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Nobody wants to teach anymore

jessicalexicus.medium.com

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#441

Post by bobthepanda »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #392
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…

Sounds like there are two jobs here: babysitting, and teaching. Both are valuable, though likely that the former isn’t as difficult skill to master.

The problem is usually that in a very disrupted classroom, teaching is going to be impossible, so you do need to have the ability to keep things manageable.

If kids start climbing on things and throwing stuff no one is going to pay attention to math.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#442

Post by onetokeoverthe »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#443

Post by prepend »

munificent wrote: post #427
prepend wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Administration seems to be entirely manually based and has lots of positions that should be consolidated or automated. For example, each school in my county has at least one person dedicated to managing iPads and tech equipment. This isn’t the networking and server support or even desktop support, that’s done centrally. This is just a human who hands them out, collects them, and processes warranty claims. The person…

In many schools, the librarian is also the ad hoc asset manager. But that's yet another symptom of the problem the article talks about. Managing tech equiment takes a lot of time , and foisting that problem onto the librarian means they either do a shittier job being a librarian (recommending books to kids, etc.) or they work longer hours for no additional pay. You might argue that managing inventory should be automa…

My point wasn’t that asset management was easy. It does take time.

My point is that hiring an iPad manager as a 100% human is a bad idea. I suggested hiring an additional librarian, not adding extra work to the existing librarian.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#444

Post by treeman79 »

meetingthrower wrote: post #424
tristor wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Administrators. We have insane administrative bloat, especially in higher ed. In some institutions there is nearly a 1:1 count of administrators to faculty. Ironically, given the social politics implied by the author, a significant amount of administration bloat is specifically tied to DEI. 2. Well, they are. A teaching certification used to only require two years of higher learning compared to typical 4 for other…

Re #1) I was a school board member and did exhaustive analysis of our budget. For primary education through high school, admin is NOT the root cause. If you take any school budget, and strip away everything that is not an actual classroom teacher, you will find that ~1/3 or less goes to "frontline" teaching costs. Another 1/3 goes to special ed and all that is attendant with that. I mean, my district BOUGHT a car and…

Wife often gets kids who need to be in special Ed. Takes a few weeks or more.

Basically most of her time is spent dealing with the one kid. Or the aftermath. Not fun calling parents telling them that Susan is bleeding from a thrown chair. Of John was assaulted in the bathroom.

Lots of time spent chasing kid when he runs away.

Never mind her own wounds. These are kindergartners.

This year She’s currently has 2 full time aids for basically 2 kids. She only got the aids because she threatened to quit on the spot.

She deals with other 22 kids.

Pay is crap.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#445

Post by bobthepanda »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #394
danaris wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 dis…

> Making/updating lesson plans Why? Are they really better than khan academy at doing a lesson plan? Isn’t this like a software engineer complaining they have to write their own database driver in their spare time after work?

In general, it is a good idea to personalize lesson plans based on how well people did or didn’t react to the last one, and khan academy certainly doesn’t do anything like that, nor does it work for everyone.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#446

Post by rayiner »

tristor wrote: post #391
_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. Administrators. We have insane administrative bloat, especially in higher ed. In some institutions there is nearly a 1:1 count of administrators to faculty. Ironically, given the social politics implied by the author, a significant amount of administration bloat is specifically tied to DEI. 2. Well, they are. A teaching certification used to only require two years of higher learning compared to typical 4 for other…

> That and parents/social fabric encourages and allows anti-social behavior and viewpoints.

This is under-appreciated. I don’t know about other 1990s kids, but a lot of my teachers growing up pushed a “question authority” attitude. Like, painting the Tinker anti-Vietnam War protestors in a positive light, etc. “Follow social norms without questioning them” definitely wasn’t a thing we were taught. Is it really surprising then that you ended up with a generation who thinks Joe Rogen is a smart guy they should listen to?

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#447

Post by nvahalik »

Our kids attend a hybrid school. Home 2/3 days at school 2/3 days. It’s technically a private school but it leans way more classical.

During orientation we learned a LOT of our new co-teachers were actually ex public school teachers. They were tired of the direction of the schools and didn’t want to subject their kids to the conditions they saw.

They want to teach. They love teaching. Just not in the public schools.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#448

Post by andrewprock »

throw0101a wrote: post #206
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…

> Counterpoint: teachers' pay is great, it's just backloaded in pension plans. Counter-points to that: You still have to pay the bills before retirement. And this even assumes they get a good pensions, because a lot of states don't bother funding their public employee pensions properly (using current-year tax income for splashy announcements instead, kicking the liability down the road for the next politician): * htt…

Teachers in the US get decent salaries and good pensions. It may be different from from state to state, but in California you can work for 25 years and retire without ever having to work again by the age of 50.

You'll have to learn to live on a low salary for the first 5-10 years of your career. But pensions are paid based on your terminal salary, not your average salary. For elementary school teachers in my district the terminal salary was in excess of $100k as of 2017.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#450

Post by stevenwoo »

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…

A better model for public education exists: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-s... But in the USA the federal/state separation and other political considerations are so ingrained it would be hard to do this sort of revolutionary change.
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