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Nobody wants to teach anymore

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#681

Post by betwixthewires »

epgui wrote: post #670
betwixthewires wrote: post #664

Judging from this thread, my opinion on this is not going to be popular, please don't massacre me for it, just discuss it with me if you want, I won't be mean (unless you are) but I will be candid. Good. I'm glad nobody wants to teach anymore. The less teachers we have the better. That's for everyone, including the teachers. A surefire way to get paid more is a shortage of professionals. If you are so important as to…

Education is a public good. It’s precisely the kind of thing markets are not great at on their own. That doesn’t mean that education as we have it now is perfect, but you also don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and return to the middle ages in order to try solving some of its problems.

I disagree. I find it funny, when libertarians and free-market advocates say "if you classify something a public good you turn the workers in it into slaves" that the same people who disagree with that often complain that essential workers in those fields aren't paid enough. I think markets could sort this out beautifully: if it's really so essential they'd get paid more.

The teachers are essentially saying "treat us better and pay us adequately or you're going back to the middle ages, like it or not, it's not our doing, it will be your doing and your undoing." They don't like that some of us don't believe that. Well, if it's true, show us. Quit.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#682

Post by tptacek »

greedo wrote: post #638
tptacek wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

My school district is in a middle sized city with a dominant land grant university. A starting teacher makes $40k. Requires both a BA and a teaching credential. Hours are long, and teachers spend a decent amount of money for out of pocket supplies, especially at some of the schools that despite level funding seem to get the short end of the stick. IT in my area pays anyone with a pulse and basic computer skills $40k.…

I don't deny that there are teachers getting shafted all over the US; I'd just want people to know that the deal in many (most? all?) major urban school districts is surprisingly strong.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#683

Post by vkou »

weatherlite wrote: post #476
DangitBobby wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a chicken and egg kinda problem. People who on average don't have lots of motivation or other options go to teaching. They then get burned out by the chaotic classes, low pay and thanklass routine. In turn they on average do a mediocre job (or less) of educating and teaching, which causes the students to pay even less attention and show less respect...which causes the teachers to get more burned out...anyway I t…

> People who on average don't have lots of motivation or other options go to teaching.

I'm not sure where you're from, but every single teacher I have known, both as a student, and as an adult, has been incredibly motivated to teach.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#684

Post by fastaguy88 »

dionidium wrote: post #527
jedberg wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the engineer who thinks everything can be solved with software. To automate grading you first must create a general AI, because if you just do multiple choice exams, you aren't really testing or measuring someone's ability to perform the task, you're just measuring their ability to make a good guess. And some teachers do that. But not the good ones. As for planning, some senior teachers have filing cabinets label…

> But any good teacher will realize that they have to customize the learning to that year's kids, and constantly update with new teaching methodologies, new information, etc. I mean this seriously: why? High school math is not a rapidly changing field. Sure, you might have to slow down or speed up, depending on the class -- although, is even that true? Is the average student really changing all that much from year to…

The desired goal of high school math may not change much from year to year, but the best strategies for meeting that goal certainly do. I cannot imagine asking a student today to learn algebra the way I did 55+ years ago. Log-tables and slide rules? Probably not a good strategy.

Until one has taught something that is completely new to a student, it is difficult to imagine how challenging that can be, and how individual it is. What helps Johnny understand (or even care) is often completely different from what helps Mary. It is very difficult to teach effectively without figuring out what the student does not understand. And there are as many ways to misunderstand as there are students.

That is why teachers keep revising. They want to make the material more accessible to more of their students.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#685

Post by bobthepanda »

andrewprock wrote: post #668
bobthepanda wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There have to be consequences for actions like that. If there are no consequences, then yes teaching will become impossible.

I mean, there are.

The thing about classroom control is that it is easier to notice early signs and stop the situation from escalating into behaviors that need to go through a whole punishment process (possible student trauma, paperwork for the teacher and administration), and so teaching how to correct things early and keep things controlled is a win-win for the student, teacher, and administration, and also the rest of the class.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#686

Post by smeej »

It sounds like there are a great many people who want to teach.

The real headline should be, "Nobody wants to teach in public schools anymore."

And do you blame them? The people (politicians, mostly, in dialogue with union leaders) who make the big decisions about public schools are so many levels removed from the students or the teachers that the best-case scenario for these decisions is to be woefully out of touch.

At this point, it seems like the entire world recognizes the American public school system is messed up beyond repair. So why are we spending so much time, energy, and effort trying to save it instead of trying to reimagine the whole thing?

Who's successfully teaching these days? As in, who are the examples of people who are actually being successful at putting ideas into other people's heads?

If what you want is to teach, learn from them.

(If you have a hundred other goals, like providing childcare and increasing character through athletic competition and whatever else you want to do, those are fine things too, but quit trying to lump it all together and do it at once. Find the people who are succeeding at those goals and learn from them as well.)

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#687

Post by gbear605 »

ekianjo wrote: post #144
gbear605 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More money will encourage more of “those who can” to switch to teaching, which will help to undermine the stereotype. There are already many “who can” who already teach, but they’re almost exclusively the ones who also intrinsically value teaching highly. A higher pay will help bring the ones who would be good teachers but are in a situation where they need to prioritize money.

> More money will encourage more of “those who can” to switch to teaching, No, it won't, because in the private sector you can have a growing career. If you are teaching it's very likely to be the very same job until you retire.

I know some people “who can” who cared a lot about teaching and decided to be a teacher. I also know some people in industry who were on the edge of being a teacher but decided it didn’t pay enough. More pay absolutely would draw in the people on the edge.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#688

Post by Cupertino95014 »

kube-system wrote: post #588
notch656a wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a finite amount of tax money available, so disproportionately allotment to a few special children effectively robs the other children of resources.

Yes, disabilities are expensive to accommodate. That’s why we have laws like the ADA. Because when given the option to disregard the disabled, many will choose do so. This in turn leads to building a society in which the disabled are discarded as an inconvenience to society, rather than as people with equal rights to public accommodation.

"expensive" but everything has a limit. Even losing a limb or an eye has a dollar cost associated with it, if you look in the right tables. Pretending that there is no limit, or that the choice is a binary "no limit" vs. "don't give a shit" is just not responsible.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#689

Post by vuln »

thayne wrote: post #477
dhosek wrote: post #457

Former HS math teacher here. It was the hardest job I’ve ever had. I still have nightmares about being back in the classroom 18 years later. I was easily working 12+ hours a day doing class planning, grading, etc. not to mention the actual teaching. Returning to programming my pay doubled and my stress level dropped profoundly. Teacher pay should easily be double what it is. (And about that summers off—with the excep…

My mother is a teacher, and she often has to do work during the summer to prepare for the next year, even though her pay is based on her getting the summer off. Not to mention that she is required to do additional training during the summer, sometimes at her own expense.

Interesting. Every public city school system that I’ve attended and participated in gave the teachers the choice of 10 months of pay or 12. Seemed like every tenured teacher took the 12 month while the younger teachers took the 10 month. This might be because of age and financial security. The tired teachers don’t want to pick up a summer job. While the younger bunch picks up jobs as bartenders and servers and probably clear more in 2 months than the whole year as a teacher.

One Friday evening I went out with some friends and ended up running into my son’s 6 grade teacher pouring body shots on themselves for the patrons to enjoy.

Maybe that’s the way it works in a “resort” town.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#690

Post by CharlesW »

smeej wrote: post #686

It sounds like there are a great many people who want to teach. The real headline should be, "Nobody wants to teach in public schools anymore." And do you blame them? The people (politicians, mostly, in dialogue with union leaders) who make the big decisions about public schools are so many levels removed from the students or the teachers that the best -case scenario for these decisions is to be woefully out of touch…

> The real headline should be, "Nobody wants to teach in public schools anymore."

What part of TFA makes you think this is specific to public schools?

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-worst-i-ve-seen-it-j...

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