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Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

jseliger.com

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Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#31

Post by vacri »

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…

Don't forget either that "It gets easier as you get more experienced" happens in all professions. Those people who now find it "easy" are people with skills, and people with skills are worth more money because they do things "easily".

I'd like to see someone approach any other professional and claim she should get less money now that her job comes more easily to her.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#33

Post by odd_sort »

T-R wrote: post #19
jseliger wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Not that I have any reason to doubt the BLS data, but does anyone know of any other data on the issue? Everyone seems to be citing the same pdf.

I think what makes people question the data is that the average hours of work per week match up pretty well with the time a teacher spends at school, which is insufficient to cover duties like planning lessons and grading papers (see for example any work-to-contract strike).

In any case, the ATUS specifies that its questions are about work done for pay/profit or free for a family business (since teachers typically work more hours than stated in their contract, a lot of work they do is not for pay).

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#34

Post by phillijw »

vacri wrote: post #27
jseliger wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Bill Gates is an outlier but that isn't helping your case. A lot of people TRY to become Bill Gates and fail. Those are the people risking a lot. You don't hear much about them though.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#35

Post by aik »

jseliger wrote: post #24
aik wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mater…

> "But these stories of hero teachers spending 12 hours a day, every day working to prep for class sound highly improbable to me"

The stories I hear about are the ones of teachers working ~12 hours a day because they teach several different subjects a day and constantly have mounds of documentation the state requires of them on every student. In addition, they have large classes and spend hours and hours grading and providing valuable feedback on homework/projects and exams.

For the sake of the discussion, some sample thoughts about what the "good" teachers think about:

What about considering the larger questions? Why are the students in the course in the first place? Throughout the course, are they being inspired to continue their studies outside of class? Why is the material on the syllabus actually on the syllabus -- what purpose does any of it serve the students? Is this purpose taught in such a way that it is understood by the students? Are they often intrinsically motivated to learn or are most of them just seeking a good grade? How can you structure each activity, lecture, and exam to ensure or encourage students to be intrinsically motivated and care about their learning and development? How can you help students desire the knowledge long-term, rather than just for the course or for their studies...? Are the students learning to think about the subject at a deeper level -- more like the experts? How can you encourage such thinking? Is the learning environment or atmosphere itself safe and welcoming -- encouraging students to ask questions without fear of failure or looking dumb, and is free from stereotypes and negative expectations -- does it encourage free-thinking, discovery, negotiation of meaning -- does the teacher feedback encourage all this? Is the learning functional or is it just leading to correct answers? Do the students to the proper extent have control over their own education/learning? Are the expectations in place to encourage this? Is it thought about what should be expected of the students once they complete the lesson, section or course? What deep mental models does it appear the students have that prevent them from learning to their fullest? How could those be tackled? How can it be encouraged to collaborate on finding answers? How can the course be taught by having the students asking the proper questions rather than being told what to think?... and so on.

Taxing...

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#36

Post by miked »

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 went to grad school on CS for a year, focusing on AI. I then realized that I was more interested in improving reasoning in people rather than machines, so I switched to Ed. Psych. I can still recall my astonishment at how much lower the quality of grad students in the education school was. A very few bright ones and a whole lot of "dumm".

One anecdote: I was focusing for a while on better ways to teach algebra word problems. I put up some examples and not one education grad student, or the professor, could solve even one of them. I'm talking about stuff like "a boat goes 5 miles in an hour against the current and ..." Nada.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#37

Post by jhaglund »

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…

I think we should all get a few months off a year. I wish the people complaining about teacher "vacation" benefits would instead demand more vacation time for themselves.

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#39

Post by maeon3 »

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.

I see how using the word "Communism" can be taken as an insult, I didn't mean it as one. I'm using the dictionary definition of Communism here.

When I think "Communism in American schools", I think of the famous communism quote: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Re: Are teachers underpaid? It depends.

#40

Post by scott_s »

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…

Okay, but do you want good teachers, or do you want mediocre teachers? What are your expectations for good teachers? Do you think their pay compensates for their time and effort?
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