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Nobody wants to teach anymore

jessicalexicus.medium.com

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#601

Post by tptacek »

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…

School funding has accounted for a majority of the outsized tax levy in the suburb of Chicago I live in, for decades, predating the movement towards formalized DEI (in fact, we're only recently beginning to hire dedicated DEI people). DEI is not the reason schools are so expensive.

(That's not to say DEI is necessarily benign or useful; the jury is still out for me.)

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#602

Post by hgs3 »

_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…

> 5. Schools are just too darn big. Thousands of kids in a big prison-shaped building and we wonder why everyone is alienated, miserable and dehumanized?

Personal anecdotal: I started programming on my own freshmen year of High School and I wrote and self published a book sophomore year. When I showed my computer programs and a physical copy of my self-published book to my teachers, they basically gave me a pat on the back. I did not receive 1 point of extra credit. I was told to take my seat and learn about Microsoft Word (by my computer teacher) and to write a 3 page story like everybody else (by my English teacher). As I’m sitting in my desk, I’m thinking “Why waste my time with Word, clearly I’m beyond it? Why am I writing a 3 page paper, I already wrote a book!”

What I concluded from this experience was that the education system is not designed for self starters. It’s designed for the lowest common denominator. I don’t dislike my teachers, rather I dislike the education system for being inflexible. I can only hope technology will allow students in the future to customize their educations to a degree beyond what I was offered. Another commenter mentioned schools being about churning out cogs. I don't disagree.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#603

Post by Spivak »

balderdash wrote: post #492
throw0101a wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If the general population were numerate enough, and there was enough transparency, there were would be riots in the streets over the NPV of retirement packages for public sector employees, these people are getting packages that are worth $2m,$5m,$10m at retirement (which could be 50ish!)

It’s good stuff. I turned it down because the work bored me to tears but I could have made $150k/yr and retired at 52 for $120k/yr for life.

If anyone wants in on it, IT at a large public sector university.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#604

Post by azinman2 »

userabchn wrote: post #566
azinman2 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like we’re overspending on spending ed. I don’t understand that position. Of course they require more resources than the average student - they’re special cases, literally! To take that away would be devastating for society’s most vulnerable, as most parents aren’t equipped with the skills or resources to be able to do any different with their children. Some cases are extreme. Should we just let them eit…

I think your response reveals how accustomed you have become to the luxury of having plentiful resources. You ask how it is good for anyone to not spend substantially more on students with special needs, but in many of the poorer countries of the world this attitude would be baffling. In many cases these students will never be able to contribute enough to society to recover what was invested in them. Hard choices hav…

The article was about the US. My response is about the US. I believe in a more just American society that takes care of the most vulnerable, not just those that contribute the most.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#605

Post by bobthepanda »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #591
bobthepanda wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The entire point of khan academy is that it is individually tailored to the student and can decide what lessons need additional practice vs those that can be skipped. It sounds like you aren’t at all awqre of how khan academy works. Are you claiming teachers can personalize a lesson plan for each individual student in a class? To a granularity finer than what Khan Academy can do?

Unless you are suggesting a teacher can clone themselves to however big their class size there is, the individualization is not a realistic prospect given that you have to teach a few dozen kids in a 30-45 minute period. And given that current funding levels are having a hard time keeping teacher retention even at these levels, significantly increasing teacher numbers to make real individualization possible is not within the realm of reality.

Also, individual teaching methods don’t work well in certain subjects; as an example, you need a few people to put on a theatrical production, perform ensemble music, or have Socratic discussions.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#606

Post by poopypoopington »

Cupertino95014 wrote: post #536
notch656a wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and the special ed kids get a high allotment of cash vs regular student. In effect, the normal kid is robbed by the special ed kid who gets disproportional budget per capita. A lot of time and talk gets spent about equity between poor and rich kids, or white and black kids, but you rarely see talk of normalizing the spending differential between special and gen pop.

Somehow, in the US government it's only "benefits" that are considered. "Cost" never is. As I said elsewhere, I defy anyone to claim that Finland doesn't care about kids' special needs. They have the best education in the world. What percent do they spend on it?

Why don't you find out and share with us rather than just asking questions and having others do the work for you. If Finland is really significant to this debate then share some data.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#607

Post by pclmulqdq »

yardie wrote: post #564
pclmulqdq wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think that the special ed model is completely broken. I think public schools overspend on special ed, and a lot of that funding is about getting special ed kids into the same classrooms as other kids and reducing the disruptions that they cause. Instead, all students would be better served (and served more efficiently) if schools would admit that people learn at different rates, and segregated the children based…

I think you are assuming special ed kids are academically slower and I have to push back on that. Special Ed encompasses students of all types. Some are mentally handicap, some have physical disabilities. One of my friends was wheelchair bound and had to leave class 5 minutes before the bell in order not to get stuck in the hallway. Others have respiratory issues that require classrooms with special equipment, specia…

My understanding is that special ed money is distributed according to a power law: most kids classified as "special ed" actually need very little help (and very little money), and don't disrupt things for other students. I had a friend in my middle school Latin classes who was blind, and while he needed special written materials and some private tutoring, he didn't need any other help. The same is true of people with dyslexia, people who are wheelchair-bound, etc. They need some accommodations, but they are not where most of the money is spent.

Conversely, the kids who do need tons of resources are usually kids with severe mental or developmental disabilities. These kids usually have a 1:1 aide telling them what to do and trying to help them either understand the lesson or work through a totally different lesson (which also must be a humiliating experience - I would never want that for my child). I have seen both of these cases in public schools. These kids would certainly be better served by having a teacher who can pay attention to their needs instead of a teacher who can't and an aide who tries to keep up.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#608

Post by tptacek »

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…

It depends on where you're teaching; teaching is a terrible deal in rural school districts and in some states, but teaching in urban and especially wealthy suburban school districts is a pretty fantastic deal: it's a white collar salary (every single teacher at the public high school my kids went to makes over $100k) with a defined-benefit pension plan, ironclad job security, and more vacation days than any other profession.

It's not at all the case that teaching isn't competitive with other degree-requiring white-collar professions; depending on where you are in the CS/IT food chain, it's quite competitive with tech.

Defined-benefit pensions have become so alien to private market jobs that it's easy to overlook how valuable they are, or to forget that a lot of people are very happy to work towards a strong retirement.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#609

Post by [deleted] »

_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…

[deleted]

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#610

Post by greedo »

prepend wrote: post #443
munificent wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Librarians aren't just people who like books. They have specialized skills, and usually have a master's degree. Librarians in many school districts have a teaching credential in addition to a Masters. The idea of hiring a person as specialized as a librarian to manage iPads shows an extraordinary misunderstanding of librarians.
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