Remember this when people ask about the teacher shortage.

[kpete]

[Hekate]

1. I'm the descendent of generations of schoolteachers & used to tell my kids it was a noble profession

Not well paid perhaps, but still, a noble endeavor. They are long since grown, by the way.

I still respect the profession, but have to say that our society took a turn for the worse a couple of decades ago in how it treats/ pays/ respects/ supports teachers.

Can’t say I blame Abby Norman, bartender, one bit.

[Dr. Skull]

19. Americans have alway denigrated teachers.

Read the Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. Written in 1820. Ichabod Crane is a portrait of a teacher, and speaking as someone who has spent 39 years in the classroom, not much has changed.

[Bev54]

34. Wow I live in Alberta Canada

and the average starting salary for a teacher here is about $63,000 and many make $80,000 or more. Some provinces are less but I think the least is still over $50,000. The schools are funded and no teacher needs to buy any supplies.

[Ms. Toad]

2. My wall of thank-you cards.

And flowers a student's parents brought me yesterday, when he brought them to school on a Saturday to meet the person they credit with keeping him on an even keel through the stressful bar exam preparation season. Apparently he has been having regular freak-outs, then he disappears for a while then comes back cool and collected after hanging out with me (or me and a bunch of other students)



(Sorry for the poor photo quality - I managed to leave my phone at home and my fire tablet takes crap photos.)

This teaching job is the only job where someone tells me how much they appreciate what I am doing for them at least once a week (on average) - and probably closer to daily most of the year. The salary they barely pay me is a nice bonus. (Adjusted for inflation - I am getting paid the same now that I was paid in 1989 when I left teaching in the public secondary system, so 32 years of experience and a JD get me a pile of thank you cards.)

BUT my job, where I am rewarded so richly with thanks from those I serve, is the exception, rather than the norm. I spent 11 largely thankless years teaching high school and was totally burned out when I left. And - my teaching job now is in a graduate role (law). I don't know that I would be willing to go back even to an ideal secondary school setting.

The point is well-taken. I'm just feeling particularly content in teaching after yesterday.

[pnwmom]

5. You did a great job, Ms. Toad! I'm glad this family did what they could to recognize you for it! n/t

[NJCher]

13. Wow!

You must be one terrific teacher/person!

Congratulations,

Fellow teacher,

NJCher

[Ms. Toad]

17. I care, and I make a lot of time for them at two tough transitions in their education -

starting law school - and preparing for the bar exam.

I really do love what I do, and they pick up on that.

[NJCher]

15. speaking of teaching grad school

The students who expressed thanks the most were immigrants or foreign grad students. Many of them had gone to school in their earlier years in countries where they had to pay tuition! Yes, even for kids. They were the most studious and conscientious people I had the entire time I taught.


Free public school is not a universal.

[Ms. Toad]

18. A lot of them are disproportionately grateful -

I find that a bit troubling, since I'm concerned the school sees them more as $$$ than students. We have a 2-year program that allows students licensed in their home country to come for ostensibly a 2-year program. The reality is that most of them struggle so much with language - and with a very different legal system - that by the end of their first semester the price tag for their degree has gone up 50% (the 2-year program turns into a 3 year one if their grades are low enough that they trigger the mandatory interventions, which cannot be completed within the remaining 3 semesters.) And then they struggle disproportionately with the bar exam.

[Wounded Bear]

3. RWers complain about teachers unions...

I ask how did we let shit get so bad they felt the need to unionize?

[DFW]

26. The only union the radical right seemed cool with:

The Soviet Union.

[nattyice]

29. Police unions as well

[ck4829]

4. Also, the # of people who act like you are a Marxist subversive is way less

[SergeStorms]

6. And no right-wing parents...

jumping down your throat about every little thing they find too "librul", like treating each other kindly.

If they get too drunk at the bar you can have the bouncer throw them out. Or even if they're not too drunk.

[FakeNoose]

23. THIS! Teaching is way too stressful these days

The elementary principals seem to always side with the screaming parents, never with the stressed out teachers. There are way too many angry parents, whatever their politics, doesn't seem to matter when it's THEIR kid.

But yeah, the rightwing parents are much more likely to get a teacher sanctioned or fired if they don't like what's being taught to precious little Johnny or Susie. Aaaagh!

Bartending isn't an ideal career, but it's way less stressful than teaching.

[sanatanadharma]

7. Pay teachers baby-sitter wages per hour per student

They may not get any more thanks perhaps, but the money will be better.

30 students x 6 hour-day x 180 days x (prevailing baby-sitter wage, lets say) $10/hour
Do the math, $324,000 a year.

Everyone wants the teachers at work without respecting the working teachers who are necessary to the economy simply as baby-sitters so parents can go to work too much for too little.

[BigmanPigman]

12. I did do the math...

every day I was teaching. We all knew we would make more money taking care of individual children than a group of students. Too many times I heard "Oh, what about the children though" from the younger teachers. They assumed that their students were dependent on them for care so they chose to be martyrs instead of professional educators with a high level of education.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

8. Hey Teacher, that's fifteen "fewer" hours, not fifteen "less"

Or, wait, what did you teach? Maybe a Chemistry teacher would make a good bartender.

[ZonkerHarris]

10. twitter's limited restrictions on characters means you have to be creative with words

to make it fit

[progressoid]

31. My Dad was a chemistry and physics teacher.

Can't spell worth a damn. My Mother (art teacher) would proof read things he wrote.

[Random Boomer]

9. I hope she wasn't an English teacher

Because that should be "15 fewer hours a week".

On a more serious note, teaching and teachers should count for a lot more in our society.

[yankeepants]

28. Also missing commas between both sets of "way way".

[BigmanPigman]

11. I got a lot of "Wow, your job is hard"

remarks from parents of students who volunteered to chaperone on a field trip. A field trip where they only had to keep track of a handful of students. This is not a real classroom experience but it is enough of a wake up to parents who have no clue how much work a teacher does. I always got tons of "Thank you" drawings from students and plenty of Teacher Day gifts from parents. Often I couldn't use the bathroom for 4 1/2 hours due to forced Recess Duty. Most teachers take a nap when they get home then they spend the evenings working on school work. This is a low paid profession since it is mostly women and women aren't worth as much as men, apparently. This hasn't changed in 100 years.

We certainly could have used more help, smaller class sizes, more prep time, fewer meetings and training (twice a week is too much), more support staff, etc. I was the union rep at my school and it was always an uphill battle to get the younger teachers into the union...which pissed me off a lot. The union is the teachers' true friend. It is insurance against all sorts of terrible situations teachers constantly find themselves in, like getting laid off during tough economic times.

[SWBTATTReg]

14. I'll give you an 'A' for this write up/paper, so spot on and to the point.

And I see the crap that TX republican legislators are pulling with regards to wiping out so much history, as subjects no longer available to teach in the classroom. Those that don't learn their history are doomed to repeat it.

[qazplm135]

16. thanks to my military retirement

and military disability, I make almost 100K.

I keep wanting to go into teaching, but everything I read and see says, don't do it. It's thankless.

Maybe one day, but being 51 and able to do nothing for a little bit is not a bad place to be either.

[The Jungle 1]

20. Youth sports

I thought it was great when my kids were young and they got involved in youth sports.
The volunteer fathers had no clue how to control 20 kids. I always wondered how teachers do it for eight hours a day.
Thank goodness we have teachers who know how to do it.
There would be no teacher unions if communities would have paid a fair wage. Teachers have at minimum a four year education. They need to be paid for this education.

[Evolve Dammit]

21. Teaching is exhausting and pay is small. Your reward has to internal, or from appreciative moments.

You can certainly make way more with way less stress almost anywhere else. They are respected in other countries, way more than U.S.

[lark]

22. Under Rick Scott, all FL teachers were downgraded.

It's truly awful the low rate of pay for teachers with a BS degree, then they are required to take x amount of classes, for which they are not reimbursed, and have to get an advanced degree which unlike the past, now does not include a raise. My daughter has a double major and a teaching certificate, but only taught English in Brazil, would never even consider teaching here - the pay is way too low and the conditions too bad in many places.

Fl is being destroyed by the billionaire class, it didn't use to be this bad.

[appalachiablue]

33. That is awful, rip off

K/R

[lark]

36. Yep, it is the reason my daughter is a General Manager at Panera instead of teaching French.

She adores French and speaks it like a native and it's a shame students are deprived of this resource because FL gives no value to public school teachers.

[McKim]

24. This Trend is Not Accidental

This trend of denigration of teachers and public education is not accidental. Decades ago the business community leaders looked around for more opportunities for new money making sectors.
They look at the Education Sector. To make that happen they began a campaign to denigrate, defund and discredit Public Education. It fit the Neoliberal frame. Right wing think tanks have been pumping out this misinformation for decades to the detriment of our country.

[appalachiablue]

32. +1 Family w 3 generations of teachers

[czarjak]

25. As intended by Bircher's

[uponit7771]

27. K&R, pay them more

[calimary]

30. EXCELLENT point.

We don’t value teachers nearly as much as we should.

[hunter]

35. One of my nieces has quit teaching for exactly this reason.

She's now the manager of a coffee shop with better pay, fewer worries, and no homework.

My wife and I met as big city public school science teachers. That was the hardest job I've ever had, it was in my head 24/7.

I was well on my way to burning out when my wife was accepted to graduate school in another state. I was at once happy and overwhelmed with guilt to go with her.