Be A Teacher Be a Fool

Off Topic
141

[quote]Magarhe wrote:
Prof X you seem to have a real chip on your shoulder, it sounds like you’re still pissed off at all the kids at school who had more money than you, not just from this but from other posts you’ve made. You haven’t read my post properly and blown it away because it upset your chippy shoulder.[/quote]

No chips on my shoulders. What you wrote made no sense and I informed you of my opinion. Also, kids at my school? Yeah, I’m still losing sleep on something I mentioned ONCE on this site about a high school experience. I think it is a tad strange that you would even bring something like that up that was mentioned about Nissan Maximas in an unrelated thread that must have been 3 months ago.

[quote]
I AM NOT SAYING PAY THEM ALL MONEY TO ATTEND SCHOOL AND BE LITTLE SHITS.

I am saying pay them for achieving results[/quote]

Did you think I misunderstood you the first time? I am truly interested. You thought I missed this?

[quote]
set them up to understand that learning can improve their life. This doesn’t have to be paying them to realise this, it should be taught to them by their parents, they should understand that learning can improve their situation in life and they should be SELF MOTIVATED to get off their ass and learn, not sit around giving cheek to the teacher.[/quote]

What does THIS have to do with paying a kid for it?

[quote]
And the last part of my post suggested giving the teacher a big stick to smack their smartass into line, AS WHAT USED TO HAPPEN.

Because really the schools now are mostly minding centres for delinquents who are destined to be unskilled and unemployable in a country with diminishing manufacturing and a faltering economy.[/quote]

To do this you need to make it harder for bullshit law suits to be filed every single time some idiot decides to make some quick cash by taking advantage of a very faulted legal system. That includes ridiculous medical law suits that are the primary reason a simple office visit can cost in excess of 150-200 bucks.

[quote]
You think society demands that people need to learn too much? Well move those kids to China and work in the sweatshops where they belong if they don’t want to learn.[/quote]

Where the hell did I write that society demands people learn too much? I personally don’t think people learn anywhere near enough. I just had some kid argue with me in another thread because he didn’t know that your body makes nonessential amino acids. I mean, shit, I read that on my own in junior high school in an encyclopedia. In fact, my mom bought a whole set when I was first born and I swear I truly read at least more than half of the entire set before high school. My point to you was that college entrance should NOT be totally reliant on high school performance on exams. That is not a good indicator of the ability to adapt and learn and many kids do better once in college. That is why I mentioned that someone’s life should not be based on their high school performance. Trying to increase the requirements to get into college which will keep more kids out will not solve any problems. It will probably lead to more problems being created.

[quote]
A country full of lazy kids who won’t learn or behave complaining, getting fat and whinging that there are no jobs, and it is too much learnin’ to do these days, and acting tough. Great. I wonder what the future will be.

There is no way paying teachers more is going to fix this.

If you paid them $250,000 pa it STILL wouldn’t fix this.

Carrot or stick, applied to the kids. [/quote]

Paying kids won’t teach this. Paying kids will only teach them that are owed something by society for everything they do that is required of them. That is a mistake. This was explained to you before but apparently, your mind was filled with chips and shoulders or some shit like that.

142

Oh, just as an interesting side note…

some school districts used to spread 4 years of pay over 5 (or 3 over 4) and allow teachers to take every 4th or 5th year off (presumably for continuing education, or travel). Many stopped because the teachers were finding more rewarding, better paying jobs in their year away!!!

143

[quote]ActionJackson wrote:
Sorry for the rant…but I get very sick of listening to people chastise teachers for…wanting more money.[/quote]

if you want to make more money than a teacher makes find a profession that pays more…

nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to keep a low pay high stress job…

144

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

99.99% of college teachers SUCK!

[/quote]

Maybe you just went to a sucky college. I’ve found most of my teachers to be pretty good at what they do.

145

[quote]DPH wrote:
ActionJackson wrote:
Sorry for the rant…but I get very sick of listening to people chastise teachers for…wanting more money.

if you want to make more money than a teacher makes find a profession that pays more…

nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to keep a low pay high stress job…[/quote]

Why did you edit what I said to omit both sides? I am not asking for more money, I am saying that if you intend to pay such a pittance, don’t expect me to coach, fundraise, supervise, and do all the extras ON MY OWN TIME. These are extras that are not part of my contract, do I bitch at you for not working 20 hours of overtime each week FOR FREE? No, because people deserve to be paid when they go to work.

You are right, no one is holding a gun to my head…but they are not holding a carrot out in front of me like they do in other industries. Can you not see how idiotic this is? Can you not see that this provides very little incentive for teachers to strive for excellence? If you were in a teacher’s shoes would you do all those extras under these conditions?

Don’t twist my words in an attempt to make me sound like I am playing the part of the victim. I am only being a realist, and trying point out the deficiencies in a system that seems to be setting itself up for failure.

Just a question,if you had/have kids, would you sooner his/her teacher(s) recieved incentives to provide your children with extended learning opportunities above and beyond the classroom, or would you rather see them race out of the parking lot before all the kids are gone?

AJ

146

for working 9 months a year i think their pay is ok

147

[quote]ActionJackson wrote:
OK, I’ll bite on this one finally. As a teacher of 7 years in a public school, I will outline what I see as some of the issues that affect the quality of current public education.

#1-Work for pay: Unlike most other jobs in the world, you are not paid for your overtime. I coached basketball, volleyball and track and field. On away game nights, I would arrive at school at 7:00 am and get home at 1:00 am (18 hours straight) only to get up at 6:00 am and return to the school and head off to a weekend tourney right after school that night for the weekend to spend my own money on hotels, meals away from home, and meals for kids with no money. My financial compensation… $0.
… [/quote]

I think most degreed professionals do not get overtime pay.

I know I don’t as an engineer.

I used to have to do a significant amount of travel. I would often work double shifts to get the job done, barely have time to eat or sleep. I would come back into work and some idiot would always say “It must be nice to travel all the time and have fun.”

Coaching a kids game sounds a hell of a lot more enjoyable than paddling a row boat around a sewage treatment lagoon in windy 40 degree weather to take samples or gearing up with a Scott airpack and a harness (so they can pull you out if you collapse) and climbing inside a 120 degree+ process vessel to examine how badly the acid has damaged the lining.

All this for my salary. No overtime.

Add to this the constant worries that go with working in private industry, such as customer base fleeing to China, worries about layoffs and competition.

The sheltered life of a school teacher starts to look attractive.

How many school teachers have had their nasal passages burned by phosphoric acid because some asshole cut through the lock out lock with bolt cutters and turned on the acid wash when they were inside the vessel?

How many school teachers have had to leap off the scaffold and crawl though a small manway, badly spraining their ankle to escape the acd wash?

All for no overtime pay.

Can we put to rest the poor underpaid overworked school teacher bit yet?

148

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
… I am producing educated human beings. …

This is the cornerstone of your mistake. You are not producing anything.

You are providing a service by presenting subject material to these kids. You did not produce these kids.

It is up to the kids to learn it or not.

It is kind of funny that you always argue against taxes etc. with your Objectivist philosphy yet you make you living directly from taxes and would like to see the tax burden increased in order to increase your salary.

Methinks if Atlas shrugged you would be in trouble.[/quote]

If you know I’m a teacher, you’d know that I teach at a private school (since you seem to know my posts). I am NOT angling for a payraise for myself, simply addressing a huge problem: John Dewey’s philosophy of education (rooted in Soviet Marxism and his Columbia buddies) is destroying and rotting away at our social fabric.

The kids are given a choice – learn this, or starve. Get educated or be homeless. Not producing anything? That’s pretty insulting. If a doctor saves your child’s life, would you dismiss his/her actions by saying, “Well, you only provided a service. You didn’t produce anything.”

Hmmm…

149

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
ActionJackson wrote:
OK, I’ll bite on this one finally. As a teacher of 7 years in a public school, I will outline what I see as some of the issues that affect the quality of current public education.

#1-Work for pay: Unlike most other jobs in the world, you are not paid for your overtime. I coached basketball, volleyball and track and field. On away game nights, I would arrive at school at 7:00 am and get home at 1:00 am (18 hours straight) only to get up at 6:00 am and return to the school and head off to a weekend tourney right after school that night for the weekend to spend my own money on hotels, meals away from home, and meals for kids with no money. My financial compensation… $0.
…

I think most degreed professionals do not get overtime pay.

I know I don’t as an engineer.

I used to have to do a significant amount of travel. I would often work double shifts to get the job done, barely have time to eat or sleep. I would come back into work and some idiot would always say “It must be nice to travel all the time and have fun.”

Coaching a kids game sounds a hell of a lot more enjoyable than paddling a row boat around a sewage treatment lagoon in windy 40 degree weather to take samples or gearing up with a Scott airpack and a harness (so they can pull you out if you collapse) and climbing inside a 120 degree+ process vessel to examine how badly the acid has damaged the lining.

All this for my salary. No overtime.

Add to this the constant worries that go with working in private industry, such as customer base fleeing to China, worries about layoffs and competition.

The sheltered life of a school teacher starts to look attractive.

How many school teachers have had their nasal passages burned by phosphoric acid because some asshole cut through the lock out lock with bolt cutters and turned on the acid wash when they were inside the vessel?

How many school teachers have had to leap off the scaffold and crawl though a small manway, badly spraining their ankle to escape the acd wash?

All for no overtime pay.

Can we put to rest the poor underpaid overworked school teacher bit yet?[/quote]

Become a teacher, we need you! But when you get thrown out of a third story window for not giving 'A’s, when you get stabbed and have to get over 100 stiches (this all happened in Cleveland over the past several years), when you break up a ‘racial squabble’ and get jacked , then we’ll talk.

150

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
…
Become a teacher, we need you! But when you get thrown out of a third story window for not giving 'A’s, when you get stabbed and have to get over 100 stiches (this all happened in Cleveland over the past several years), when you break up a ‘racial squabble’ and get jacked , then we’ll talk.

[/quote]

My uncle is a retired English teacher/wrestling coach in a city school district.

He would always be the one that broke up the fights. He saw his share of knives. He also lives in a beautiful big expensive house paid for with his salary and wise investments.

151

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:

I think most degreed professionals do not get overtime pay.

I know I don’t as an engineer.

I used to have to do a significant amount of travel. I would often work double shifts to get the job done, barely have time to eat or sleep. I would come back into work and some idiot would always say “It must be nice to travel all the time and have fun.”

Coaching a kids game sounds a hell of a lot more enjoyable than paddling a row boat around a sewage treatment lagoon in windy 40 degree weather to take samples or gearing up with a Scott airpack and a harness (so they can pull you out if you collapse) and climbing inside a 120 degree+ process vessel to examine how badly the acid has damaged the lining.

All this for my salary. No overtime.

Add to this the constant worries that go with working in private industry, such as customer base fleeing to China, worries about layoffs and competition.

The sheltered life of a school teacher starts to look attractive.

How many school teachers have had their nasal passages burned by phosphoric acid because some asshole cut through the lock out lock with bolt cutters and turned on the acid wash when they were inside the vessel?

How many school teachers have had to leap off the scaffold and crawl though a small manway, badly spraining their ankle to escape the acd wash?

All for no overtime pay.

Can we put to rest the poor underpaid overworked school teacher bit yet?[/quote]

For F*** sakes, I am trying to help put it to rest, it comes down to this. Better pay or keep the same low expectations, your choice…If I want more money I will leave, If you have expectations of teachers above and beyond their contract obligations, pay them more.

How many engineers have to flee students who bring weapons to school?

Of course being a school teacher is a sheltered lifestyle

Yeah, coaching is always enjoyable, especially when little Billy who is on your basketball team sneaks out after curfew to meet girls and you have to stay up until 2:00 looking for him then get up at 6:00 to go to team breakfast. Or when his parents come and complain because he got benched for his actions, yeah always fun, the mountains of paperwork and administrative work to cover my a$$ from lawsuit if there were an accident is just an added bonus

What you are doing is the exact same thing that the “idiot” at your work does. You are assuming that the sheltered lifestyle of a teacher is attractive.

If your job is so bad why don’t you just leave and become a teacher!!!

AJ

152

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:

My uncle is a retired English teacher/wrestling coach in a city school district.

He would always be the one that broke up the fights. He saw his share of knives. He also lives in a beautiful big expensive house paid for with his salary and wise investments.
[/quote]

I thought we had a sheltered life and were never in any danger at work!!!

Wow, he must be rich to own his own house by the time he is retired!!!

153

[quote]ActionJackson wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:

My uncle is a retired English teacher/wrestling coach in a city school district.

He would always be the one that broke up the fights. He saw his share of knives. He also lives in a beautiful big expensive house paid for with his salary and wise investments.

I thought we had a sheltered life and were never in any danger at work!!!

Wow, he must be rich to own his own house by the time he is retired!!![/quote]

He has done quite well with his salary and his investments. When he was younger he painted houses in the summer during his “vacation”.

He didn’t bitch about money, he earned it.

He started as an immigrant with nothing and now has a great new house and great retirement benefits.

I find this talk of teachers being underpaid laughable.

My sister in law is also a teacher, and an immigrant. She makes less teaching than she did working for a major chemical company but she has far more free time to spend with her kids.

My wife is a college professor.

My uncle is a retired college professor/department chair.

They all do quite well.

154

[quote]ActionJackson wrote:
Sorry for the rant, It’s not like I hate my job, but I get very sick of listening to people chastise teachers for either not doing enough, or wanting more money. As with everything, you can’t have it both ways!!!
AJ [/quote]

unedited version (happy now?)

you’re still whining about wanting more money…

so…

(again) if you want to make more money than a teacher makes find a profession that pays more…

(again) nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to keep a low pay high stress job…

public school teaching is a high stress, low pay, thankless job (I hope you knew that going in)…

as long as the local, state, and federal governments control your pay scale you will not get what you could get working in the private sector…

almost no one (except other teachers, their family, and friends) is interested in listening to teachers whine about their pay or their working conditions …this is a reality that you are going to have to come to terms with…

if you love your job and don’t mind low pay and no recognition then great…but, if you are in any way dissatisfied with your public sector job then venture into the private sector…

good luck to you however you choose to live your life!

155

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

The job IS easy because the unions lower the expectations and standards. You can work at a very minimal level and they won’t be able to get rid of you unless you are dangerous.

The job is HARD if you work at the level that I as a parent would hope that a teacher would work at, and at the level that the devoted teachers do work at. The problem here is that sinking to the minimal level is contagious. When you’ve got the union banner wavers telling you that you need to be out the door 5 minutes after the last class is over because that’s what our level of pay is based on. I have had a union rep tell me this! Also, you can’t pay teachers based on performance because it just gets too complicated. If its based on a crappy state test, then do you want teachers teaching to that test? Also, are you going to be willing to take a remedial class if those kids test scores are going to be assigned to you.

[/quote]

Who gives the union the power to do this? YOU DO. Stop giving them you union dues, stop following their so-called leadership.

156

[quote]DPH wrote:
almost no one (except other teachers, their family, and friends) is interested in listening to teachers whine about their pay or their working conditions …this is a reality that you are going to have to come to terms with…

if you love your job and don’t mind low pay and no recognition then great…but, if you are in any way dissatisfied with your public sector job then venture into the private sector…

good luck to you however you choose to live your life![/quote]

Um, maybe you might WANT to listen. If your knee hurts, it needs attention. If teachers say, over and over, this sucks, then someday you will have a country of illiterate barbarians, who just might vote some prick into power who promises to solve all your problems.

Remember, it is far easier to trick and sway uneducated masses.

Hey, maybe that’s why public ed is underfunded – who wants to try to rule a nation of educated and literate people? They are harder to trick!!

Now I get it!!

157

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Um, maybe you might WANT to listen. If your knee hurts, it needs attention. If teachers say, over and over, this sucks, then someday you will have a country of illiterate barbarians,
[/quote]

HH,

we live in a country where 70% of the people believe that space aliens are living amoung us…

2/3rds of the populace look like human blimps and spend nearly all their free time watching mindless drivel on TV…

shit…I graduated from high school twenty years ago with kids that needed help reading the back of a cereal box…

I’m pretty sure that your ‘doom and gloom’ vision of the future is already here…

158

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
ActionJackson wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:

He didn’t bitch about money, he earned it.

He started as an immigrant with nothing and now has a great new house and great retirement benefits.

I find this talk of teachers being underpaid laughable.

My sister in law is also a teacher, and an immigrant. She makes less teaching than she did working for a major chemical company but she has far more free time to spend with her kids.

My wife is a college professor.

My uncle is a retired college professor/department chair.

They all do quite well.[/quote]

Being that you don’t know me, as I don’t know you, I think I am done with going back and forth about the state of education and how much I bitch about poor salary (even though I never really felt that, that was assumed by everyone who feels that I am looking for a handout). I also “earn” my money, like your uncle. I have three jobs, work at least 70 hours per week (Teacher, club sport coach, bartender at a pub), and in the end make a fair bit of money. I don’t feel like I am unable to change my future, I just hope for the future of our youth that sweeping changes are made in the education system. It does not help prepare them for the “real” world in any way.

For those of you who continue to play the “stop playing the victim and get out and get a real job” card. I hope you will enjoy my future post where I show you pics of the gym that I will be opening May 1 specializing in training athletes(just picked up the keys to the building yesterday). How’s that for a job you will be jealous of suckers!!!

If you care to check out the website for my gym go to:

www.dynamicstrength.ca

Hope you all have a great weekend,

Jackson

159

[quote]ActionJackson wrote:
…

Being that you don’t know me, as I don’t know you, I think I am done with going back and forth about the state of education and how much I bitch about poor salary (even though I never really felt that, that was assumed by everyone who feels that I am looking for a handout). I also “earn” my money, like your uncle. I have three jobs, work at least 70 hours per week (Teacher, club sport coach, bartender at a pub), and in the end make a fair bit of money. I don’t feel like I am unable to change my future, I just hope for the future of our youth that sweeping changes are made in the education system. It does not help prepare them for the “real” world in any way.

For those of you who continue to play the “stop playing the victim and get out and get a real job” card. I hope you will enjoy my future post where I show you pics of the gym that I will be opening May 1 specializing in training athletes(just picked up the keys to the building yesterday). How’s that for a job you will be jealous of suckers!!!

If you care to check out the website for my gym go to:

www.dynamicstrength.ca

Hope you all have a great weekend,

Jackson[/quote]

I am glad you don’t just sit back and bitch about being underpaid.

We need more of this.

160

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Todd S. wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
I think it is this, combined with the fact that many people become teachers just to get the summers off. I don’t know how many teachers actually care about the kids they teach, but I’ve only had a handful that were actually good at what they did. Too many crappy teachers.

You get what you pay for. Crappy pay… crappy teaching.

How many of you guys want to teach 5 or so classes/day with about 28 smiling faces in each, go home and keep working (grading, writing tests, etc), all for a whopping $28,000 per year, to start?

LOL!

So how much do you think a teacher should make? $200k, $300k, I mean the value they add is immeasurable. This is the same argument for minimum wage.

When I got out of college in 2001 I started out at 24k doing accounting. I’m only making 34k now. I think if a teacher starts out similar to that it is a pretty good salary.

Was it a bachelors degree? I just read where accounting starts at $41,000.

Were you responsible, in part, for the lives of 140 children?

What’s that worth? What an accounting clerk makes?

[/quote]

I have to agree with headhunter, my dad was a high school teacher and there is alot of shit to deal with especially the bad students who’s parents think, “poor child.” Thats todays parents atitude. Sure summer off is nice, but you aint have a fucking clue if you think its the easiest job. The job aint 8-3, its 8- late.

If you only understood the preparation and amount of corrections, teachers job is many more hours a week than yours. My dad stayed up late many nites and I am talking till 2AM, working non stop, and weekends as well. They do deserve better pay, but pay depends on where you teach as well. When anyone talks about teaching as an easy job, shouldnt open their mouth. Teaching is a very important job, and sometimes teachers are the ones that have to bring up your damn kids cuz ur too busy or lazy too.

Not anyone can be a teacher either, and it is one of the most important jobs their is, so if you dont know about it,dont speak about it.