Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk • Hacker News Board

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#581

Post by int_19h » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

kvz wrote: post #536

I live in the Netherlands. Schools were closed here for nearly two months and then re-opened for 6 weeks now, the re-opening did not affect R. Tests are available for all school personnel and there were no hospitalizations. Some more data points: - we do take care that parents stay 1.5 meters apart. There’s special drop-off routes and such, parents don’t enter the buildings - I don’t have data on this but I assume ve…

What were your numbers for new cases looking like when the schools reopened, though? Keep in mind, many parts of US never even got past the first hump in the curve.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#582

Post by gimmeThaBeet » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

charwalker wrote: post #426

eaandkw wrote: post #150

I have pretty much given up on everybody at this point. I have already pulled my kid from school and will not send them back. I am in a single income family and I am now working from home. All actions and purchases at this point are to help us to become more independant from the system. Society and government at large has shown itself to be unreliable and undependable. I am also making longer term plans to move out o…

A uniquely American view of independence and rights has become a uniquely american problem with helping our neighbor, unfortunately. Nations with more collective oriented values appear to have done much better. Just sucks to not have a solution for people who spend their lives teaching (and babysitting, managing, mentoring, and more) our youth.

While I do worry to myself if that's making monoliths, I think you're right. One way or another, this situation tests a country/culture's ability to implement collective behavior/protections where the benefits don't accrue to the person taking the actions.

Social distancing has its obvious social costs, and my feeling (I couldn't definitively call it understanding) with masks is that it's more about protecting people from you, and not the other way around.

I think no matter how you break it down, the USA has proven so far it's poorly suited to do carry that out for each other.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#583

Post by erik_seaberg » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

mynameisvlad wrote: post #392

greesil wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interdimensional cable. You can't prove that I don't have it. Ask yourself this, could the current administration's response have been better given what was known at the time? If the answer is emphatically yes, then perhaps another person is better suited for the job.

Why is this even a discussion we're having? Yes, literally anybody would have had a better response than what we got. Just looking at the current state of the US vs practically any other country in the world shows how cripplingly bad the response has been from the current administration. Sometimes, I really hate the people in this country.

The US was never going to win a contest that calls for unity and obedience. I’ve usually found it admirable, though not right now.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#584

Post by nullc » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

We pay teachers poorly enough that plenty of people who otherwise would be teachers were already choosing to not take those jobs.

Now keep the poor pay and crank up the risk of death knob.

Obvious result is obvious, it's actually surprising to me that they're actually able to reopen schools-- that the number of teachers uninterested in continuing in this environment isn't much greater.

How many teachers does it take to quit before you can't reopen? 10%? 20%? Many are economically desperate enough that they'll take the added risk of death, but surely a portion is not.

I can only imagine that there are also a lot of parents who don't want their kids back in schools, perhaps there is a much greater market now for private tutoring.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#585

Post by jarpadat » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #332

Kapura wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's in Colorado. The teachers' union agreed to a pay cut & freeze during the Bush financial crisis; pay had had only started to rise again a few years ago. This is somewhat of a digression, but the extremely low rate of teacher pay (for a job that requires a Master's degree) limits the pool of available teachers greatly. The people taking these jobs typically must have some other way of supporting their family; eit…

> the extremely low rate of teacher pay (for a job that requires a Master's degree) limits the pool of available teachers greatly. Teacher pay is not extremely low. The median teacher salary is usually pretty close to the median salary for the state. Plus they get good benefits, a pension, and much more time off than other jobs. It's a solid middle class life.

The median educational attainment is "some college". In my state we require teachers to hold a degree and do some postgraduate work, so by definition it isn't a "median" position. That's before we get into it recently becoming a dangerous job

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#586

Post by hosh » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

analbumcover wrote: post #503

vlunkr wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument really doesn't work for me because you have nothing to compare the system to. > Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. I mean, it's succeeded so far. There have been and will be growing pains, but so far the standard of living has increased over time. To declare failure is just speculation. > fragile global supply chain Fragile compared to what? > Every one of those require money and parti…

> I mean, it's succeeded so far. There have been and will be growing pains, but so far the standard of living has increased over time. To declare failure is just speculation. Industrialized society has been reducing the long-term carrying capacity of the earth for over a century. These effects, until recently, have been masked by intensification i.e. continually increasing consumption of resources for use as inputs o…

You're welcomed to jump in there with the citation. I had no intention of citing anything because it was my personal opinion. And mainly because, I think the system is complex enough that no single model can definitively prove that it will always tend towards collapse.

I am going to add, what I have in mind isn't a move backwards towards hunter-gatherer, but a move forward, into a post-industrial sociey. And I think post-industrial means becoming decentralized, and in alignment with natural processes, and one where people largely follow ethical principles to live within the ecology.

Food forests are a good example. They can be created with perennials or self-seeding annuals that regenerates itself, even when harvested by the residents.

Family sizes will probably have to increase, or at least, we may be talking about pooling the resources at a neighborhood level. A nuclear family alone doesn't have the time or resources to really pull this off well, but a nuclear family is also the product of the industrial idea of "success" and "wealth".

Careful use of technologies can make this a much different experience than hunter-gatherer, or even horticulture. Among the biggest difference is the presence of the Internet -- specifically, allowing people exchange practical information and barter for things from beyond the local area. (So I am not talking about the current Internet dominated by Big Tech and aggregators, but more of what Tim Berner-Lee had in mind with permissionless architecture, and Richard Stallman's views of Free Software).

The biggest thing we'd have to give up is this notion that wealth comes from extracting resources from the ground and controlling access to them. As long as we continue to use that as a means to rank ourselves against other people, we will continue to perpetuate a mindset that takes resources beyond our fair share, without regard for the earth or for the people. That one mindset is harder to give up than the extra cars, eating out, cheap fossil fuels, indoor plumbing, because we feel that we are entitled to all of it, and we get jealous when we see others have when we don't. Wealth inequality is intrinsic to this model of wealth. It will always be there, no matter how much resources we keep extracting.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#587

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

wcchandler wrote: post #153

leetrout wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no good economic argument made to become an elementary school teacher. AMEN. I would NEVER recommend ANYONE become a teacher based on my wife's experiences. You used to be able to write off expenses as "non-reimbursed employee expenses" but they cut that out so teachers get the token $200 writeoff. We spend almost 10x that annually supporting her in the classroom. It really is glorified day care in most pe…

My wife hung up her hat after busting her butt for 5 years. Pay was garbage. Expectations too high — mostly from the students and parents. I often jokingly ask if she’d go back if they offered twice her pay. She doesn’t even hesitate - no.

[deleted]

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#588

Post by gruez » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

Zpalmtree wrote: post #352

gruez wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trump did not lose the popular vote. I seriously hope you're baiting and don't actually believe that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... Nominee Donald Trump Hillary Clinton [...] Popular vote 62,984,828 65,853,514 secondary source: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federale...

I think you misinterpreted what he was suggesting - it is meaningless to say that Hillary won the popular vote because neither party were trying to win the popular vote - you win the presidency by winning the electoral college. If instead the president was chosen by popular vote, both parties likely would have campaigned differently.

>I think you misinterpreted what he was suggesting - it is meaningless to say that Hillary won the popular vote because neither party were trying to win the popular vote - you win the presidency by winning the electoral college.

This is a non-sequitur. Whether or not that metric (popular vote) has a bearing on the results of presidential election is irrelevant to the statement of whether he won in that metric.

Furthermore, it's counter-productive to the discussion to preface a comment with a politically charged comment (trump and some of his supporters legitimately believes he got more popular vote than clinton, despite evidence to the contrary), then backpedal on that statement by adding a bunch of qualifiers.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#589

Post by vlunkr » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

analbumcover wrote: post #503

vlunkr wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument really doesn't work for me because you have nothing to compare the system to. > Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. I mean, it's succeeded so far. There have been and will be growing pains, but so far the standard of living has increased over time. To declare failure is just speculation. > fragile global supply chain Fragile compared to what? > Every one of those require money and parti…

> I mean, it's succeeded so far. There have been and will be growing pains, but so far the standard of living has increased over time. To declare failure is just speculation. Industrialized society has been reducing the long-term carrying capacity of the earth for over a century. These effects, until recently, have been masked by intensification i.e. continually increasing consumption of resources for use as inputs o…

> Hunter-gatherer societies have routinely been found to be happier and involve significantly less work than industrialized societies.

So is it a coincidence that 99.9% of hunter-gatherer societies have chosen to industrialize?

> Or do you think that given that degree of climate shift occurs it is unlikely to entail a societal and/or biosphere collapse?

My guess is that society wouldn't collapse, but again, this is so speculative.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#590

Post by watwut » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #514

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My girlfriend is a middle school guidance counselor. She was spending most of her week during the end of the school year dealing with referrals from teachers for students who weren't doing any work at home. Not just slacking off some, but entirely refusing to do anything. She'd try contacting the parents but many would never return her calls. The few she did contact weren't very concerned or admitted they lacked a wa…

If a child refuses to do anything when they were physically in school what was being done about it then? You can’t physically force someone to learn then and you can’t now. Not sure anything’s changed really. All they did before was remove disruptive children and now I guess they remove themselves. Remains an unsolved problem!

They were less likely to refuse the work. For one, kids are herd animals and when other kids are doing work, it motivates the slacker. For the other, teachers actually make them - most kids just kinda don't want to do it and will if pushed by teacher or motivated by system of rewards.

Second, doing work at home alone all the time is much demotivating for even good kids. And parents are less fun to explain things then teacher, because most parents sux at it all. Some end in power struggle others just don't know what to do.