Judging from this thread, my opinion on this is not going to be popular, please don't massacre me for it, just discuss it with me if you want, I won't be mean (

Judging from this thread, my opinion on this is not going to be popular, please don't massacre me for it, just discuss it with me if you want, I won't be mean (unless you are) but I will be candid. Good. I'm glad nobody wants to teach anymore. The less teachers we have the better. That's for everyone, including the teachers. A surefire way to get paid more is a shortage of professionals. If you are so important as to be indispensable to society, maybe prove it by withholding your services. If you're so indispensable they'll pay you to get you to come back, and if they don't, fine, they'll find out just how indispensable you are. Teachers, at least in the US, are in fact glorified babysitters. The amount of stuff a kid in public school learns in 13 years that they actually use could be taught in 5. Public school is subsidized daycare so that the US could double it's labor force. This is not how I want it to be, I want kids to actually learn things, and only go to school to learn and not to be herded. I want overworked teachers to work less, much, much less. I have no doubt many of them are overworked, treated badly, and go into it at least because they care about children learning. But maybe it's like that because it's the only way an economy and society can justify the expense. Maybe the role they play is not worth as much as they think it is. Maybe they should stop teaching. I think most teachers have an overinflated sense of their contribution. Ask yourself, if they'll hire anyone off the street, that means anyone off the street wants to teach. That should tell you something about teaching, and if they really wouldn't last a week then don't sweat it, they're no threat to you, they'll be gone in a week. My big problem with education is not the teachers, it's the giant all encompassing bureaucracy that teachers and students have to constantly navigate. It seems to me like teachers by and large aren't that interested in simplifying that bureaucracy, even though from their complaints it's the largest source of their problems. I wonder why they don't attack it directly? I'm curious why they haven't all quit too. I want most of them to quit. Put your money where your mouth is. Show us what we all stand to lose without you. Don't tolerate this bullshit anymore. Quit. Find a profession where you're treated better. If you're right, we will beg you to come back. Make us beg. Make us grovel. Show us what it feels like. Rub our faces in it. I don't think teachers are "essential workers." I think that they don't quit because if they did, we (and they) would find out that we don't actually need them as much as they tell us we do. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, it wouldn't be the first time. You're wrong until you learn, right? Educate me.