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Similar to math teachers and programming. Most great math teachers can easily convert to at least mediocre programmers. And that translates to a 3x+ salary incr
by Justsignedup 3y ago
Similar to math teachers and programming. Most great math teachers can easily convert to at least mediocre programmers. And that translates to a 3x+ salary increase on day 1. I know people who converted.
How does academia compete?
- bachmeier 3y agoA point I've been making for several years is that the pandemic changed everything. Academic jobs are no longer viewed as having the special status they had even 10 years ago. How do universities compete? They can't, but they don't need to right now, because they've got a large existing stock of employees that have heavily invested themselves in the academic enterprise. That's a problem for a decade from now, but few administrators think ten weeks into the future, much less ten years. They'll still have a plentiful supply of humanities faculty, so at least that 10% of the university will be okay.
- Justsignedup 3y ago10 years from now is likely a different administration and it'll be their problem. The "Someone Else's Problem" is a very strong motivator.
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoThey can compete the exact same way that those tech companies compete with each other: compensation. Pay more, or offer enough other perks to entice employees. Teachers already have a massive perk in the fact that they work ~1/3rd fewer days than other jobs. That's a great draw, if you can offer good enough compensation to get over the "not making enough money to live a comfortable life" threshold. If people will risk their lives as cold-water crab fisherman for the right price, there's certainly a price to put up with highschoolers.
- Justsignedup 3y agoDifference is funding. Good luck convincing the population you need to tripple teacher salaries. I mean we should. But good luck convincing.
- aorona 3y agoIf they tripled teaching salaries I would 100% become a teacher because its fulfilling. But the pay is rather shit for the role and responsibilities
- Justsignedup 3y agoI know many who have the same sentiment. And I wish we lived in a society where that was the case.
- fuzztester 3y agoSo did, and do, many others, past and present (both wish and lived). We can create our own such society. Wanna sign up? Refs: Robinson Crusoe (book). The Swiss Family Robinson (book). I read both of them as a kid. The USA (country).
- fuzztester 3y agoWhy not become a private teacher, aka trainer / instructor. 3x may not be even close to the top of the potential upside (if using modern elearning tech, and having good subject knowledge and some decent marketing). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39697025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39697025 is the ref for my "3x".
- mrguyorama 3y agoAh yes, just what teachers love doing, being monetarily beholden to the parents of the little brat causing all the problems because they pay $50k a year
- fuzztester 3y agoSez who? You don't have to beholden unless you want to. Figure it out. And who said anything about little brats as clients? Go for big brats.
- lmm 3y agoFor the people I've known who've left teaching, it's never been about the money, or at least they've always said it wasn't about the money. It's always about the working conditions, partly the kids and parents but mostly ever-increasing bullshit from admin.
- __loam 3y agoThey work longer days than most people and also have the privilege of working with increasingly shitty kids and their awful parents, in large class sizes. The long vacation is frankly not worth it.
- mrguyorama 3y agoFor most it's not a vacation, because it's not paid. You can't exactly get a second job during the time, who has work that is 1) not awful and 2) only needs extra labor for 2.5 months during the summer? Teachers probably don't want to run ice cream trucks
- fuzztester 3y agoWhy not, though? Dignity of labor. I've done manual work plenty, in the past as well as now, though I am a techie. Nothing wrong with that.
- lacker 3y agoPhysics academia has the same problem. Maybe worse. In some physics subfields, postdocs are just writing Python code most of the day. There's a lot of financial incentive for the best ones to simply ditch physics.
- __loam 3y agoNot physics but switching to software out of a PhD program tripled my salary, which has since doubled. Academia is a scam.
- janalsncm 3y agoPay better, open up more slots for tenure instead of forcing all work to adjuncts, and spend more on research. If universities are supposed to be distinctive for their research, their highest paid employees should not be football coaches.