Having leftover notes from th…

Perhaps we need to talk in scales or include some comparators here. I completely agree that difficulty does drop some with more subject knowledge, teaching experience, and familiarity with the subject and types of questions and students, but by how much really? To me it sounds like it's being suggested that teaching becomes "easy"? Effortless? Not necessarily mentally taxing? Not necessarily time consuming? I can't s…

"To me it sounds like it's being suggested that teaching becomes "easy"? Effortless? Not necessarily mentally taxing?"

I doubt teaching will ever be "effortless," at least if you're any good or aspire to be any good, but the idea that you have to spend five hours of prep (or some ridiculous number) for every hour of class; I probably spend ~15 minutes prepping for a 50 – 75 minute class if I've already read the material a couple times, have a loose lesson plan, and, as one of the above posters mentioned, know where the likely trouble spots are going to be.

If you're good or want to be good, I don't think you ever just phone it in. But these stories of hero teachers spending 12 hours a day, every day working to prep for class sound highly improbable to me, based in part on experience and based in part on the aforementioned BLS data.

Teaching can also be hugely mentally taxing while you're in the classroom. That's when I'm most on my toes and most ready to follow where the class goes; if a bunch of people want to discuss a subject, or unexpected questions arise, or whatever, you have to be ready to roll with it. Those are often the most satisfying classes. Most of the time I go in with a loose plan that'll cover whatever I'm shooting to cover that day, and if the class goes in another direction that's still productive, I'm ready to roll.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#25

Post by waterside81 » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 3:58 AM UTC

First observation: geez teachers in the US don't get paid "that much". In Ontario (province in Canada), teachers can max out after 12 years at > 100K a year, it's not at all unheard of. The teacher's union here is very powerful, for better or worse.

I think deciding on how much a teacher "should" earn simply based on the time they put in and then compare it to another profession misses a valuable point - teachers can make a huge difference in the life of a human being. What's that worth to society? If a great math teacher encourages 3 kids to become engineers, then his salary is much less than it should be.

I saw a post on HN the other day about a teacher who told an otherwise disillusioned student that he was "gifted". Simply by being told so (he wasn't giften in the traditional sense) completely changed his perspective on school. If he goes on to become a contributing member of society, a good father, and good role model for others, then that teacher is probably worth more than 70K a year.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#26

Post by learc83 » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 4:04 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #22

learc83 wrote: post #17

When I was in college several of my friends majored in early childhood education. Without a doubt it has to be the easiest major out there. While I was writing papers, my friends were learning how to make name tags with construction paper and crayons, and learning kiddy songs (this is not an exaggeration). The problem is that once you get the degree and jump through the hoops, you're in. That's all there is to it If…

I gather it depends on how you're entering the field. My mother studies early childhood development with a focus on how it can go wrong (I forget the technical term, but things like severe autism) It doesn't seem to be a 'hard' science, but it's still a science. As such, there's no glitter and construction paper involved, except when they are interacting with the children!

I think that vast majority of aspiring elementary teachers are not going to pursue a degree focusing on developmental disorders.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#27

Post by vacri » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 4:05 AM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #9

timjahn wrote: post #2

My wife is a high school English teacher. The ongoing joke with teachers is they get 3 months a year off. What other profession gets that, right? Speaking from experience, she generally brings home work every night (grading, lesson planning, etc). Weekends too. This fluctuates based on time of year (grading a round of research papers, preparing new lessons for a new quarter, etc). Summers off? Kinda. New lessons and…

"Speaking from experience, she generally brings home work every night (grading, lesson planning, etc). Weekends too. This fluctuates based on time of year (grading a round of research papers, preparing new lessons for a new quarter, etc)." That might be true for her. Nonetheless, the plural of anecdote is not data; as I observe in the post: "According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, the average teacher work…

The BLS data being based off the survey question "How much work did you do yesterday" and extrapolating from that, instead of something more direct like "how much work did you do last week". Anyway, Google is loaded with heaps of research into teacher workloads, this line "if anyone has better data, I'd like to see it" is just a handwaving throwaway line.

But if you really do have a problem with anecdotal data, why do things like bring up Bill Gates, who is not only an anecdotal point, but an obvious outlier at that?

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#28

Post by learc83 » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 4:08 AM UTC

waterside81 wrote: post #25

First observation: geez teachers in the US don't get paid "that much". In Ontario (province in Canada), teachers can max out after 12 years at > 100K a year, it's not at all unheard of. The teacher's union here is very powerful, for better or worse. I think deciding on how much a teacher "should" earn simply based on the time they put in and then compare it to another profession misses a valuable point - teachers can…

I agree that a great teacher is worth a substantial sum of money, but in order to pay it we first have to work out some objective metric.

It's relatively easy to become a teacher, so if we just start paying every teacher more money we just attract more substandard candidates.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#29

Post by antidaily » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 4:08 AM UTC

There's something uniquely American about bitching whenever someone has something you don't have. Most people have shitty benefits and 2 weeks off. The rest of the world has free healthcare and double the vacation days. But the problem isnt that our employers are cheap bastards, its that the teachers' unions are too strong. Right.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#30

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 4:09 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #26

sliverstorm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gather it depends on how you're entering the field. My mother studies early childhood development with a focus on how it can go wrong (I forget the technical term, but things like severe autism) It doesn't seem to be a 'hard' science, but it's still a science. As such, there's no glitter and construction paper involved, except when they are interacting with the children!

I think that vast majority of aspiring elementary teachers are not going to pursue a degree focusing on developmental disorders.

Certainly. I actually kind agree with your original point, from what I've seen of education majors. I took an education class in college, aced it and got rave reviews on my papers, and I barely even tried. Made me a little concerned about my fellow students in the course.