Be A Teacher Be a Fool

Off Topic
101

Everyone is missing some points:

On days off, everyone seems to be saying that their school district has 175 days, which = x% of 365 days. You’re forgetting that most office jobs do not work weekends and certain holidays (July 4th, Labor Day, Mem Day, etc) so the actual working days of these jobs is closer to 230 days. Also, teachers have extra work days on top of the school days, so that their actual days worked in a year are probably closer to about 195 days, which is still considerably lower than the average worker and needs to be considered in relation to salaries.

Overal compensation: The pro-teacher argument continues to dismiss the fact that their benefits packages are usually head and shoulders above a corporate employee’s. Full health insurance, a very nice retirement salary, access to low-rate loans from a credit union, strong 401k matching, etc (obviously these vary depending on area but they are always stronger than corporate packages). Do you want to know what my retirement salary will be? Whatever I have put into my 401k (my $ to begin with) with a small match from my employer. I pay for a nice % of my health care with Oxford and our coverage is not great. I will likely need to rely on govt provided health care when I’m retired. While I have a good vacation plan, it is no match to a teacher’s.

Everyone needs to stop dwelling on salaries as the true value of compensation when in fact it is only a percentage. I have yet to see a comprehensive per diem compensation comparison between teachers and other professions, but I would put money on it that teachers are coming out ok. Obviously not at the top, but certainly not nearly as bad as they claim.

Finally, teaching is not an easy profession. Anyone claiming otherwise is a fool and a blowhard. To be a good teacher, it takes extra time and energy and a commitment beyond the normal effort. This is true in any field though. Teachers deserve a ton of credit for what they do - they truly impact our childrens’ futures. At the same time, I am tired of the crying about how hard they have it. The bottom line is, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. One more thing, in my school district, the starting salary is $40,000 and average teacher salary is just under $70,000. Not shabby by any stretch.

DB

102

I agree with getting rid of younger teachers. Atleast for students older then 16. I don’t mean hiring people because of their wisdom that old people “has”, but technical experience. When I was 18, I had a teacher without pedagogic education, but with a technical engineering degree and 10 years working as one. Without any experience at all in teaching, he was easilly on my top 3.

And the only way to get them choose a teaching career on a consistent basis is attractive salaries.

103

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:

If I had to do it over I’d become a teacher. Easiest damn job on the planet.

[/quote]

Rarely post, but this one got me. My wife is an elementary school teacher so I see first hand exactly how “easy” her job is. You, my friend, are a jackass.

I am not sure what what you do for your 10 hours a day, but I am fairly certain none of it includes co-workers (read: kids) who think it’s perfectly fine to call you an ‘f’n whore’, jump on their desks and scream, start fist-fights in the room, never do ANY work or put forth any effort, steal, vandalize, etc. While many kids put forth an honest effort, many do not and they WILL make a classroom miserable for everyone else.

Top it off with parents who don’t give a shit and have no respect for the teachers themselves (like yourself) and you start to see how ‘easy’ it is to deal with this.

If your co-workers try to bring their baggage to work you can tell them to piss off; teachers can’t do that to the kids.

One other thing - regarding that ‘sweet pension’ folks like to criticize teachers for, try to realize that THEY PAY FOR IT. If you saw the deductions that come off my wife’s pay it might bring tears to your eyes. At least in Ontario, CA, they have a well-managed pension fund and sink boatloads of their own money into it for retirement.

104

My father taught full-time for 30 years. He’s retired now but still teaches part-time and substitutes when he can.

He says he never worked a day in his life.

It’s not always about the money!

105

[quote]feds wrote:
reddog6376 wrote:

If I had to do it over I’d become a teacher. Easiest damn job on the planet.

Rarely post, but this one got me. My wife is an elementary school teacher so I see first hand exactly how “easy” her job is. You, my friend, are a jackass.

I am not sure what what you do for your 10 hours a day, but I am fairly certain none of it includes co-workers (read: kids) who think it’s perfectly fine to call you an ‘f’n whore’, jump on their desks and scream, start fist-fights in the room, never do ANY work or put forth any effort, steal, vandalize, etc. While many kids put forth an honest effort, many do not and they WILL make a classroom miserable for everyone else.

Top it off with parents who don’t give a shit and have no respect for the teachers themselves (like yourself) and you start to see how ‘easy’ it is to deal with this.

If your co-workers try to bring their baggage to work you can tell them to piss off; teachers can’t do that to the kids.

One other thing - regarding that ‘sweet pension’ folks like to criticize teachers for, try to realize that THEY PAY FOR IT. If you saw the deductions that come off my wife’s pay it might bring tears to your eyes. At least in Ontario, CA, they have a well-managed pension fund and sink boatloads of their own money into it for retirement.[/quote]

I’ll agree with you that is criminal that teachers are not allowed to discpline students. When I was in school we gave the teachers our respect because we knew if we didn’t we’d get the paddle (or worse), then once again when we got home. However, the average teacher still has 14 WEEKS more time off than most do, and therefore should not make as much as the average American.

106

[quote]feds wrote:
reddog6376 wrote:

If you saw the deductions that come off my wife’s pay it might bring tears to your eyes. At least in Ontario, CA, they have a well-managed pension fund and sink boatloads of their own money into it for retirement.[/quote]

I cry whenever I see MY deductions too (my take home last year was just slightly higher than 50% of my base pay). I was talking about retirement in the U.S. I have no knowledge of the way things work in the Canadian education system. Like I said in an earlier post, I have several (read 10+) teachers in my family and I have seen first hand how well they are living in retirement. They also all retired early, receiving, on average, about 50% of their full, top salaries. They also receive Social Security and all of the other benefits I mentioned. A couple of them have multiple houses and decent-sized investment portfolios. Granted, the one’s with those also worked during their summers off. The point is, none of them are hurting in retirement.

DB

107

[quote]PSlave wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
How about some annual totals? Much more accurate.

Starting pay for most teachers across the country is in the high 20’s, about $28,000 per year.

The survey presents the mean hourly wage and the mean weekly hours worked. “The mean is computed by totaling the pay of all workers and dividing by the number of workers, weighted by hours.”

Teachers are listed as working 34.5 hours per week.

[/quote]

Exactly. They’re only counting ‘encounter’ time with the students. Do you honestly think you could do this particular job, prepare lesson plans, grade tests and homework, fill out all the mandated state forms on each student AND see the kids in that time frame? Maybe if your name is Superman.

The last time I worked 34.5 hours in a week when I was teaching was … never.

108

[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
Everyone is missing some points:

On days off, everyone seems to be saying that their school district has 175 days, which = x% of 365 days. You’re forgetting that most office jobs do not work weekends and certain holidays (July 4th, Labor Day, Mem Day, etc) so the actual working days of these jobs is closer to 230 days. Also, teachers have extra work days on top of the school days, so that their actual days worked in a year are probably closer to about 195 days, which is still considerably lower than the average worker and needs to be considered in relation to salaries.

Overal compensation: The pro-teacher argument continues to dismiss the fact that their benefits packages are usually head and shoulders above a corporate employee’s. Full health insurance, a very nice retirement salary, access to low-rate loans from a credit union, strong 401k matching, etc (obviously these vary depending on area but they are always stronger than corporate packages). Do you want to know what my retirement salary will be? Whatever I have put into my 401k (my $ to begin with) with a small match from my employer. I pay for a nice % of my health care with Oxford and our coverage is not great. I will likely need to rely on govt provided health care when I’m retired. While I have a good vacation plan, it is no match to a teacher’s.

Everyone needs to stop dwelling on salaries as the true value of compensation when in fact it is only a percentage. I have yet to see a comprehensive per diem compensation comparison between teachers and other professions, but I would put money on it that teachers are coming out ok. Obviously not at the top, but certainly not nearly as bad as they claim.

Finally, teaching is not an easy profession. Anyone claiming otherwise is a fool and a blowhard. To be a good teacher, it takes extra time and energy and a commitment beyond the normal effort. This is true in any field though. Teachers deserve a ton of credit for what they do - they truly impact our childrens’ futures. At the same time, I am tired of the crying about how hard they have it. The bottom line is, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. One more thing, in my school district, the starting salary is $40,000 and average teacher salary is just under $70,000. Not shabby by any stretch.

DB[/quote]

You’re in Jersey. To have a middle-class existence (which I think the teachers of your children deserve), how much would that cost? How much is a decent home in your area?

Look, I could live in Connecticut and make more, but how affordable is it?

Doesn’t it strike anyone as odd that many teachers can’t afford to live in the communities where they teach?

109

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
feds wrote:
reddog6376 wrote:

If I had to do it over I’d become a teacher. Easiest damn job on the planet.

Rarely post, but this one got me. My wife is an elementary school teacher so I see first hand exactly how “easy” her job is. You, my friend, are a jackass.

I am not sure what what you do for your 10 hours a day, but I am fairly certain none of it includes co-workers (read: kids) who think it’s perfectly fine to call you an ‘f’n whore’, jump on their desks and scream, start fist-fights in the room, never do ANY work or put forth any effort, steal, vandalize, etc. While many kids put forth an honest effort, many do not and they WILL make a classroom miserable for everyone else.

Top it off with parents who don’t give a shit and have no respect for the teachers themselves (like yourself) and you start to see how ‘easy’ it is to deal with this.

If your co-workers try to bring their baggage to work you can tell them to piss off; teachers can’t do that to the kids.

One other thing - regarding that ‘sweet pension’ folks like to criticize teachers for, try to realize that THEY PAY FOR IT. If you saw the deductions that come off my wife’s pay it might bring tears to your eyes. At least in Ontario, CA, they have a well-managed pension fund and sink boatloads of their own money into it for retirement.

I’ll agree with you that is criminal that teachers are not allowed to discpline students. When I was in school we gave the teachers our respect because we knew if we didn’t we’d get the paddle (or worse), then once again when we got home. However, the average teacher still has 14 WEEKS more time off than most do, and therefore should not make as much as the average American.
[/quote]

So, the teacher of your child should live in a hovel, or in the ‘ratty’ part of town? Someone who dedicates their life to the welfare of your kids doesn’t deserve the income of an average American?

The moderators would delete what I would say next, so use your imagination…

110

I don’t think some on this site realize the work that the typical teacher in 2006 has in front of him/her.

They not only have to teach, but they also have to play policeman to today’s “under parented” kids.

If you are looking somewhere to place blame look not to the teahcers who do quite a lot for not enough money. Look to the parents who have been a resounding failure!

Or, should I say “parent.” There are more one parent households today than ever before. Why is that? I’ll leave that for another debate. But suffice it to say that (at least) one of the two who helped bring the child into the world is so self absorbed in his or her own life that they actually think “their” needs are more important than “their childrens needs.”

Yes…I say pay teachers quite a bit more as they are doing the job of teacher and parent at least part of the time.

111

From my own experience, teachers don’t have much affect on their students. All they need to do is present the material and provide an atmosphere of learning. I have yet to see a great teacher make a horrible student great, or a horrible teacher make a great student horrible.

They should change the educational system, make course selections more flexible. Keep the mandatory courses like English, Math, Geo. and History and let the student decide everything else. This will fill the classes with students who actually have genuine interest in the subject. Forcing students into classes they don’t enjoy just ruins the class atmosphere and hinders everyone else from learning.

112

[quote]krayon wrote:
From my own experience, teachers don’t have much affect on their students. All they need to do is present the material and provide an atmosphere of learning. I have yet to see a great teacher make a horrible student great, or a horrible teacher make a great student horrible.

They should change the educational system, make course selections more flexible. Keep the mandatory courses like English, Math, Geo. and History and let the student decide everything else. This will fill the classes with students who actually have genuine interest in the subject. Forcing students into classes they don’t enjoy just ruins the class atmosphere and hinders everyone else from learning.
[/quote]

Ideally, giving students this choice would work. But how many students are in an elective class only because their parents said they had to? Y’know, they are there taking it because if they don’t, then they are not allowed to play hockey, or football, or dance, or whatever… For some, they are only there because they “need” the class for post-secondary education.

Do you think giving them more freedom would change any of this?

I don’t know about where you are, but here, students have a lot of “freedom” in the classes they pick.

-FC

113

[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
feds wrote:
reddog6376 wrote:

If you saw the deductions that come off my wife’s pay it might bring tears to your eyes. At least in Ontario, CA, they have a well-managed pension fund and sink boatloads of their own money into it for retirement.

I cry whenever I see MY deductions too (my take home last year was just slightly higher than 50% of my base pay). I was talking about retirement in the U.S. I have no knowledge of the way things work in the Canadian education system. Like I said in an earlier post, I have several (read 10+) teachers in my family and I have seen first hand how well they are living in retirement. They also all retired early, receiving, on average, about 50% of their full, top salaries. They also receive Social Security and all of the other benefits I mentioned. A couple of them have multiple houses and decent-sized investment portfolios. Granted, the one’s with those also worked during their summers off. The point is, none of them are hurting in retirement.

DB[/quote]

We DON’T get social security, just Teachers Retirement Fund money.

We DON’T get anything matching into our 403B accounts.

114

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
reddog6376 wrote:
I’ll agree with you that is criminal that teachers are not allowed to discpline students. When I was in school we gave the teachers our respect because we knew if we didn’t we’d get the paddle (or worse), then once again when we got home. However, the average teacher still has 14 WEEKS more time off than most do, and therefore should not make as much as the average American.

So, the teacher of your child should live in a hovel, or in the ‘ratty’ part of town? Someone who dedicates their life to the welfare of your kids doesn’t deserve the income of an average American?

The moderators would delete what I would say next, so use your imagination…

[/quote]

If they worked a full year, then yes, their income WOULD be on par with average Americans. However, part of the compensation of being a teacher is having an extra dozen or so weeks off each year. For that, they make the informed decision to pursue a career that pays less.

115

[quote]Imbrondir wrote:
I agree with getting rid of younger teachers. Atleast for students older then 16. I don’t mean hiring people because of their wisdom that old people “has”, but technical experience. When I was 18, I had a teacher without pedagogic education, but with a technical engineering degree and 10 years working as one. Without any experience at all in teaching, he was easilly on my top 3.

And the only way to get them choose a teaching career on a consistent basis is attractive salaries.[/quote]

Intelligence!!

116

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Guttus Gumptuous wrote:
99.99% of college teachers SUCK!

yeah look at from our perspectives what we are being handed from public schools…I think you’d agree we think most of the students suck.
[/quote]

That’s probably because their teacher learned how to teach from a college professor.

117

The worst teachers are not young teachers, but old teachers who are burnt out. Also, I have worked with “professionals” who tried to become teachers. One guy had a PhD in physics and he was given a license without any training in education. He sucked ass as a teacher and was too “proud” to ask advice of other teachers. Other professionals have done well.

To be a good teacher, you simply have to work at least 2 hours a day outside the school day to develop your lessons and put in at least a solid month of 6 hour days in the summer. If you aren’t doing this, you are a lazy-ass and that’s all and I don’t care how many years you’ve taught and how well you like the lessons you’ve been doing for 20 years. The best science teachers are engaged in scientific learning, or curriculum development. It is their hobby.

118

Maybe they should increase the competitiveness amongst the students. My friend told me how in China they have different tiers of schools; the top tier schools have the best teachers and easier access to the top universities. Students have to get the required test scores to get into the school and even if you do make it in to the top tier, you have to do well on national tests or they kick you down to a lower tiered school. If North America implemented such a system, I?m confident that we?ll see a dramatic increase in dedication and grades.

Do you guys think that the huge increase in universities have to do with students doing poorer than previously? Seems like anyone can get into university; even people who get low 70s are finding universities that are willing to accept them. If universities raised their standards, there will be more pressure for students to study harder and perform better at school.

119

[quote]krayon wrote:
Do you guys think that the huge increase in universities have to do with students doing poorer than previously? Seems like anyone can get into university; even people who get low 70s are finding universities that are willing to accept them. If universities raised their standards, there will be more pressure for students to study harder and perform better at school.
[/quote]

The problem with this, is that we have a created a society where you NEED a college education on average just to be able to pull in above average income. It isn’t like all of the people who graduated from college in the 70’s and 80’s were smarter than people graduating today. Also, very often someone can come from a background in high school of below average grades and turn things around in college. It would be tragic if someone’s life was fully based on their high school performance.

120

[quote]krayon wrote:
Maybe they should increase the competitiveness amongst the students. My friend told me how in China they have different tiers of schools; the top tier schools have the best teachers and easier access to the top universities. Students have to get the required test scores to get into the school and even if you do make it in to the top tier, you have to do well on national tests or they kick you down to a lower tiered school. If North America implemented such a system, I?m confident that we?ll see a dramatic increase in dedication and grades.

Do you guys think that the huge increase in universities have to do with students doing poorer than previously? Seems like anyone can get into university; even people who get low 70s are finding universities that are willing to accept them. If universities raised their standards, there will be more pressure for students to study harder and perform better at school.
[/quote]

I disagree with this philosophy completely. I also disagree with the urgency with which people promote standardized testing as a means to evaluate schools. As anyone who has kids in school these days knows, they now “teach to the tests” rather than teach for learning. The extent to which schools do this varies, but the fact is that administrators are scared of losing funding or even having their schools taken over by their states that they are forced to do this and eliminate or greatly curtail other curricula such as art, music and physical education (although the phys ed seems to be gaining in popularity again due to the growing obesity problem). They cut back on these other areas, that studies have shown actually improved cognitive functioning in the long run, in order to concentrate solely on the areas tested - math, english (including spelling, grammar, etc) and science.

People have pushed the tested subjects because the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans have outperformed U.S. students in these areas. Does this mean that their education systems are better than ours? I argue that they are not. “The Economist” published a report recently (I think Dec 05) on higher education. In that report, they listed the top 20 universities in the world. I believe 18 of the 20 were American universities. What does this prove? I think it proves that if those Asian nations knew best about education their universities would be higher-ranked. Perhaps it is due to limiting late blooming students to lower-quality schools.

Pigeonholing kids at an early age due to test results is a very dangerous road to travel. Children adapt at different speeds, particularly in the primary grades (K-3) and penalizing those slower at those ages can often stunt an otherwise terrific late bloomer.

To those that would argue that the best will always test higher and perform better in school, you need to do some research into the phenomena of test anxiety. I have known a lot of intelligent people that do relatively poorly on standardized tests because of this. Does this mean that they cannot learn as well or better than someone that is very comfortable in a test setting? I don’t think so.

For example, I was always very comfortable taking standardized tests. I saw them as a challenge and thought they were actually fun. I had horrible study habits however, and did not perform as well in the classroom as a lot of my peers because of this. Under the Chinese system, I would be selected for better schools when I probably would not have deserved to go over some more motivated students.

This post has gone on long enough, so I will sum up and say that I don’t think we should model our education system (or anything) after China. Their system is more deficient in many more ways than it is efficient. It only seems the opposite because they only tout their successes and sweep the rest outside, out of sight from the rest of the world.

Furthermore, I don’t think a country should strive to educate their children exactly like any other country because it will inevitably fail due to cultural differences. I think the best solution for the U.S. is to regionalize all school systems whereby resources are pooled, thus leveling the playing field for all socio-economic groups rather than penalizing students who cannot afford to live in richer areas.

DB