Nobody wants to teach anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#351

Post by ErikVandeWater » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #247

The US has always experienced relentless political activism against public education. This creates a climate where teachers, and the institution they work in, are actively hated by a wide swath of the public. This is due in no small part to proponents of religious education. It's true that teachers receive an above-average salary, but that can be both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that your wages are a matter…

> The US has always experienced relentless political activism against public education.

Lol we spend almost 3x more on k-12 public education now (inflation adjusted) than we did in 1960. I really doubt the relentless political activism was on the side against public education. Really, the cost to educate a child should have gone down substantially relative to inflation given new technologies that make teaching easier and faster.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#352

Post by grapeskin » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

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…

Being around kids all day isn’t fun. It’s stressful. Part of the job is appearing to be calm and approachable to the children and it absolutely wears out most people.

It’s just like thinking enjoying having a pet means you’d love working with dozens of dogs all day. If you’re lucky to have well behaved dogs, it’s okay. But you’re most likely going to have some barking all day, one’s going to vomit, some are going to fight, and any time anything happens the owners completely blame you and will threaten you in every way they can imagine.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#353

Post by BuyMyBitcoins » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #322

One thing I wonder is if teachers are in such high demand, why do they put up with crap from their administrators and politicians saying that this is what they have to teach and how they have to teach it. Why don’t they just teach whatever they want to teach and do it however they want to do it? The worst that can happen is they will be fired, but they can probably find a new teaching position easily since there is s…

>”The worst that can happen is they will be fired, but they can probably find a new teaching position easily since there is such a high demand.”

Just like any career, the next institution looking to hire someone is going to ask about why that person left their last job. Regardless of whether or not the next school is public or private, they’re going to want to hire a teacher that is compliant rather than defiant. Even in the face of a teachers shortage, these schools are still obligated to teach a curriculum and won’t want to hire someone who they will likely have to replace in short order.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#354

Post by AlbertCory » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #70

throwaway9870 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying crap wages, but put some real numbers up here. What do you consider crap wages?

Let’s just go with crap wages == whatever isn’t sufficient to keep enough people in the profession, such that you need to start recruiting wildly unqualified people just to fill the spot.

You almost had me at "whatever isn’t sufficient to keep enough people" but then dammit, you lost at "wildly unqualified people"

If you mean "having an education degree" or "getting a grossly irrelevant teacher's certificate" then no, those are not "qualifications." Those are just the teacher's union contract provisions.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#355

Post by 29athrowaway » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

_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…

6. Teachers are often completely out of touch with technology.

Math teachers could be using Jupyter notebooks and decent plots. Instead they are using their poor drawing skills.

Everyone should do what 3b1b is doing.

They could be using cool physics simulations, but instead everything are lame poorly drawn arrows.

Technology that exists for education often has developer art level UX and bad usability.

7. Art used in school material is cringy as fuck. What artists think kids like and what kids actually like has nothing to do with each other.

8. There could be a github or reddit of class material that teachers could use, saving teachers' time and improving the learning experience.

9. People in the department of education are fucking bozos and should all be fired. Their job is to neglect education so that politicians can keep using better education as vote bait.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#356

Post by plorkyeran » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #297

treis wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Admission is by lottery if there are more applicants than places, not by cherry-picking applicants. Filtering out kids who's parents aren't willing or able to complete the application process is the cherry-picking.

So what do you propose, that they send out applications at random to households in the community? There is bias in everything, but at least they aren't adding more than needs there needs to be.

Pointing out that a bias exists is not always a call to eliminate that bias. The fact that merely requiring an application rather than being the default option improves average outcomes isn't a problem that needs to be solved. It's just something that should be kept in mind when comparing schools.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#357

Post by flerchin » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

Is there any evidence that teachers are experiencing a labor shortage out of line with any other industry? My kids' teachers are awesome, and they're quite good at their jobs. My district also pays quite a bit more than the state average in Texas.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#358

Post by greenie_beans » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

msrenee wrote: post #298

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…

Teaching pays nothing compared to CS, finance, basically most things you need a degree for. Those brilliant individuals who would like to teach have to decide if their passion is worth making less money than some warehouses are paying around here. Those who don't have the grades or abilities to reach for the higher-paid fields have less of a dilemma. We're actively selecting against the candidates who have more lucra…

I work in tech and would likely teach if it paid the same. My plan has always been to front load my retirement savings early in my career through tech so that I can take a lower paying teaching job when I'm older.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#359

Post by greenie_beans » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #191

diognesofsinope wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

what about a child/family's socioeconomic situation? would that not be a factor? seems like a rich kid is already setup for success regardless of public school or private school. most of the rich kids from my public school are doing fine.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#360

Post by ekimekim » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

yonaguska wrote: post #291

Tomte wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rallying cry seems to be that "2+2=4 is racist". Expanded a bit, it seems to be that insisting that some answers are "wrong" disregards students' differing backgrounds and diverse avenues to solve problems.

Some of it was also that she shouldn't expect students to do homework, or she was expected to try and use word problems with narratives.

Those...sound like reasonable things?

Many students aren't going to learn by rote memorization of completing homework. It it helpful to support different learning styles.

A big problem with math education is that it's too abstract. It's hard to relate mathematical concepts to real life. "When are we going to use this?", people ask. Phrasing your questions in terms of real problems with a narrative can help students learn.