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Nobody wants to teach anymore

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#281

Post by onos »

yonaguska wrote: post #241

> States banned math books for being too woke. > being asked to breathe children’s germs Ok. This article is basically a long rant, and this kind of teacher is exactly what contributed to the burning out of my wife as a teacher. She wanted to teach math, but was being asked to teach social justice math. > I mean, they’re letting anyone in the classroom now. I’m surprised they haven’t started recruiting the homeless.…

I’d pay a premium to access teachers like your wife. I’m not against my children having whatever politics they come to through their experiences, but am very weary of biased presentation and indoctrination.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#282

Post by falcolas »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #245
birdyrooster wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I volunteer with kids, and I see parents who prioritize sports where they have to pay a lot of money for fees over more scholastic and much cheaper programs for the smaller chance of getting a sports scholarship/career than more plentiful academic scholarships. I don't know if they think their children just aren't capable intellectually or what.

At least in my case, sports was my parent’s opportunity to socialize. It was never really about my interests or well being, they didn’t want to lose their contextual friends and contacts. It was so bad I was disallowed from doing speech and debate in high school.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#283

Post by fleetwoodsnack »

diognesofsinope wrote: post #261
lostcolony wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Counterpoint: teachers' pay is great, it's just backloaded in pension plans. Yet another counter counterpoint - there are still companies and government jobs with defined pension plans that pay far more than teachers. Even without those, there are still many, many jobs requiring a comparative amount of education, far fewer hours worked, and pay more even once you subtract maximizing 401k contributions yearly (let a…

Half the reason to be a teacher is because half the job is having fun. Most curricula is set in stone and requirements are nationally standardized (US and Asia). You more or less get summers off (there are conferences and summer school) and there are almost no jobs where you can take ~1.5 months off every year. Teaching is also one of the few steady jobs in rural America. I feel like most people haven't been in an ac…

5th grade education for my children has one 45-minute “play” recess (which doesn’t involve direct teacher instruction) and one 1-hour Physical Education class lead by a gym teacher.

The rest of their day 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM is composed of maths, language, science, history, and technology education all done on paper or at purpose-designated computers. Next year they will receive their own devices.

The playing with blocks and Lincoln logs ended in kindergarten, with the introduction of spelling test and arithmetic quizzes in first grade, so I’m not sure if I’d characterize the work my childrens’ teachers do as “literally half of it is playing games/trying to have fun” or that “[h]alf the reason to be a teacher is because half the job is having fun.”

Seems like it is hard work, with both practical instruction directed toward 20-30 children with varying levels of discipline, interest, and abilities, and management of just as many if not more parents with similarly varying levels of discipline, interest, and abilities.

This is a public school in one of the largest state systems in the country (United States) so perhaps your experience is informed by something more niche.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#284

Post by mattkrause »

GiorgioG wrote: post #80
kevingadd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what standard is that actually "plenty"? Is that $13185 enough to properly fund all the services a child needs for a proper education? And if it's not, why not? How much do you believe we should be spending per student? You can point at a big number and say 'that's enough' but we spend large amounts of money on all sorts of things, the number being large doesn't mean it's sufficient. There are tons of children in…

By the standard that we're systematically mismanaging the funds we are spending. The bussing system is absurdly inefficient and wholly unnecessary. Neighborhood schools used to be a thing. Some school systems offer 'gold plated' healthcare plans where they include cosmetic surgery as a benefit to a school system that needs more money spent towards actual education. I'm not advocating doing away with the public educat…

> Some school systems offer 'gold plated' healthcare plans

So? If you want good teachers--or at, some point, any teachers--you need to offer working conditions that are good enough to attract them, just like any other job.

Spending on benefits "instead of" education is a false dichotomy; in fact, I'd say that's the central thesis of the article.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#285

Post by mattkrause »

GiorgioG wrote: post #62
uniqueuid wrote: post #2

As a European, it has always been perplexing to me how little the US invests in teachers and schools, given that we know how huge the benefits are down the road (educational attainment, income, pro-social behavior, life satisfaction). Watching how large parts of the political spectrum embrace hardship as a societal teaching tool, I begin to understand that the expectation may always have been that kids ought to figur…

Seems like US spending is slightly higher than European countries. We're not getting our money's worth here. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...

These cross-national comparisons are tricky.

For example, US spending on education includes a bunch of healthcare costs, as the employers are paying something (as a benefit) and employee salaries need to cover the rest. Somewhere with single-payer healthcare will directly allocate the money to healthcare instead.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#286

Post by rayiner »

dadoge wrote: post #242
rayiner wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. It seems that education degrees are seen as easier to achieve than others. Here is the problem. Teachers in America compare themselves to professionals, but their test scores are below the average for college educated people generally: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/... . Now 40% of college graduates don’t even get a job that requires a college degree. Disproportionately, those are p…

If we paid them more, it’d be easier to hold them to a higher standard

I’m all for creating a new salary band for teachers with 1300+ SAT scores and STEM degrees. I’ll pay whatever taxes you want for that.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#287

Post by falcolas »

viraptor wrote: post #69
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…

> most qualified high school physics teachers have way differently valued skillsets in the labor force by alternate employers than most kindergarten teachers. Do they? I read that as implying that physics teachers could potentially get some stem jobs. But is that actually true? If you can do math, you can teach yourself enough physics to teach in high school. But that gets you nowhere near the knowledge necessary for…

The physics knowledge isn’t the important part of being a physics teacher. The “teacher” part is. Teaching is its own discipline for a reason.

Or, the ability to explain physics to one person is not the ability to successfully teach physics to 30 teenagers in a high school setting.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#288

Post by Ekaros »

logicalmonster wrote: post #183
uniqueuid wrote: post #2

As a European, it has always been perplexing to me how little the US invests in teachers and schools, given that we know how huge the benefits are down the road (educational attainment, income, pro-social behavior, life satisfaction). Watching how large parts of the political spectrum embrace hardship as a societal teaching tool, I begin to understand that the expectation may always have been that kids ought to figur…

> As a European, it has always been perplexing to me how little the US invests in teachers and schools, given that we know how huge the benefits are down the road (educational attainment, income, pro-social behavior, life satisfaction). 1) European perspectives on a lot of American problems miss one of the biggest differences between us: you have a lot more of a homogeneous population. There's numerous differences be…

1) Do those really have that big difference? Should they? I could see a point if we were discussing first or second generation immigrants. Specially not those from highly educated parents.

Coming from Finland which did rather well with much less hours spend it might as well be systematic issue. Maybe process of the teaching itself has something wrong.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#289

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #255
atoav wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would "social justice math" look like? Serious question, I can't even imagine. Here in Europe math education hasn't changed a ton in the past decades at all.

It’s an effort by teachers unions to use their presence in schools to socialize minority children into viewing themselves as victims of pervasive racism and to cultivate activist leanings that will lead them to vote democrat (the party tightly aligned with teachers unions): https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teaching-math-throu...

[deleted]

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#290

Post by noasaservice »

brohoolio wrote: post #108
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…

Starting salaries for many districts for jobs that require a masters is pathetic. Many suburban schools pay decent, but often urban centers pay poorly. I know one person who was offered under $30k for teaching young special Ed folks. This is someone who has a masters and extra certs on tops of that. Your argument about physics teachers being more sought after is interesting but misses the point. As a society we want…

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