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Nobody wants to teach anymore

jessicalexicus.medium.com

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Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#881
post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Teaching in Norway https://rebekahjbuchanan.com/2018/10/21/teaching-in-norway The environment Rebekah describes seems like a modern US tech business. Everyone is expected to be where they're needed, treat each other with respect and focus on their work. Sometimes I wonder why successful businesses can create the environment schools can't and then remind myself that businesses (and private schools) can easily excl…

Or perhaps if we had the demographics of Norway our schools would be vastly better in every single category except “diversity”. Like it or not students are not born genetically equal. Throw in poverty and lack of effective parenting and there’s no hope that endless funding will somehow fix that situation.

I think you would benefit from approaching the situation with a bit more understanding. Also forget Norway, America is a big a diverse country so that is your problem to solve. You are not competing with Norway, you are trying to solve your own problems and failing.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#882

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…

So which point are you making? Are you claiming

- “I’ve been there on the front lines for a whole long two years, and I’ve seen what the article is talking about! It’s even worse than you realize! If you treat these teachers like we have for a sustained period over this many years, the constant negative shit turns a sizeable amount of the teachers themselves to be crappy?”

Or is it

- “I don’t buy it. I did a stint for two years. That’s as good as those with 30 years. It’s their own fault because they’re mean and nasty.”

You didn’t make clear whether you were offering your exhibit of suffering as a commiserate symptom or an accusatory cause. Could you clarify please?

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#883
post #72
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel that the private system is taking all of the good educators and administrators? America isn't the only country with a private/public school ecosystem, yet other countries are able to maintain quality public schooling while it seems America struggles.

A lot of Western non-US countries honestly don’t have a lot of attractive private sector businesses. Small nations with strong public education are very unique. For example Norway only has 5 million citizens, extremely low immigration, a mono-culture and mono-ethnicity, and earns a huge amount of money from selling fossil fuels which are then funneled to public use. Yet the left in America pretends the Nordic model c…

America is big and diverse, but it is not a special snowflake. You are choosing to provide public schooling but failing to do so well. There is a myriad of reasons why and I am sure it is different per location but the fact remains. In your ideal private focused system, are kids not provided a good education when their parent's income can't keep up with the worsening class divide? If so, do you think that will result in a positive situation for America long term?

I do appreciate your perspective by the way, thanks for engaging.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#885

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.

[deleted]

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#887
post #843
post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents were both teachers. A significant trunk of my classmates went into teaching after college. We keep in touch. The above comment is accurate.

Which "above comment"?

The previous comments are not logically equivalent, (bitwise AND) have the same truth value.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#888

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Source?

Maybe I'm clashing with the specific phrasing since I haven't heard of a bias in the grading itself (i.e. a bias of the teacher), but rather a bias of the system. Schooling as a whole aligns more with girls' strengths as they're more consistent in the day-to-day (ex: organization, planning, homework) whereas boys tend to test better [0]. The weighting of assignments in a particular class could tip the benefit in either direction.

I could believe girls 'get graded higher' on written assignments due to generally better handwriting. I had poor handwriting (though recall at least one girl classmate with worse) and certainly received no credit on some correct answers as a result. I imagine a frustrated teacher reading through a chicken-scratch essay might dock some points - whether directly with a note calling it out (also happened to me), discreetly, or subconsciously.

[0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/why-gi...

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#889
post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep...that's not how it is where I'm from. Where I'm from teacher burn out is very very high and it's a known statistic.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Re #1) I was a school board member and did exhaustive analysis of our budget. For primary education through high school, admin is NOT the root cause. If you take any school budget, and strip away everything that is not an actual classroom teacher, you will find that ~1/3 or less goes to "frontline" teaching costs. Another 1/3 goes to special ed and all that is attendant with that. I mean, my district BOUGHT a car and…

Which 1/3rd pays for textbooks (curriculum) and testing?

Both are total grifts. I'd rather that money went to teachers.

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