Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nobody wants to teach anymore

jessicalexicus.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 1001 posts

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#431

Post by Tomte »

status_quo69 wrote: post #345
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.

> The rallying cry seems to be that "2+2=4 is racist". Source? This is such a wild claim it has to be made up. A cursory google search brings this article: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teaching-math-throu... Which is distilled down to "teachers teach math in a way that is topical to the current environment, such as BLM protests which is really nothing new. You might disagree with it, sure, but to say that…

> Source?

For example the Wall Street Journal. And hundreds of similar articles.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-california-2-2-4-may-be-thou...

> This is such a wild claim it has to be made up.

This is against the site's rules.

> I'm personally hard pressed to find that one person tweeting means that all math teachers everywhere

Funny how you build up a straw man. I never claimed any of that.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#432

Post by prepend »

sanderjd wrote: post #244
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…

The thing to compare to is the jobs the teachers could do if they weren't teachers. All of them have college degrees, many have masters degrees. The comparison point should be generic white collar office jobs, which are pretty much all easier (and especially , less annoying), higher paying, and more respected.

Generic office jobs don’t pay that much. At least the kind that require education degrees. And they lack security.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#433

Post by yourcousinbilly »

CharlesW wrote: post #419
elforce002 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true in almost every country. Education is a money pit.

> Education is a money pit. How exactly do you mean this? The U.S. spent $90.5 billion for "Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education" in 2021* (a subset of "Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services"), which is 1.3% of $6.82 trillion in total 2021 government expenditures. Compare to $696.5B for Medicare, $754.8B for National Defense, etc. If anything, this illustrates how relatively unimportant a ba…

“Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States were $800 billion in 2018–19 (in constant 2020–21 dollars). This amounts to $15,621 per public school pupil enrolled in the fall of that year.”

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#434

Post by RickJWagner »

Well, that's a mixed bag.

My son just started his second year teaching kindergarten. I agree teaching is underappreciated and under paid.

I'm from South Dakota, I have a different view of the event she described. In my view, teachers were able to volunteer to score donated dollars by taking part in a light-hearted fund raiser. Accusing the organizers of being monsters assures there will be no further donated-money galas.

My wife also acts as a substitute teacher. From what I can gather, unruly kids who do not understand discipline are perhaps the biggest cause of unnecessary stress.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#435

Post by bobthepanda »

prepend wrote: post #416
jschveibinz wrote: post #365

I am an early-retired EE and I thought that I could have a second career in teaching HS physics. I got the MA Teaching in Maryland, and did my one year student teaching assignment. My thoughts: 1. The degree program was decent, although a certificate program would be better for prior professionals if the law allowed it (lower cost, too much wasted time in redundant classes). 2. Teachers are sad. Very sad. They are un…

> teachers work more in 9 months than most professionals I want to understand this more and think we need to measure this well. As a software dev, I’ve always struggled with measuring the amount of work performed and usually disregard measures of intellectual output as misleading measures (eg, lines of code, story points completed, whatever). What makes you think teachers work more in 9 months than a typical professi…

Teachers are changing professions, in large numbers, and have been for a while. TFA discusses that and how districts are resorting to desperate measures to get bodies to teach, like drafting in college kids, cutting school hours, and importing them.

You don’t have one student. You have easily dozens, maybe hundreds. There isn’t enough time to actively teach, and grade all their stuff, and figure out the next lesson plan in the eight hour day.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#436

Post by RickJWagner »

_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…

Agreed on the point that bad parenting makes teaching difficult.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#437

Post by prepend »

mattkrause wrote: post #258
prirun wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pupil-hour" makes no sense in a classroom environment. When you were babysitting, they didn't pay you $10/hr per kid.

Many people did, actually. The amount of work/responsibility definitely scales with the number of kids, and it's not exactly linear either: one will color quietly, two might play together--or fight, and three or more...yikes. I mentioned the rate because it surprised me it was so close. I'd expect that it costs more to actually educate a kid, and of course, the parents provided the house (and often ice cream and HBO)…

If you can get a job for $10/pupil/hour for 30 kids for 7 hours a day, go for it. ($2,100 per day)

I don’t think that exists. So comparing babysitting for a few rich kids to teaching full time makes no sense.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#438

Post by tejohnso »

> Americans think it’s great that some dude like Joe Rogan or Elon Musk can make a fortune off being an asshole.

Could've done without this pathetic personal attack on two of the most successful people in their domains. Joe Rogan bringing an outstanding format, guests, and great conversation that people are willing to pay for, and Musk bringing intelligence and obsessive drive and courage to bear on multiple industries, resulting in world changing improvements. But sure, just call them assholes and somehow attribute their financial success to that. If that's all it took, there would be a lot more people with a net worth of nine or ten figures.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#439

Post by selimthegrim »

supertofu wrote: post #339
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…

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.

It’s like giving the finger to the man who wants to screw your over and take resources from you.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#440

Post by [deleted] »

baazaa wrote: post #273

Schools are just a place for warehousing kids; even people who take no interest in education know this from personal experience back from when they were a kid. Exactly 0 of 627 college students can answer simple questions like 'What is the name of the mountain range that separates Europe from Asia?' or 'What is the last name of the author of The Brothers Karamazov?'. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN