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Nobody wants to teach anymore

jessicalexicus.medium.com

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#741

Post by 8bitsrule »

I taught science for a few years.

> "Teachers ... leave the kids alone." - The Wall

Administrators ... leave the teachers alone.

Many admistrators have no education experience or credentials. The 'experience' of my superintendent was being a colonel in the military. Spent much of his time getting a return on the district's investment funds.

> "It's about the money."

Yep, you get what you pay for.

If only full-time teachers were paid be the hour, like substitude teachers.

I didn't get paid enough to get home at 7pm tired-out with a stack of papers to grade, eat supper and fall asleep instead. "Oh, and we need you to take admissions at the football game Friday night, and to stay afterwards to help count the money."

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#742

Post by KennyBlanken »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #738
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…

Teacher's job is no doubt stressful. Therefore I think we must invent new ways of automating the teaching, amplify the powers of a single teacher. That way there will be enough teachers to provide for every child. Not sure how to get there. But what about the adult population? I think large swaths of it are in need of more education. Math literacy, evidence-based evaluation of propaganda. Large portion of US populati…

Or, and hear me out: we could cut our military budget (which is larger than the next ten or so countries combined, both total and per capita) and start tipping the corporate tax share back towards the ~%50 it was sixty years ago and magically be able to:

* pay teachers a fair wage

* hire enough teachers, assistants, and admins so that teachers don't have to work at least another half a workday 'off the books'

* fund schools well enough that teachers don't have to pay out of pocket for basic supplies like chalk and paper

* feed our children a proper meal at lunch by default, instead of making them pay for a crappy meal (unless their busy parents jump through hoops to prove they're poor enough)

One of the strangest things for me as a private school student coming from the public school system was being able to go into the lunch line, get what food I wanted, as much as I wanted, and not have to pay for it. No worries about losing the lunch money I'd been given, getting beat up for my lunch money, etc.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#743

Post by KennyBlanken »

sseagull wrote: post #505
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…

Also, I will add, there is an element of good teaching that involves building a relationship with your students. Getting personalized feedback (encouragement, small corrections, etc) can mean much more to a student than a simple green checkmark/red x somewhere. Good educators can know when to apply the right amount of pushing or backing off that can help a student succeed. Ideally, of course. Lots of bad teachers out…

100% agreed. On the other hand, automated grading would remove a lot of the biases. For example, it's been repeatedly proven that girls get graded higher than boys.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#744

Post by seibelj »

germinalphrase wrote: post #615
seibelj wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a place in society for schools that will treat you like cattle and babysit you all day. There is also a place for academically challenging schools that provide a strong education. I don’t want to ban the latter in order to improve the former.

Those are the choices, huh?

Please, put your children in terrible schools out of some sense of social justice or whatever. I myself will do what is actually good for my family. Given the school down the street from me had its Vice Principal of Gang Violence execute a student he recruited to deal drugs for him, our local high school my children would be automatically zoned into is sadly not an option despite my tax dollars paying for it. https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2015/03/05/former-bos...

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#745

Post by amusedcyclist »

ekianjo wrote: post #150
RobotToaster wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people hate lawyers, but plenty of people still want to be one.

> but plenty of people still want to be one The much higher salary makes up for it, but you can't seriously expect teachers to get the same salary as lawyers.

Why not ? I would argue that most teachers provide a more valuable service than most lawyers (For my definition of value atleast). Lawyers have strict licensing requirements while teachers don't, which would be one of the major differences

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#746

Post by auslegung »

gorgoiler wrote: post #645

I tried teaching high school CS for the best part of two years in a private school. Everything to do with the pupils was amazing and I loved every moment. I am a natural with behaviour management and although it was stressful, every time the bad kids acted up it presented a teachable moment. You could really feel the impact on their lives and behaviour, well behind the Python and the TCP/IP and while loops. But every…

I’m sure your experience sucked, but having a bunch of crappy coworkers doesn’t mean 100s of thousands of teachers across the nation are likely to be “the worst, most power hungry, little-napoleon office manager you’ve ever had”.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#747

Post by amusedcyclist »

n4r9 wrote: post #382
jscipione wrote: post #381

I don’t want teachers anymore either because I see them as an institution of racially motivated anti-white hate. From CRT to the Minneapolis teachers’ union all I see is hate.

Could you provide some concrete examples please?

Don't feed the white supremacist trolls

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#748

Post by zweifuss »

amelius wrote: post #260

Teachers are rockstars that need to find agents that make sure they get paid well.

The "Rockstar Professors" I know were overhyped.

Some of my best teachers had only a so-so reputation, but were hard workers, curious, and honest and expected as much from their pupils.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#749

Post by dogmatism »

Counterpoint: someone I know went from practicing medicine ("part time", meaning actually more than 40hrs/wk) to teaching (in a unionized system) HS, and only makes a little less, works less, and has way more job satisfaction.

This is probably more of an indictment of the state of some corners of american medicine than a paean to the public teaching system though

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#750

Post by SQueeeeeL »

auslegung wrote: post #746
gorgoiler wrote: post #645

I tried teaching high school CS for the best part of two years in a private school. Everything to do with the pupils was amazing and I loved every moment. I am a natural with behaviour management and although it was stressful, every time the bad kids acted up it presented a teachable moment. You could really feel the impact on their lives and behaviour, well behind the Python and the TCP/IP and while loops. But every…

I’m sure your experience sucked, but having a bunch of crappy coworkers doesn’t mean 100s of thousands of teachers across the nation are likely to be “the worst, most power hungry, little-napoleon office manager you’ve ever had”.

Yeah, but this is Hacker news. Blaming individual teachers validates the idea that there aren't major systemic problems in the country. It's not that teachers are underpaid and class sizes are exploding, it's simply the case that the existing crop of teachers aren't egalitarian enough to handle the job
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