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My parents, both with master’s degrees, worked at least eight hours every day teaching, grading assignments, and then preparing for the following day. I would g

My parents, both with master’s degrees, worked at least eight hours every day teaching, grading assignments, and then preparing for the following day. I would guess about ten hours on average, seeing as I was mostly left alone as a child while my parents worked over the kitchen table. Yes, they don’t teach during the summer. Their pay reflects that. I won’t even touch on personal expenditures for supplies. Grifters?! My lord. Teachers are criminally underpaid, highly educated adults who shape society’s future while fighting its current failures. All while being inexplicably hated and ridiculed by students, parents, and I guess HN. No need to take my word for it: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/15/us/teacher-pay-myth-misconception/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/15/us/teacher-pay-myth-misconcep...

SamReidHughes 6y ago
The article cites the BLS for other professions so why not take the BLS's word for teachers, too? https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf
nemo44x 6y ago
> ...shape society’s future while fighting its current failures. All while being inexplicably hated and ridiculed by students, parents, and I guess HN. I’m not sure how to interpret this. Are you saying they indoctrinate kids? Do they exist to teach kids __how__ to think or __what__ to think? Which current failures are they fighting? As to my previous comment about “grifters”, I’ll admit that was too cynical and over the top. I don’t think individual teachers are. However, their unions are pretty close.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > Which current failures are they fighting? Depending on the teacher and school, everything from kids coming to school hungry or without supplies to obesity to discipline problems to cheating to bullying/cyberbullying to child abuse to uninvolved parents to mental health problems to anxiety to drugs to deficiencies in the curriculum to achievement gaps between genders, classes and races to lack of good role models to gang culture. That's not to say every teacher works to address all those things at once - at some schools they might not contend with any at all! But I've seen people call on the education system to do almost everything you'd otherwise expect parents to do.
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    So it's the system that is failing, not the teachers... Public schools are a part of the system and the system has only continued to grow larger and larger over the last 75+ years. So what is the solution, to make the system even larger? More of the same failed therapeutic? More and more "solutions" have been added to an outdated school system and has continued to show worse and worse results. This is quantitatively proven. Yet, we continue to tinker and politicize public schooling. To your point, we've decided to inject more and more social issues into schools, expanding scope of all things except effective learning. And the teachers unions are a huge part of this. They support unaccountable teachers, pay for time and not for merit, and combined with the progressive wing of the country they are allied with countless special interests which are all too eager to continue to have their interests blended into the curriculum. Because no time to make a customer for life then when they're young. So yes, the system is failing and the solution has continued to be "Add more system". We spend more and more every year and get worse and worse results. We should dissolve the public school system (government should not be in this business at all) and grant each student a sum of money that parents can use to place kids in private schools of their choice that suit their child's abilities and the parents aspirations. This is a good breakdown on how some teachers are in fact a big part of the problem with educating kids: https://fee.org/articles/the-failure-of-american-public-education/ https://fee.org/articles/the-failure-of-american-public-educ...

SamReidHughes 6y ago

The article cites the BLS for other professions so why not take the BLS's word for teachers, too? https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf

nemo44x 6y ago

> ...shape society’s future while fighting its current failures. All while being inexplicably hated and ridiculed by students, parents, and I guess HN. I’m not sure how to interpret this. Are you saying they indoctrinate kids? Do they exist to teach kids __how__ to think or __what__ to think? Which current failures are they fighting? As to my previous comment about “grifters”, I’ll admit that was too cynical and over the top. I don’t think individual teachers are. However, their unions are pretty close.

michaelt 6y ago
> Which current failures are they fighting? Depending on the teacher and school, everything from kids coming to school hungry or without supplies to obesity to discipline problems to cheating to bullying/cyberbullying to child abuse to uninvolved parents to mental health problems to anxiety to drugs to deficiencies in the curriculum to achievement gaps between genders, classes and races to lack of good role models to gang culture. That's not to say every teacher works to address all those things at once - at some schools they might not contend with any at all! But I've seen people call on the education system to do almost everything you'd otherwise expect parents to do.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  So it's the system that is failing, not the teachers... Public schools are a part of the system and the system has only continued to grow larger and larger over the last 75+ years. So what is the solution, to make the system even larger? More of the same failed therapeutic? More and more "solutions" have been added to an outdated school system and has continued to show worse and worse results. This is quantitatively proven. Yet, we continue to tinker and politicize public schooling. To your point, we've decided to inject more and more social issues into schools, expanding scope of all things except effective learning. And the teachers unions are a huge part of this. They support unaccountable teachers, pay for time and not for merit, and combined with the progressive wing of the country they are allied with countless special interests which are all too eager to continue to have their interests blended into the curriculum. Because no time to make a customer for life then when they're young. So yes, the system is failing and the solution has continued to be "Add more system". We spend more and more every year and get worse and worse results. We should dissolve the public school system (government should not be in this business at all) and grant each student a sum of money that parents can use to place kids in private schools of their choice that suit their child's abilities and the parents aspirations. This is a good breakdown on how some teachers are in fact a big part of the problem with educating kids: https://fee.org/articles/the-failure-of-american-public-education/ https://fee.org/articles/the-failure-of-american-public-educ...