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Nobody wants to teach anymore

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#211

Post by lr4444lr »

justin66 wrote: post #51
lr4444lr wrote: post #15

I realize this piece is more of a rant, and I won't hold it to a data accuracy standard it never pretended to have, but they pay issue is really misconstrued. Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median, and when accounting for benefits and pension, quite impressive. In South Dakota and a number of states in the south and rural districts, yes it is another story, and it is bad. Also, teachers N…

> when accounting for benefits and pension That many teacher’s pensions require one to give up social security benefits makes the decision to teach more difficult, I would think, especially for those who are later in their working lives.

> That many teacher’s pensions require one to give up social security benefits

Patently untrue unless maybe you work for the Dept of Defense or something. Teachers can collect SS like any other employee.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#212

Post by danaris »

aetherson wrote: post #136
vostok wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median Is the median the correct benchmark? The median household income in NYC was $67k in 2021 [0]. Why would someone choose to be a teacher making around the median [1] when you could be a software engineer and make 3x as much? It's not just a matter of trinkets and baubles. That difference allows you to comfortably afford a nice family sized apartment […

People might want to be teachers rather than software engineers because teachers get enormous amounts of time off, have extremely high levels of job security, plus all the usual reasons that not everyone is in the very highest paying profession. Why aren't you a hedge fund manager?

> teachers get enormous amounts of time off

Anyone who's actually been or known a teacher knows this is false.

During the school year, in the time they're not actively teaching, teachers are

- Coaching sports

- Overseeing other student extracurricular activities

- Making/updating lesson plans

- Presiding over detention

- Tutoring students who need more 1:1 time

- Serving on school committees (especially in larger districts)

During the summer, teachers generally spend a large percentage of their time laying out the curriculum for the coming year. This is especially true for those in smaller districts, where one teacher has to teach three or four different levels of the same subject (or even multiple completely different subjects!).

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#213

Post by origin_path »

readingnews wrote: post #169
SamuelAdams wrote: post #22

> Demoralization is what happens when you spend years becoming an expert in a subject area, and nobody cares. They’d rather hire another MBA to make all the important decisions, while they stick us on committees writing reports for ghosts. That’s when teachers start to withdraw from their jobs, when we realize it doesn’t matter what we think, and it definitely doesn’t matter how amazing we are at what we do. This was…

I was going to quote that very paragraph, as a professor teaching three classes this semester, in addition to my 50 hour a week job as the technical director. I see at my university the outside consultants telling us how and when to teach. But OPs first sentence here seems to ring true a lot on my campus. Your boss, HR, some organization called "student success" which is made up of MBAs that have never taught a class…

In fairness a lot of professors are terrible teachers and don't really care about teaching at all. My own course was full of them. I'm sure they didn't like to hear it though.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#214

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

raverbashing wrote: post #163
RobotToaster wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people hate lawyers, but plenty of people still want to be one.

Nah I think most people like "the idea" of being a lawyer (or a doctor). But to actually be one it's much harder, and that's when they get a reality check Lawyers will mostly attest how divorce/family practice has nothing on actual criminal practice, and it might be even harder. Most people don't know about the long hours, the case studies, etc. They think it's the romantic view of what they see on TV Doctors have to…

> Nah I think most people like "the idea" of being a lawyer (or a doctor). But to actually be one it's much harder, and that's when they get a reality check

Same with writing software. I get rather tired of running into people that obviously took it up for the money, then found they weren't particularly good at it. Being a good engineer (software, or otherwise) is hard.

In my experience, these folks tend to be quite concerned about the "culture," as opposed to the actual art of the field. They look and sound great, but don't rely on them to actually ship anything.

Delivering software is really difficult. I've been doing it for my entire adult life, so it's become pretty much habit. It's always shocking to encounter folks that aren't able to deliver software, yet have been in the field for a very long time.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#216

Post by riley_dog »

diognesofsinope wrote: post #167
_vdpp wrote: post #98

A few random thoughts: 1. For as much as we spend on education, teachers seem to be grossly underpaid - to be getting robbed of their share of the budget. Where does that money go? 2. It seems that education degrees are seen as easier to achieve than others. 3. Teachers frequently complain about how they are unappreciated, yet children spend _12 years_ in their care. Why do people come up to them and say they hated s…

> 1. For as much as we spend on education, teachers seem to be grossly underpaid - to be getting robbed of their share of the budget. Where does that money go? Counterpoint: teachers' pay is great, it's just backloaded in pension plans. > 2. It seems that education degrees are seen as easier to achieve than others. Yeah, but cost is the same and cost is what's important. > 4. Many school problems are caused by disrup…

> The licensing requirements in Minnesota are insane.

No they're not. We just want qualified people teaching our children. There's a reason why Minnesota has some great schools.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#217

Post by bendbro »

gumby wrote: post #181
pnf wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes someone qualified to be a teacher is also qualified to be a software engineer. Have you met a lot of urban public school teachers?

What has “urban” to do with it?

What has "what has 'urban'" to do with it?

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#218

Post by birdyrooster »

_vdpp wrote: post #179
chadash wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disruptive children are caused by parents who frankly just don’t give a shit. Throwing more money into schools won’t ever fix this problem. I was a disruptive child and my parents were the opposite of people who didn’t give a shit. Both of them highly valued education and spent plenty of time with me. they just had to contend with a child who wasn’t well behaved at school and it was genetics more than anything they…

That’s valid, there are different kinds of disruptive kids. A good friend of mine at high school was very bright, kind of a troublemaker, diagnosed with ADHD, took prescription Ritalin, was a bit of a pain in the ass with his teachers, but had parents who cared and he ended up graduating and doing fine.

I never formed good habits and I really wish my parent prioritized that (Ritalin) over growing big and tall for a minuscule chance of making it in pro sports.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#219

Post by mmcdermott »

danaris wrote: post #195
bombcar wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that almost all of the success of private schools can be ascribed to being able to kick students out and not requiring fifty billion dollars in degrees to teach.

Almost all of the success of private schools is, in fact, the former. Being able to select who goes there basically lets them set their outcomes.

To a degree. There's some sampling bias as well because the kind of parent that would choose a non-default education option probably cares more to begin with.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#220

Post by dorchadas »

_vdpp wrote: post #199
dorchadas wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former teacher from the States (and maybe will go back to it one day, either internationally, or in another country permanently, depending on how life works out), I'd live to give my answers to some of this. Note, I'm biased. My undergraduate degree was not in teaching but in physics. I did a masters programme in teaching to transition to becoming a teacher. I enjoyed teaching, but just ended up finding it borin…

Why are differentiated classes such a taboo? I feel like a more trades-oriented approach with kids who don’t have the desire, motivation or aptitude for college would lead to more engagement and give those kids a better chance at success.

For my case, it was very school specific. Basically, our counselors were lazy and didn't want to deal with the scheduling headache of adding accelerated classes for science. We also had a good attached vocational school, which did wonders for a lot of kids; I had some graduate as fully certified welders and go make more money than me right out of high school. But there were still the issues in their other classes, sadly.

But, to answer the question more broadly, it's the 'equality' bit I think. I'm all for giving everyone equal opportunity, and the ability to move into accelerated pathways if you can prove you have the requisite knowledge to do so. But if you stick students with learning disabilities with accelerated students nobody is going to have a good time. It doesn't help either group and just harms them.

And, again, I say this as someone who didn't think California's math updates were all that terrible. Pushing kids to do stats as opposed to just the whole "everyone needs to aim towards calculus" attitude is a great thing and I stand behind that. But if we can differentiate classes, we can serve all groups of kids better and provide better outcomes for all. But the whole class needs to be differentiated; differentiation within a set of 30 kids is nigh impossible, especially when there's such a gap between abilities. For a personal story, the smartest kid I ever taught was in my last year teaching. He worked hard, if there was something he didn't understand he asked for more help and practice problems. The lowest kid I ever taught was in the same class. The kid was a freshman in high school and couldn't add single digit numbers without a calculator. There's no way that should ever be happening.

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