Teacher…soldier…whatever we choose to do with our lives is OUR choice.
So I have no pity for teachers…soldiers…anything/anyone because (unless someone is drafted) they all have a choice as to their career.
BTW: I’ve been a University Prof for 2 years so far and this is the SHIT!!!
[quote]conorh wrote:
Isn’t the education required to teach pretty much a joke? Most of the education majors I know take jack shit for courses and they all get jobs teaching when they graduate. I guess I don’t see the point in taking classes to learn how to teach if you haven’t learned anything to teach.
[/quote]
very true! I’m a EDU major and the classes taken in the actual education department are a freaking joke, it’s all methods, trying to teach understanding to minorities among other things. My most worthwhile EDU class was my field experience/observation at the start of the program.
This fall I’ll be doing student teaching, should be interesting.
Matt
[quote]spartanpower wrote:
tmanners wrote:
Chris Aus wrote:
HH
reasonable money with very good hours, lots of free time, and TONS of holidays…
sounds okay to me
Obviousy you don’t know any teachers. All teachers have huge workloads they take home after working 8-3 in australia. Ask them when they mark work, keep updated on the sylabus and set lessons. I’m traing to be a teacher and I am not thinking I’m getting off easy because they get 12 weeks of holidays a year.
Boo fucking hoo. You consider 8-3 with a lunch a huge workload? It’s a good thing you’re going to be a teacher, because the real world would swallow you whole.
High school teachers in the States work roughly 7-3 each day. The first 40 min and the last 30 min of each day are free. The teachers teach 6 out of 8 periods with a 30 minute lunch break. So, out of 8 hours, they’re only teaching for roughly 4.5. That’s an extra 3.5 to plan, grade, and masturbate to their little hearts’ content. If you’ve been teaching for more than 2 or 3 years and you STILL have to take work home, then you’re probably not doing much work at school.
I’m sick of these fucking primadonnas that think they’re god’s gift because they’re “educators.” If a true professional wants a pay increase, he can either ask his boss for one or he can quit and get another job that pays better. Teachers just go on strike. That’s unprofessional. If a professional wants better benefits he can pay for them himself, ask his employer to change plans, or find a new employer. Teachers just go on strike. Unprofessional again. If a company wants to get rid of a senior employee because they make too much money or they are losing their edge, they can fire them. If a tenured teacher starts using the same lesson plans and tests over and over and begins to suck as a teacher, he can only be fired if the school’s administrators find a dead baby in his freezer. How is that equivalent to any other professional field?
So, basically, all of you teachers need to shut the fuck up and stop your fucking whining. Nobody cares how hard or thankless you find your job. Speaking of hard and thankless, have any of you fucks (US only) ever found yourselves crying about marking a paper with a red pen, and then you realized that there are men in the desert 15,000 miles away risking their lives to protect our country?
For the record, I know a few teachers, and the only ones that complain about their workloads are the ones that had never held a real job prior to becoming a teacher.[/quote]
I never seen such an ignorant post. My dad held many real jobs, and who is comparing teaching to being in the army? You are honestly a dumbass.
“How is that equivalent to any other professional field?”
Every other field is the exact same, and the situation you explain is a problem that this profession faces, and well you probably had a bad experience with a teacher and thats why you hate them so much. Every career has problems associated with it.
“If you’ve been teaching for more than 2 or 3 years and you STILL have to take work home, then you’re probably not doing much work at school.”
umm ok, so your a know it all now? So between those hours you have time to plan for the next lesson? If you teach the same class you have to make sure every class is at the same level as the other. Maybe you have to take work home because you actually give out real tests with essay questions and not all multiple choice baby tests like the teachers you know. The teachers that have no work to bring home are the ones who dont correct your work or bother reading it. Why not just pass all the children? Who cares right? My dad was an excellent teacher because he put in alot of work, and if you put in the hours, the return is better. I remember the number of nights my dad was up till 2 or 3 am correcting hundreds of tests because he wanted the children to learn and come out of his class with something. Well come to think of it maybe he should of just given simple multiple choice tests and just said fuck it, who gives a shit about the children. To be a good teacher you have to put in the hours and if you dont you wont be very good at your job. Just because you dont get fired doesnt mean your doing a good job. I was lucky to have lots of hard working teachers, many of which came out of retirement at 60 to die within a year of stress related illnesses. Everything I say is based on high school teachers, i dont know how the elementary or higher levels of teaching is, but your views are plain ignorant. Between classes you have meetings, you have to see children to give them extra help before and after school, detentions, and extracurricular things that you must stay behind for. All I know is that if you think teaching is so damn fuckin simple, why dont you go into it?
[quote]purdiver wrote:
Both my parents are/were teachers. My dad recently retired after teaching for 36 years. The pay really isn’t that bad. Sure he started making around 5k but when he retired he was approaching 60k. I’m sure someone in a business field with that much experience and a masters would be making more, but being a teacher allowed him to have free time to always be able to participate in my activities growing up and actually spend time with the family.[/quote]
60K??? Damn, that isnt bad. Maybe the system in Canada is alot worse… My dad wasnt even close to that after 20 years…
[quote]mike08042 wrote:
spartanpower wrote:
tmanners wrote:
Chris Aus wrote:
HH
reasonable money with very good hours, lots of free time, and TONS of holidays…
sounds okay to me
Obviousy you don’t know any teachers. All teachers have huge workloads they take home after working 8-3 in australia. Ask them when they mark work, keep updated on the sylabus and set lessons. I’m traing to be a teacher and I am not thinking I’m getting off easy because they get 12 weeks of holidays a year.
Boo fucking hoo. You consider 8-3 with a lunch a huge workload? It’s a good thing you’re going to be a teacher, because the real world would swallow you whole.
High school teachers in the States work roughly 7-3 each day. The first 40 min and the last 30 min of each day are free. The teachers teach 6 out of 8 periods with a 30 minute lunch break. So, out of 8 hours, they’re only teaching for roughly 4.5. That’s an extra 3.5 to plan, grade, and masturbate to their little hearts’ content. If you’ve been teaching for more than 2 or 3 years and you STILL have to take work home, then you’re probably not doing much work at school.
I’m sick of these fucking primadonnas that think they’re god’s gift because they’re “educators.” If a true professional wants a pay increase, he can either ask his boss for one or he can quit and get another job that pays better. Teachers just go on strike. That’s unprofessional.
If a professional wants better benefits he can pay for them himself, ask his employer to change plans, or find a new employer. Teachers just go on strike. Unprofessional again. If a company wants to get rid of a senior employee because they make too much money or they are losing their edge, they can fire them.
If a tenured teacher starts using the same lesson plans and tests over and over and begins to suck as a teacher, he can only be fired if the school’s administrators find a dead baby in his freezer. How is that equivalent to any other professional field?
So, basically, all of you teachers need to shut the fuck up and stop your fucking whining. Nobody cares how hard or thankless you find your job. Speaking of hard and thankless, have any of you fucks (US only) ever found yourselves crying about marking a paper with a red pen, and then you realized that there are men in the desert 15,000 miles away risking their lives to protect our country?
For the record, I know a few teachers, and the only ones that complain about their workloads are the ones that had never held a real job prior to becoming a teacher.
I never seen such an ignorant post. My dad held many real jobs, and who is comparing teaching to being in the army? You are honestly a dumbass.
“How is that equivalent to any other professional field?”
Every other field is the exact same, and the situation you explain is a problem that this profession faces, and well you probably had a bad experience with a teacher and thats why you hate them so much. Every career has problems associated with it.
“If you’ve been teaching for more than 2 or 3 years and you STILL have to take work home, then you’re probably not doing much work at school.”
umm ok, so your a know it all now? So between those hours you have time to plan for the next lesson? If you teach the same class you have to make sure every class is at the same level as the other. Maybe you have to take work home because you actually give out real tests with essay questions and not all multiple choice baby tests like the teachers you know.
The teachers that have no work to bring home are the ones who dont correct your work or bother reading it. Why not just pass all the children? Who cares right? My dad was an excellent teacher because he put in alot of work, and if you put in the hours, the return is better. I remember the number of nights my dad was up till 2 or 3 am correcting hundreds of tests because he wanted the children to learn and come out of his class with something.
Well come to think of it maybe he should of just given simple multiple choice tests and just said fuck it, who gives a shit about the children. To be a good teacher you have to put in the hours and if you dont you wont be very good at your job. Just because you dont get fired doesnt mean your doing a good job.
I was lucky to have lots of hard working teachers, many of which came out of retirement at 60 to die within a year of stress related illnesses. Everything I say is based on high school teachers, i dont know how the elementary or higher levels of teaching is, but your views are plain ignorant.
Between classes you have meetings, you have to see children to give them extra help before and after school, detentions, and extracurricular things that you must stay behind for. All I know is that if you think teaching is so damn fuckin simple, why dont you go into it? [/quote]
Teachers and soldiers are worlds apart, because soldiers don’t fucking cry, they just get the job done.
I’m not a teacher because it doesn’t appeal to me, simple or not.
[quote]mike08042 wrote:
purdiver wrote:
Both my parents are/were teachers. My dad recently retired after teaching for 36 years. The pay really isn’t that bad. Sure he started making around 5k but when he retired he was approaching 60k. I’m sure someone in a business field with that much experience and a masters would be making more, but being a teacher allowed him to have free time to always be able to participate in my activities growing up and actually spend time with the family.
60K??? Damn, that isnt bad. Maybe the system in Canada is alot worse… My dad wasnt even close to that after 20 years… [/quote]
The pay scales for teaching vary so drastically by region it’s ridiculous.
Where I’m at in PA, my fiancee is starting her first year as a teacher this coming fall, and she starts at $41,000.
Pay scale, with your masters and something like 15 years of teaching, tops out at $103,000. Not too shabby if you ask me.
However, move down to Florida, and I think that same pay scale tops out at something like $44,000.
Every profession suffers it’s own bureaucracy, politics and generalized bullshit, so that the grass always looks greener on the other side. It isn’t. We need good teachers. All my children went to public schools from K to 12. The next generation depends on you to do your job. Too bad so many fail, because the current system allows functional illiterates to graduate high school without the skills necessary to even fill out a job application. Just read some of the posts on this site as evidence…if you can that is! (English as a second language folks take exception, please.)
Hang tough. If you only reach one student a year, it’s worth it. If we don’t remember our history, we are condemned to repeat it. One will remember.
Best quote ever from “School of Rock” (I think)!
Those that can do.
Those that can’t, teach.
Those that can’t teach, teach physical fitness"
Great, eh?
Ok so to all those that are bashing the teachers out there just remember you would not be able to read the words in front of your face without a teacher. Without a teacher you would not have been able to formulate the thought process it just took you type the phrase “shut the fuck up”.
I am not a teacher, I am a financial analyst, but without my professors, I would not be able to find the value of a stock option or know how to “ride the curve”. I have great respect for the people who taught me, many of whom came from the private sector and now teach to help others.
Many of my high school teachers came from schools such as William and Mary and MIT, and teach so that they could help future generations think for themselves. My teachers went against the standardized tests, which made us all the smarter.
We need teachers because without them the future of our country and businesses would be in great risk. Think about it, when we get old do you really want a bunch of people running the country that were taught by robots? I would rather have them taught by Plato, and him alone, than robots or any form of technology.
Teachers? salaries should reflect the fact that they get the summer off, but it also needs to reflect how valuable their trade is to our future success. With high wages, we would be able to get better people to teach, and maybe one-day return to having the smartest minds of our time teaching.
Oh and to you sholdier boy keep in mind your D.I. at boot camp was a teacher. I’m guessing someone wont be moving up in the ranks anytime soon…
I just finished my freshman year at college where I’m going to earn a math degree (maybe a double in physics as well). Going into college I wanted to be an actuary, as I know there’s supposed to be a good amount of employment opportunities and a ton of room for pay advance.
However, lately I’m thinking that I would get a lot more satisfaction out of being a teacher than working as a suit in some corporation. Sports have always been a big part of my life and I’d really like to coach, which I don’t think I’d be able to do working a “9-5”.
To me, money isn’t as important as job satisfaction.
[quote]CrewPierce wrote:
Ok so to all those that are bashing the teachers out there just remember you would not be able to read the words in front of your face without a teacher. Without a teacher you would not have been able to formulate the thought process it just took you type the phrase “shut the fuck up”.
…[/quote]
My parents taught me to read before I went to school as I have taught my daugters to read before they went to school.
The world is full of teachers. Only a small fraction of them get paid to do it.
went from 10 years in the design/engineering industry to teaching the same at University,
sure i miss all the cut and thrust of the real world, but Lecturing is a great life, just a shame that pay is not performance/success related.
Some old fossils who have been static in their teaching and research for 20 years still earn as much as me.
[quote]legend wrote:
went from 10 years in the design/engineering industry to teaching the same at University,
sure i miss all the cut and thrust of the real world, but Lecturing is a great life, just a shame that pay is not performance/success related.
Some old fossils who have been static in their teaching and research for 20 years still earn as much as me. [/quote]
Welcome to the wonderful world of academia and soft money. The best benefit at any University is use of the gym weightroom. There is NEVER any curling in the squat rack.
[quote]legend wrote:
went from 10 years in the design/engineering industry to teaching the same at University,
sure i miss all the cut and thrust of the real world, but Lecturing is a great life, just a shame that pay is not performance/success related.
Some old fossils who have been static in their teaching and research for 20 years still earn as much as me. [/quote]
How do you measure success? Grades? Student Evaluations? Are you an easy A?
My wife teaches college and feels she is a better teacher than many of the older profs.
It is not in the colleges best interests to seriously determine these things.
HH,
Get out now.
You’ll be better off.
Your students will be better off.
Your co-workers will be better off.
No one is forcing you to teach.
Teachers like you (who bitch and moan) are a cancer. Your disease infects your students and then spreads into the classrooms of dedicated teachers. You are the guy everyone avoids during their off period, because they know if you corner them they will be subjected to a 45 minute bitch session about how “these kids today just don’t…” or about how “the administration just doesn’t…” or even about how your hemmorhoids are flaring up today.
Teaching is great. Teaching is EASY if you actually care and if you actually get yourself organized.
When is the last time you used a personal day to visit another school to observe great teachers? When is the last time you did homevisits?
THE FIRST DAYS OF SCHOOL–buy it, read it about 200 times this summer, and get your shit together. I’ve never met a teacher with excellent classroom management who didn’t love their job.
Bottom line, love it or quit.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
toddjacobs13 wrote:
I’m not a teacher, but one trend that bothers me in the US system is the tendency to gear all classroom work towards the successful completion of standardized tests. It seems to take all the initiative and individual character out of the teaching profession. Plus, it doesn’t seem like students respond to it all that well because it does not engage them on a human or critical thinking level.
To me, teaching should be less about facts and more about developing logical thought processes, problem solving skills, and social development.
Todd
This is a very intelligent post. I see these politicians all the time institute this bullshit — “Wow, look what we’re doing to educate your children!” — and convince most that “That’ll solve it!” They keep offering these band-aid solutions that are pablum.
HH
[/quote]
Four words that have tried their best to ruin education as we know it:
“No Child Left Behind”
The focus is on test scores and not the kids. Sure it requires teachers to be “highly qualified” to teach in their subject area (I am designated “highly qualified” to teach English. . .yipee!), but it also tags a school as “underachieving” if the school does not meet its AYP (Annual Yearly Progress).
My school has consistently raised test scores for the past 5 years (mainly through the use of numerous practice tests), yet our special education population did not raise their math scores by the required 17%. Result; we’re told by the state to make wholesale changes in our curriculum, show improvement across the board, or face take over by a bureaucracy that can’t aford to pay their own bills.
Makes sense to me.
So, HH, I see and feel your pain. 16 years in the classroom and I mull the thought of going into the full time practice of law. I guess the interaction with the kids (which is both a perk and a pain) keeps the job fresh. The incessant blaming of the public schools for society’s ills gets on my nerves, but then the rants of the home schoolers and pro-voucher folks will never die down and some have a point.
One thing I’d like to see; the “parental responsibility” portion of NCLB actually enforced. It would solve about 80% of the problems in the public schools.
Keep the faith HH. Don’t let a bad day color your judgement for the rest of your life.
Tenure is a terrible thing to waste.
[quote]djohns wrote:
From my way of thinking, schools would be soooo better of it education could get out of government control. Usually the fastest way to screw something up is to let the government run things. Having worked with people from other countries, it appears to me that our schools are among the worst in the developed world. But our universites are considered one of the best, if not the best. What’s the difference? Government controls one, not the other.
[/quote]
You have clearly never worked for my company. 
How about we say “DO Be A Teacher”. The best thing in the world is to know that you can make a difference in a child’s life. Plus, it’s very reasonable pay for the only 8 months that you work, with having the summer off. You really can’t find that “break” anywhere else in a job. It’s NOT very stressful at all!
You stay young with the kids even if you’re aging. And last but not least, it’s job security. What more can you ask for? In my opinion, teaching is a great field to go into.
[quote]spartanpower wrote:
Are you finished crying over your shitty choices in life? If it sucks so bad, why do you do it? Do you want me to shed a tear for you? Would you like a tissue? Seriously, there is nothing worse than someone that expects pity from others.
Also for the record: I do NOT hate or disrespect teachers. I hate and disrespect people that made a conscious choice to do something with their lives and then fucking cry about it to anyone that’ll lend an ear. There seem to be a lot of teachers that do this. I also hate people that claim to be something they’re not. If you have a union, you are NOT a professional. Get over it, or get rid of the union (I’d prefer the latter).[/quote]
Ummm…if you went to a private school, go ask for a refund. You were shortchanged in the Reading curriculum. Nowhere do I cry or ask for pity. I simply warned others away from a dying profession.
If you are going to respond to a post, at least have the courtesy to read it first, and not substitute what YOU think it said.
Please note that I really don’t blame you. You were educated by a system that is clearly in decline, where most good teachers bailed long ago and left a lot of drooling dolts to take over the educational process.
Our educational system is truly done for. I’ve tried to think of solutions for the inevitable question: “Well, what would YOU do?” It can’t be fixed. It’s simply FUBAR. Let it go.
Headhunter
[quote]toddjacobs13 wrote:
I’m not a teacher, but one trend that bothers me in the US system is the tendency to gear all classroom work towards the successful completion of standardized tests. It seems to take all the initiative and individual character out of the teaching profession. Plus, it doesn’t seem like students respond to it all that well because it does not engage them on a human or critical thinking level.
To me, teaching should be less about facts and more about developing logical thought processes, problem solving skills, and social development.
Todd[/quote]
Nah, I was in school before this trend developed, and it still sucked. When the teaching is crap anyways, standardisation can only help. I’m going to generalise here, and say anyone who thinks standardisation is ruining schooling either has been out of high school for over 10 years, or went to a REALLY good school.
My uni professors are great, but I didn’t learn jack shit before that.