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Thats because teaching was the fallback plan and all the students they work with daily already realize it. Every teacher that brags about their prior dream in

Thats because teaching was the fallback plan and all the students they work with daily already realize it. Every teacher that brags about their prior dream in their specialized trade is immediately shot down by middle schoolers asking "so why are you a teacher" "Well Jimbo, as you suspect, it's because something went horribly wrong and I've rationalized my acceptance of this low wage life teaching this nation's future"

ineedasername 8y ago
Many thousands of students entering directly into teacher ed programs when they get to college refute your unsuported (or only anecdotally supported) claims.
sethammons 8y ago
There are teachers who do it because they can't do anything else, and there are teachers who do it as a labor of love. As a student, the vast majority of my teachers struck me as the latter. When I was teaching, it felt kinda half and half in the inner city school I was at. Bless anyone who can do that gig in inner-city San Bernardino CA. As a teacher, I resigned myself to never owning a home and never paying off my student loans, meanwhile dealing with an overwhelming amount of disinterested students, and more than my fair share of problem students. As a software developer, I now hope to pay off my house in the next two to three years.
jacobolus 8y ago
A few of my teachers were wealthy enough from past jobs not to need to work for the rest of their lives, but then switched to teaching as a second career because they loved engaging with the next generation. Most others were career teachers who had known they wanted to teach since they themselves were young and took it up as a profession from the start despite having the talent and work ethic for some much higher paying alternative career. A few had the ambition of working as teachers for a decade and then moving up into school administration. A few of my teachers weren’t especially effective, but that’s true of workers in every other field and every other institution. I don’t think I had any teachers (in an above average public school system in a diverse, generally comfortable, but not outrageously wealthy suburb) who had washed out of other careers and turned to teaching as a fallback. Or if there were some like that, it wasn’t apparent to students. Maybe some of the high school sports coaches / PE teachers were like that.
throwaway98121 8y ago
I don’t think this is true that teaching is a fallback more than it is for any other career, and if anything, the ignorance of this post is an example of why we are in the state that we are in. If you wanted to be a doctor, maybe you become a nurse because of some circumstance. That doesn’t mean you’re not valuable and shouldn’t be paid decently. We don’t pay teachers just as we don’t properly find public education. At my high school in the Midwest, we invested more into football and basketball than the actual curriculum. Calculus and precalculis were not even offered.
mnl 8y ago
Of course, but that doesn't mean that they aren't more than capable of performing an stellar job. Talking from experience I'd rather have professionals worried about what works and what doesn't than naive twenty-somethings who earnestly believe in this year's trending pedagogical BS (and no, not everything is BS, but it takes a lot of ability to tell). BTW, who's not paying their bills with some fallback plan? Everyone dreams of being a star but there's only so much sky really. Using your relatives' money and/or influence is also a fallback plan, the one that keeps the wheels turning everywhere actually. I can't hear anyone complaining about that.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
In some countries, teaching is seen as a 'staple, respectable profession'. Like Nurse, or Mayor, a little bit like Doctor (without quite as much education), Policeman, Fireman etc. etc... Most of the teachers I know in Canada chose the profession, they are pretty good. We are far less competitive, and according to PISA (standardized testing), we totally outclass American students by quite a lot. That said - 'the best' American students (along with 'the best' from UK) etc. are quite amazing. But the average here in Canada is quite high. You don't need to pay teachers a fortune, or have some complicated organization theory, or have 'competition' or whatever. Simply having society respect teaching as a profession, pay them well enough, protect them from BS, and get kids into a room who are not abused at home, with parents that care just a little bit ... and you're good to go. It's not rocket science and I truly believe there are very few huge educational breakthroughs to come. The basics have been in place for quite a while. (FYI It starts with the communitarian understanding that not everyone does everything just for the money ...)

ineedasername 8y ago

Many thousands of students entering directly into teacher ed programs when they get to college refute your unsuported (or only anecdotally supported) claims.

sethammons 8y ago

There are teachers who do it because they can't do anything else, and there are teachers who do it as a labor of love. As a student, the vast majority of my teachers struck me as the latter. When I was teaching, it felt kinda half and half in the inner city school I was at. Bless anyone who can do that gig in inner-city San Bernardino CA. As a teacher, I resigned myself to never owning a home and never paying off my student loans, meanwhile dealing with an overwhelming amount of disinterested students, and more than my fair share of problem students. As a software developer, I now hope to pay off my house in the next two to three years.

jacobolus 8y ago

A few of my teachers were wealthy enough from past jobs not to need to work for the rest of their lives, but then switched to teaching as a second career because they loved engaging with the next generation. Most others were career teachers who had known they wanted to teach since they themselves were young and took it up as a profession from the start despite having the talent and work ethic for some much higher paying alternative career. A few had the ambition of working as teachers for a decade and then moving up into school administration. A few of my teachers weren’t especially effective, but that’s true of workers in every other field and every other institution. I don’t think I had any teachers (in an above average public school system in a diverse, generally comfortable, but not outrageously wealthy suburb) who had washed out of other careers and turned to teaching as a fallback. Or if there were some like that, it wasn’t apparent to students. Maybe some of the high school sports coaches / PE teachers were like that.

throwaway98121 8y ago

I don’t think this is true that teaching is a fallback more than it is for any other career, and if anything, the ignorance of this post is an example of why we are in the state that we are in. If you wanted to be a doctor, maybe you become a nurse because of some circumstance. That doesn’t mean you’re not valuable and shouldn’t be paid decently. We don’t pay teachers just as we don’t properly find public education. At my high school in the Midwest, we invested more into football and basketball than the actual curriculum. Calculus and precalculis were not even offered.

mnl 8y ago

Of course, but that doesn't mean that they aren't more than capable of performing an stellar job. Talking from experience I'd rather have professionals worried about what works and what doesn't than naive twenty-somethings who earnestly believe in this year's trending pedagogical BS (and no, not everything is BS, but it takes a lot of ability to tell). BTW, who's not paying their bills with some fallback plan? Everyone dreams of being a star but there's only so much sky really. Using your relatives' money and/or influence is also a fallback plan, the one that keeps the wheels turning everywhere actually. I can't hear anyone complaining about that.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

In some countries, teaching is seen as a 'staple, respectable profession'. Like Nurse, or Mayor, a little bit like Doctor (without quite as much education), Policeman, Fireman etc. etc... Most of the teachers I know in Canada chose the profession, they are pretty good. We are far less competitive, and according to PISA (standardized testing), we totally outclass American students by quite a lot. That said - 'the best' American students (along with 'the best' from UK) etc. are quite amazing. But the average here in Canada is quite high. You don't need to pay teachers a fortune, or have some complicated organization theory, or have 'competition' or whatever. Simply having society respect teaching as a profession, pay them well enough, protect them from BS, and get kids into a room who are not abused at home, with parents that care just a little bit ... and you're good to go. It's not rocket science and I truly believe there are very few huge educational breakthroughs to come. The basics have been in place for quite a while. (FYI It starts with the communitarian understanding that not everyone does everything just for the money ...)