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Nobody wants to teach anymore

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#711

Post by prepend »

WWLink wrote: post #648
justsocrateasin wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> To answer your question of "why don't they change professions?", I think that's rather naive. Not everyone is on the path of trying to optimize financial independence and minimize time spent working. Why do folks go into journalism? Or art, or music? Are those people stupid, because they aren't in software engineering where work is more lucrative and easier? You're hanging out on a website where people regularly ta…

> a lot of people here really DO think those people who go into journalism/art/music are stupid because they're not working in more lucrative fields.

I don’t think they are stupid as people have interests and there’s many reasons to pursue a career other than money.

I just think they are stupid when they complain about how they don’t make a higher income in these fields. The income potential of these fields is known, so complaining about this, once in the field, is really just an irrational thing.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#712

Post by taylodl »

Nobody in their right mind would become a teacher today. John Q. Public, just because he's paying "some taxes" that's "contributing to your pay" think he's your boss and can order you around like they're Donald Trump acting on The Apprentice. Everyone feels entitled to tell you why education sucks so much today and why it was so wonderful 50 years ago. Why would anyone of sound mind go into the profession? I've thought about it from time to time, but there's simply no way I'm subjecting myself to that crap! It's not so much as "nobody wants to teach anymore" as it is the general public simply sucks and having to interact with them, with them thinking they're your boss, is more of a soul-suck than spending a weekend with a Dementor!

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#713

Post by dnissley »

Uehreka wrote: post #667
acjohnson55 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah, the engineer who thinks everything can be solved with software. Just as a bit of feedback, starting your comment like this may have turned off the original poster to the rest of your thoughts, which I agree with.

Not GP, but I frequently start comments like this if the comment I’m replying to isn’t just slightly off, but reflects a deeply unexamined prior. It’s a signal that “The thing that’s wrong with your comment isn’t even in the text of the comment, it’s in the worldview that led you to think this in the first place. Simply reacting to the text of the comment would be insufficient.”

The problem is that this type of reply reflects your own deeply unexamined prior (e.g. that software can't play a part of solving this issue, or that anyone who said X believes Y, etc.), and so sets up an antagonistic interaction with the other person where you are each arguing from atop your ladders of inference, rather than climbing down those ladders and deconstructing those priors in more detail.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#714

Post by aqsalose »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #643
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 we can all agree this is not a problem in Finland. Teachers there are paid in accordance with the high respect they're given in society.

Coincidentally just yesterday there was a big news article in the largest daily newspaper about the problems teachers have with uncooperative parents. One memorable case was of the parents calling the teacher and informing them that the parents have agreed with their kid is exempt from reading books. In another, during a disagreement with a teacher, kid called their parent, put the parent on speaker, who then proceeded disparage the teacher in very low language in front of the rest of class.

The article is here https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000009001096.html : it is in Finnish, but Google Translate manages to make sense of it in English.

The social standing and respect teachers have varies a lot in different social spheres, but it is certainly not as high and universal as doctors.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#715

Post by pojzon »

obscurette wrote: post #644
santoshalper wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about the money, but I think the mediocre pay combined with all the bullshit is just too much.

In most of Eastern Europe countries teachers had lower salaries than average as far as we remember - ie at least since WWII. It's expected for most of us here. But that wasn't my point. The point was that you can't compensate all this bullshit with money. OK, you might find some people who can do anything for money, but not so many you can fill all positions in public education system.

30 years ago teachers were respected and parents trusted teachers with their kids.

If the kid was misbehaving in class or getting bad grades -> was properly managed by parents.

Right now parents are delusional about their kids. Blame teachers if something is wrong with the kid.

Cant understand that most likely they are the issue why the kid is behaving this way.

Dont want to take the blame.

At least those are my obesrvations - my mom was a teacher with 40 years of experience and national wide fame.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#716

Post by prepend »

greedo wrote: post #610
prepend wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My kids have gone through about 9 schools. None of the librarians had masters degrees.

The librarians in my city manage computers in the library and manage short term loaners of tablets and laptops.

I work with librarians who have masters and phd and I don’t work in education. It’s an interesting job.

I think I have enough of an understanding that it’s fair that a librarian could manage the iPad distribution for a school. It’s busy two times of the year and other times they could do more productive tasks.

The current iPad wrangler is there all year and does nothing beyond hand out and collect iPads and coordinate the repairs (<5%/year).

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#717

Post by zweifuss »

douglaswlance wrote: post #475

Why isn't education highly automated? Why do teachers across the country teach the same way we did before we had high-powered computers and information networks?

Learning is social. Very close to 100%.

That is why the Nuremberg funnel was never really invented. Technology as a teacher substitute has never proven itself in practice (i.e. outside of laboratory environments). There are a few students that are exceptionally driven, but even they learn socially.

That we have tried to get better schools by economy of scale and standardized testing is reason for some of the problems and therefore cannot be solved with more of the same.

* Social learning is more enjoyable and motivating. We learn from people, with people and because of people.

* Interaction with others gives meaning to ideas. Ideas mean little without a social context. This has been proven again and again.

* Discussing ideas increases understanding and retention of those ideas.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#718

Post by obscurette »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #176

> Nobody wants to teach Counterpoint: the internet is full of people who want to teach. The first school of YouTube is overflowing with educational content on everything from merge sort to patching dry-wall. A large portion of my social circle hold teaching/mentorship as a career goal. I don't think this is pedantic. When I look around, I see a surplus of people that want to learn and want to teach. What I don't see…

Youtube is about lecturing, not about teaching.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#719

Post by kube-system »

notch656a wrote: post #702
kube-system wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>discarded If I give Johnny, Jimmy, and Karen an equal investment of $20 and 20 hours of labor each for their education, I haven't "discarded" Karen, even if she needs more money and more time to get the same equality of outcome. In the same vein, I don't at all want to "discard" special ed children, I just want any public funds provided to the other children to be a nearly equal monetary investment. >That’s why we h…

An equal monetary investment for disabled children would mean they don’t have a teacher. You might be able to teach 50 non-disabled children with 2 teachers that costs $100K each to employ.

An equal $4000/student/year is not enough to hire anyone for a special needs student, who 1) won’t be able to benefit from the economy of scale in a normal classroom and 2) has needs that require a larger portion of a person’s time to attend to.

You need many multiple times the investment to accommodate kids with special needs because they have special needs.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#720

Post by indymike »

My wife teaches elementary school ESL and Spanish as needed.

The school day is 8 hours of solid work, plus 2 hours of grading and two hours of planning. The minimum number of hours for most teachers is 60 hours, plus extra time for maybe coaching, or being and advisor for an extra-curricular (which are a dying bread of program in many schools). This is for doing the same thing you do year after year. Changes in academic guidelines, school policies, textbooks, academic fashion, technology and student aptitude variance from year to year force you to re-invent everything, every year.

It's a horrible job not because teaching is horrible, but because we've turned our schools into the intersection of social engineering and politics. For every child there's at least one highly protective parent, with some political hot button. It's just a nightmare. For example, my wife teaches ESL and Spanish and had to go to meetings with a parent that thought her class was part of a "critical race theory" conspiracy. Another parent wanted my wife to teach Spanish without gender in the language. Still another was upset about having first graders sing, because the kinds might be "too judgey."

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