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Nobody wants to teach anymore

jessicalexicus.medium.com

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#621

Post by Spivak »

DangitBobby wrote: post #336
weatherlite wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 school rather than “thank you”? Well many students hated school, it is what it is. If you get beat up on a daily basis or are bored out of your mind (because let's face it, most of the material IS boring) I don't see why you should feel obligated to thank yo…

I agree that there are reasons someone would hate school, but it doesn't make sense for it to be a cultural norm to say that to teachers. No one ever says "wow you murder people for Uncle Sam for money?" to someone who was in the military, they say "thank you for your service". I think that's what the author was getting at. It's not just low pay; teaching is thankless, even looked down upon.

Bet the victims of the US military aren’t saying thank you for your service. It doesn’t even matter if the person isn’t directly responsible, they still dedicated their time and energy to the system. That’s the difference. It’s thankless because it’s awful. It’s the exception rather than the rule to have a teacher that made a real difference, and the most common difference teachers make is protecting kids from harm they wouldn’t be experiencing if not for school.

Exceptional teachers help kids survive, not thrive.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#622

Post by kube-system »

bluGill wrote: post #599
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…

I don't get why kids have such things. Other than typing there really isn't anything kids need to learn that is better done with a computer until high school. (Even then everything could be done with paper, but word processors are useful for writing)

There’s value to technology in the classroom beyond “it’s better than [x]”

A difference in learning format that can be beneficial to some. It is helpful just to introduce children to technology as well. And for some it may spark interests that paper does not.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#623

Post by asvitkine »

justsocrateasin wrote: post #493
prepend wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm a software dev as well, coming from a family of educators (dad, mom, brother, all three have taught at some point during their career or for an extended part of their career). The problem I think is that you're examining 'working more' in the context of 'work output'. As a developer, it is very much about 'work output', however as a teacher it is often not. In my moms example, she had roughly 6x50 minute classes…

Why hasn't this changed through union action or lawsuits about needing to work unpaid hours?

Surely, an employee should be able to take an employer to court about the employer requiring work that's unpaid. In the courtroom, presumably there can be evidence presented about how these unpaid hours are required by examining experiences of other teachers, etc.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#624

Post by Kye »

Cupertino95014 wrote: post #583
Kye wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't put much weight in the judgements college-age people make of others. They're still in the mindset of the high school status game they just left.

So do you have some other estimate of their relative intelligence?

At some point along the way I stopped trying to rank people by intelligence.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#625

Post by LatteLazy »

One core issue with modern education is that people DO want to teach. They want it so badly they will accept shit wages and spend their own money subsidising schools. The result is ever dwindling resources as teachers are viewed as sheep to be sheered and all cuts as tacitly excused as "they'll just have to make it work"...

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#626

Post by 8note »

obscurette wrote: post #618

1. This is not about America. I'm from Eastern Europe and we have the very same problems. 2. This is not about money. Yes, being underpaid is part of a problem how teachers feel, but no money compensates humiliation and bullying teachers are experiencing. 3. It's not a rant. This EXACTLY how I feel after spending three years at school. I was a math teacher in classes of my kids because a school couldn't find any. Yes…

I think if teaching was a $2M/year job, plenty of people would want to teach.

They might not be good at it, but actually good money will draw many candidates

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#627

Post by colinmhayes »

MarcScott wrote: post #349
pclmulqdq wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is ever paid for the value that they create. Software engineers are estimated to be worth several million dollars per year in value. Also, the average kindergarten teacher probably generates a lot less than $300k per year.

Do software engineers just spontaneously come into existence? Or do they begin their education with kindergarten teachers, and progress though to the professors that teach them at college? If a software engineer is contributing millions of dollars in value each year, they are doing it on the backs of the giants that taught and coached them to get to where they are today.

You totally missed the point though. The value you create has almost nothing to do with how much you’re paid. That’s just the most you could possibly be paid. You’re paid the amount your employer thinks it would cost to replace you.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#628

Post by boxed »

Change a few details and this is what it's like being a doctor too (at least in Sweden) from what I've heard.

Autonomy. That's the thing. We have to let people do their damn jobs. Don't micro manage, don't second guess, don't interfere. Let people do their job.

Let them.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#630

Post by colinmhayes »

justsocrateasin wrote: post #513
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…

> Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median, and when accounting for benefits and pension, quite impressive. I'd disagree. Some anecdotal evidence - I'm from a HCOL suburban area with a nationally ranked public school system. Teachers here are generally considered "well-paid" by teacher salary standards. Many of the teachers in my area literally cannot afford to live here, and have to commute…

I went to Chicago public schools. Most of my teachers had graduate degrees from degree mill schools, some even had phds that they loved to talk about even though I doubt they spent more than a few days to get them. That ended up meaning they all made around 110-120, with full pension after I believe 30 years. Certainly not an amazing salary, and they all worked much harder than I ever have, but nothing to laugh at I’d say.
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