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Please show my how ALL of my posts list how difficult teaching is. I will wait. Actually show me how ANY of my posts were about how hard teaching is as opposed to directly rebutting posts declaring "how easy it is". Teaching is not particularly hard nor is it particularly easy but I will always defend the profession against ignorant unfounded myths about how we are overpaid (compared to our peers in industry), underworked (such as the myth that all teachers have summers off) or are lazy (many of us work hours far above and beyond that contracted). Why? Because it is a worthwhile profession that does not deserve the beating its been getting lately.
The only complaint I have about teaching is the demeaning attitude I get from many people in the general public and some parents.
So again, lets deal with reality in which people are not stereotypes for you to pigeon hole in an attempt to invalidate what they have to say, hmm?
You're not playing the game right. Here's how it goes.
They claim we work part time...we show we don't but they HEAR that we are whining about how hard our jobs are.... so now we've gone from being dismissed because we're part time employees and not worth our wages to being dismissed because we're a bunch of whining babies...
Say nothing and they think we agree we work part time. Defend ourselves and they think we're claiming we work harder than everyone else. We're not actually allowed to win this argument. They are just looking for an excuse to diss teachers and any excuse will do. They start with we work part time knowing full well we'll defend the charge...then we're just a bunch of complainers who should find different jobs because, OBVIOUSLY, we're not suited to teaching if we're just going to complain about it. We're supposed to accept low wages and being dissed because we have the summers off...and having the summers off makes you a part time employee no matter how many hours per week you work during the school year because SOMEWHERE out there, there's someone who works more so we haven't worked enough....
Same argument, different day....While I am going to miss the kids and miss teaching, I am going to enjoy being respected again....
Teachers are the only people who work hard. Everyone else's job is a cake walk.
Right. Because that's what everyone's saying.
Quote:
I would quit right away, and get a new job if I were you guys, the grass is much greener in the private sector.
I do work in the private sector. As a teacher (non-union, to boot...also, don't work part-time or have summers off...spend all summers teaching at a year-round school and love it). And I worked in the private sector before I was teaching, too. I wouldn't say the grass is greener. There are pros and cons to every situation. I do agree that people who can't be happy teaching need to find a different calling to serve, however.
Not everyone loves teaching so much that they're willing to stay in it despite the down sides. That's fine. They should probably find new careers that suit them and their lifestyles better. It's not a good field (or worth it) for everyone.
I don't base my decision to have a career I'm good at on what other people think or don't think of the profession. I could care less about outsider perception of my career choices. People who want to show me disrespect based on their erroneous assumptions of the quality of my work (as well as their equally erroneous assumptions that they somehow are in any way responsible for my paycheck)? Inappropriate languge removed They are not my concern, nor does their respect or lack thereof, or any of their other blathering, for that matter, hold any water with me. I do what I like, and I'm good at it; it has down sides like any other job, but it allows me to pay my bills. Win-win.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 09-11-2011 at 08:00 PM..
Why do community colleges need to do so much remedial work after twelve years of dumbing down our classrooms?
In my opinion, that doesn't merit huge pay increases for teachers who have failed to produce a viable student. The taxpayers deserve better than that for their hard earned dollars and that is no erroneous assumption.
Why do community colleges need to do so much remedial work after twelve years of dumbing down our classrooms?
In my opinion, that doesn't merit huge pay increases for teachers who have failed to produce a viable student. The taxpayers deserve better than that for their hard earned dollars and that is no erroneous assumption.
Huge pay increases?
How about 2% spread out over three years for the most successful district in my state? Does that sound huge to you?
After decades of pouring more and more money into education, moving the teaching profession from a low-paying job to the current high-paying (with very generous benefits and great retirement) level of all non-military government employees, we should have learned that more money does NOT increase student achievement.
When I was going to public school in Seacoast NH in the 1960s and 1970s, property taxes were affordable and the school system was great.
Today I live in the same area, and struggle to pay over $13,000 a year in property taxes on my average house with no land, half of which is for schools. Even with the same results in academic achievement (which I do NOT see), the burden today is enormous on the average homeowner.
Paying teachers more does not result in better teachers, or better student achievement. We already have plenty of good people who would love to work teachers hours for far less than is paid today, standing in line for those jobs.
Please try a modern private sector job, at 80-hours a week minimum, with a maximum of 2 weeks vacation (but on the phone with work each day, dealing with plant technical emergencies), paying for your own health care insurance, with no pension, and then weigh that with a teaching job.
Our local schools have a contract with teachers for 180 days a year. Compare that to the 250 days a year one family member's employer requires (yes, he earns more vacation time, but must forfeit it each year since the company can't "spare" him). And does your first business meeting start at 6:00 a.m., with the final meeting of the day starting around 6:00 p.m. and running at least an hour, on the days where nothing unusual is going on? And does your school go into a plant outage once or twice a year, for a minimum 35-day period of 18 hour days instead of just 13, no weekends or holidays off--and of course not a penny paid in overtime? And how many school emergencies do you have a year where the workday is 24/7 until the technical issue/problem is solved (we can grab naps on the floor between meetings). We have probably 15 of those a year.
By the way, the job above described is for an engineer working for a modern Big Business, and the thread starter argued that teachers should be paid like engineers. Frankly, most teachers today ARE paid as much as even veteran engineers, when you include benefits and pensions. But I guarantee, there are few engineers that wouldn't trade jobs with a teacher, in a heartbeat.
Too bad the teachers' unions manage to reserve all the teaching jobs for "education majors," rather than problem-solving real-world professionals who know how to think and reason.
You are aware that the poster you're quoting and addressing is, in fact, a "problem-solving-real-world professional" who came into teaching not from having been an "education major," but having left a career in a "private modern sector job" (in engineering, in fact) to try her hand at teaching, correct?
Ivorytickler and I have much that we don't particularly see eye to eye on, but if you're going to trot out the tired old, "Oh, yeah? Well, HERE'S how it is in industry, and you, as as teacher, wouldn't know what hit you if you ever worked a 'real' job" garbage, you might as well know that you're completely barking up the wrong tree in that department. Lecture her about "how it is in engineering" all you like, you're wasting your breath.
There are PLENTY of us who have worked in other fields.
Please try a modern private sector job, at 80-hours a week minimum, with a maximum of 2 weeks vacation (but on the phone with work each day, dealing with plant technical emergencies), paying for your own health care insurance, with no pension, and then weigh that with a teaching job.
Our local schools have a contract with teachers for 180 days a year. Compare that to the 250 days a year one family member's employer requires (yes, he earns more vacation time, but must forfeit it each year since the company can't "spare" him). And does your first business meeting start at 6:00 a.m., with the final meeting of the day starting around 6:00 p.m. and running at least an hour, on the days where nothing unusual is going on? And does your school go into a plant outage once or twice a year, for a minimum 35-day period of 18 hour days instead of just 13, no weekends or holidays off--and of course not a penny paid in overtime? And how many school emergencies do you have a year where the workday is 24/7 until the technical issue/problem is solved (we can grab naps on the floor between meetings). We have probably 15 of those a year.
By the way, the job above described is for an engineer working for a modern Big Business, and the thread starter argued that teachers should be paid like engineers. Frankly, most teachers today ARE paid as much as even veteran engineers, when you include benefits and pensions. But I guarantee, there are few engineers that wouldn't trade jobs with a teacher, in a heartbeat.
Too bad the teachers' unions manage to reserve all the teaching jobs for "education majors," rather than problem-solving real-world professionals who know how to think and reason.
LOL!!
The irony is palpable. Ivory IS a former engineer. Somehow her experience as BOTH a teacher and an engineer do not jive with yours in neither.
And my two cents tends to agree with hers, I am a former research scientist, and none of what you claim applies to that industry to the degree with which you are over stating it.
The irony is palpable. Ivory IS a former engineer. Somehow her experience as BOTH a teacher and an engineer do not jive with yours in neither.
And my two cents tends to agree with hers, I am a former research scientist, and none of what you claim applies to that industry to the degree with which you are over stating it.
When all else fails....inflate the data!!!!
My experience is that people are working fewer hours (they're not happy about it). They may be doing more work but they're not being offered OT opportunties. In industries where people don't get paid OT, the company is either offering a nice base salary or not keeping their people if they are working them much past 50 hours a week on a regular basis. The only people I know who are working long hours are consultants or specialists with a specialty in high demand but they are being paid quite well for their trouble.
I think it is a marketing problem. To get more capable and driven applicants to enter teaching, you have to make the profession more attractive across the board and across the country than it presently is. With salaries set by states and districts, that's hard to do. The most capable students (at the time they are making career choices) have other opportunities with which our profession competes.
But its more than salary, even capable driven people (and especially those) can go crazy dealing with uninspired distracted students and issue bound parents. Those also detract from the professional/personal satisfaction that comes with teaching. Need to work on that too.
There are, of course, a bunch of other issues and perceptions that may come into play. But the target for marketing should be the college freshman or HS senior when they are deciding what to do with their future. What do they use to decide? How does teaching fit that?
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They are just looking for an excuse to diss teachers and any excuse will do. They start with we work part time knowing full well we'll defend the charge...then we're just a bunch of complainers who should find different jobs because, OBVIOUSLY, we're not suited to teaching if we're just going to complain about it. We're supposed to accept low wages and being dissed because we have the summers off...and having the summers off makes you a part time employee no matter how many hours per week you work during the school year because SOMEWHERE out there, there's someone who works more so we haven't worked enough....
