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Nobody wants to teach anymore

jessicalexicus.medium.com

331–340 of 1001 posts

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#331
post #310

The lack of respect for education and the teaching profession will be the downfall of the West, IMO. It’s not like that everywhere. My father was a teacher and I am very proud of that. However, I grew up thinking “my goodness, I never want to do this”. It’s a real shame.

Writing from South Korea. My father was a teacher and I am very proud of that and basically everyone around me reinforced that pride by showing respect. Everything I read about US teachers is so alien.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not actually sure that's "plenty". For comparison - we currently pay more per year to keep our 1 year old child in daycare (roughly ~15,000/yr) and for daycare we literally only expect them to keep him alive & clean. And this is considered a "cheap" daycare. Most places in our area (the much cheaper south-west side of Atlanta) still charge more than 1600/m or almost 20k/yr. We certainly don't expect them to be si…

>For comparison - we currently pay more per year to keep our 1 year old child in daycare (roughly ~15,000/yr) and for daycare we literally only expect them to keep him alive & clean You cannot compare the per child costs of taking care of a kid who cannot go to the toilet themselves or eat by themself with a kid who is much more self sufficient. The person taking care of a baby (or 4 babies) might need to be much les…

I think comparing the costs between the 5 year olds in our daycare and the 6 year olds entering first grade is entirely fair.

Our daycare gets more expensive as the child ages - not less.

> The person taking care of a baby (or 4 babies) might need to be much less qualified than an AP physics teacher in high school, but the labor (and liability) costs do not necessarily scale exactly with the minimum qualifications needed to be an AP physics teacher versus a daycare teacher.

And this - this is exactly what I'm contesting. Why is it we're ok paying someone who should be able to teach complex and technical skills to children (high school physics) barely more than a high school grad who is only qualified to tend to infants? Worse - why do we let class sizes balloon to the point where one-on-one interactions are incredibly hard?

One requires considerably more skills, considerably more education, and frankly much more work (and I'm not talking about the one tending the infants). Yet they're expected to effectively teach class sizes of between 25 and 32 (which is the technical max for the state - but I've frequently seen this balloon as high as 45)

Yet the daycare worker is making almost the rate of an intro physics teacher (17/h vs 19/h). And the very top most earners are making only 30/h. Being a manager at a McDonalds is FAR more lucrative (avg of 98k vs the avg physics teacher in GA at 43k). That should be a giant fucking red flag.

The numbers aren't even that far off - There are ~500 McDonalds locations in GA, and ~525 public high schools. Each McDonalds location has ~3 managers (shift manager, assistant manager, store manager) And they all make more than intro physics teachers. (from 50k to ~100k)

When flipping burgers is literally more lucrative... I fail to be compelled by your argument.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#333
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…

"Disruptive children" are arguably dusruptive because the system is soul sucking and one size fits all. Its just not going to work for everyone. Forest schools all the way

[deleted]

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#334
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…

> 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…

I thought it was well known that disruptive kids are often unrecognised creative/smart kids who are challenging the authority/leadership of the teacher. There has been some research on this in the UK, look into some of the work by David Price around creative test answers.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#335
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Counterpoint: teachers' pay is great, it's just backloaded in pension plans. 25% of teachers in Minnesota leave the profession within three years [1] so they see no pension. This sort of weed out is common in a lot of professions and it's probably for the best, but weed out careers often combine high starting pay to attract a large pool of candidates. Public sector jobs exchange low pay for a pension and stability…

I expect attrition is priced into the pension at some level, or worse, it needs these contributions to function at all. This is perhaps best for the profession, but it is systematic theft from another point of view. Even if you don’t contribute to the pension with cash, capital is still allocated on your behalf into the fund that could have been paid to you directly.

>capital is still allocated on your behalf into the fund that could have been paid to you directly.

For taxpayer funded pensions, it is more like future taxpayers’ capital is allocated on your behalf.

Meaning, the actuary will calculate the government needs to set aside $2 today, the government leaders will say change that to $1 so the taxes are low today, and will end up actually contributing $0.50 because some of the funds were needed to make up for yesterday’s shortfall.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#336
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…

> 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 school rather than “thank you”? Well many students hated school, it is what it is. If you get beat up on a daily basis or are bored out of your mind (because let's face it, most of the material IS boring) I don't see why you should feel obligated to thank yo…

I agree that there are reasons someone would hate school, but it doesn't make sense for it to be a cultural norm to say that to teachers. No one ever says "wow you murder people for Uncle Sam for money?" to someone who was in the military, they say "thank you for your service". I think that's what the author was getting at. It's not just low pay; teaching is thankless, even looked down upon.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#337
"Teachers are underpaid, so let's spend more on education!" right?

Wrong, or at least, a grade of Incomplete.

http://usedbyeducatorsblog.com/education-spending-vs-teacher...

Colorado has enjoyed a 15 percent increase in spending per student from 1992 to 2014 when adjusted for inflation. Put another way, in 2014 Colorado public school students had 15 percent more real resources spent on their education compared to students in 1992. During that same period, however, the average Colorado teacher’s salary has gone down by 11 percent when adjusted for inflation

This is fairly universal, I'd surmise. Most commenters seem to assume that if we wanted to spend, let's say, $100M more on teachers' salaries, we'd have to increase the public education budget by $100M. More like $300M, I'd guess.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#338
The same could be said about the UK. Anecdotally, every single teacher I know has either quit or moved into the private sector, with the exception of those with partners in a better paid profession. I'm genuinely surprised that anyone will do the job.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#339
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…

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…

Help me understand the proud dropout concept. I cannot wrap my mind around it.

My single mom worked three jobs to put me through private school and pay for my college. I grew up thinking that no college == bag groceries for the rest of your life.

How could anyone be proud of depriving themselves of the tools to succeed in life? It's like being proud of gouging out your own eyes and walking around blind.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You mean, the kids won the Genetics Lottery?

Yes, getting born with parents who care about you is definitely a smart life hack.

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