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Even if you pin the "blame" directly on teachers, they have a difficult situation. They need to get 3-5 classes of 20-40 mostly obnoxious kids to learn a broad

Even if you pin the "blame" directly on teachers, they have a difficult situation. They need to get 3-5 classes of 20-40 mostly obnoxious kids to learn a broad array of material prescribed by other people. They have to do this while also correcting behavioral issues and dealing with parents or admins. They're mostly not domain experts knowledgeable enough to give individualized deep dives to each of their students, but even if they were it would make their already-difficult task impossible. It's a wonder that any sort of individualized instruction manages to exist at all.

derivative7 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xcv123 3y ago
  > cushy jobs Compared to what? Coal mining? Sewer maintenance? > well-above-average remuneration No. Below average remuneration. Median Public School Teacher Salary in the United States: $57,947 [0] Average salary in the U.S. in 2024: $59,384 [1] [0] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-school-teacher-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-scho... [1] https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/average-salary-us/ https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll...
  - vasco 3y ago
    Healthcare, pension and extra vacation make this harder to calculate for teachers than for other jobs. It's not 1:1.
    - xcv123 3y ago
      If we have to nitpick over a few dollars down to that level of detail, I think we can all agree it's not a particularly high paying job.
      - geomark 3y ago
        Health coverage is nitpicking? And two months of vacation every summer?
        xcv123 3y ago
        Health coverage is only worth a few thousand dollars. It's not a $50k bonus. They earn well below a typical developer salary. It's not like our cushy jobs. Yes they have extra vacation time but have to use a lot of that on unpaid planning time or additional study for ongoing certification requirements.
        vasco 3y ago
        This thread wasn't comparing vs programmers but vs average I think. Most jobs get paid less than teachers.
        xcv123 3y ago
        Stats show teachers get paid around average.
        vasco 3y ago
        I agree with you. That's why I replied to a person that said they get paid below average as 1) they get paid around average as you say, and 2) they have a bunch of additional job perks that make it harder to calculate exactly. The bureau of labor statistics is clear about the fact they are not paid less than average. Elementary and High school teachers make $73,890 mean wage compared to $65,470 for "all occupations": 1. https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/featured_data.htm#largest2 https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/featured_data.htm#largest2 2. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252031.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252031.htm You can make this more complex and say that people with equivalent training get paid more, and they do, but then they don't have the perks I mentioned, like huge vacations, having the pleasure of teaching (there's a reason so many people want to teach and supply of teachers doesn't dwindle), pension after you retire, healthcare, and so on.
  - nickcox 3y ago
    Teachers in the US are famously poorly remunerated compared to other developed countries.
- ropable 3y ago
  "Cushy"? Tell me you've never been a teacher without telling me you've never been a teacher.
  - threadweaver34 3y ago
    I'll defend some of what [flagged] was saying. The pay is pretty fair. They're teaching material that every high school graduate should theoretically be able to teach, so the barrier to entry is low. Most of the prep work can be reused for the next year. Their hours are OK, and they line up with when their kids are in school. Plus they get summers off. It's a shitty job if you actually care, but pretty cushy if you check out and just do what's required.
    - neuronerdgirl 3y ago
      Teachers don't actually get a 3 month vacation in summer, they just do a shitton of unpaid labor to prep for the next school year while being told they should be grateful
- II2II 3y ago
  One thing to keep in mind is teaching is a psychologically demanding job. A good manager will provide the tools needed to succeed professionally and may provide you with the tools to deal with personal issues, but they ultimately have the option to cut an employee loose if they cannot make positive contributions to the workplace. Contrast that to teaching. The measure of success of a teacher is the success of the students who they teach. They often learn details of a student's life that few managers would ever learn of their employees. A well functioning adult would have difficulty dealing with these things, never mind a child or teenager. These are things like children who have had a parent who committed suicide, teenagers who are aging out of the foster care system, students with psychological conditions that would preclude them from most workplaces. These, and many more things, leave teachers working in an environment where a portion of the students are not ready to learn no matter how skilled the teacher is at motivating and delivering the curriculum. Teachers have to do much more than that. While maintaining their own mental health, which is challenging given the environment they are frequently working in. (Even more so since most teachers enter the profession with optimism and compassion.)
- vundercind 3y ago
  You definitely don’t know any teachers. If teaching paid what programming does and vice-versa, I’d… think about becoming a teacher. But I still might not. It sucks, a lot.
- makeitshine 3y ago
  Then why aren't you teaching? Go spend a few years teaching in a public high school and report back.
  - jimbob45 3y ago
    Who has the financial ability to switch careers like that on a dime? The only place that such a move is feasible would be a state that doesn't require a degree to teach. So...Arizona, California, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin. Otherwise, pony up the cash for another degree and probably put your other career on hold.
    - makeitshine 3y ago
      Anyone in the US with a CS degree, or anything technical where they took enough math, would easily be able to get a teaching license in most states. I have a CS degree and was able to get qualified to teach while getting paid as a full time teacher. That was in 2006, and they're even more desperate for teachers today. That was Colorado. Anyone with a degree can get certified in New Hampshire and then you can easily transfer to other states.
    - KittenInABox 3y ago
      If it's so easy, you should easily be able to pay off any loans you take out to switch to teaching.
lannisterstark 3y ago
>Even if you pin the "blame" directly on teachers, they have a difficult situation In many countries, teaching is a government position that is pretty impossible to get fired from. Unfortunately, just like in any profession, there are those in teaching who find it that they dislike it but still trudge along because nice benefits (not talking about US), much to the detriment of their students. We talk about 'passion' a lot in a number of fields, but imho teaching is the only profession where you _NEED_ it.
- Arainach 3y ago
  Bad management kills passion instantaneously. The best teacher, faced with administration which will constantly kowtow to parents and refuse to discipline bad students, will lose their passion rapidly.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    I had a friend who left teaching because of this sort of thing. They had a terrible experience as a student teacher and decided to work a job that paid less money. The policies didn't just crush the teachers. Many of the students didn't care at all. There were behavioral problems, of course. One major issue he saw was that the school just pushed kids through the grades. There was a policy of an automatic minimum grade of 50% if the kid just put their name on the test... and they still at least one kid who would refuse to put their name on the paper! Another friend of mine also went into teaching, but they refuse to work for public schools because of the bureaucracy, even though that sometimes means taking a paycut.
- tracerbulletx 3y ago
  Even in districts where there is a union issue with firing, you could not easily find good replacements anyways. The pool of passionate teachers willing to take these roles is a small percentage of the total jobs, and they tend to self select into good higher paying districts with better behaved students.
- giantg2 3y ago
  "there are those in teaching who find it that they dislike it but still trudge along because nice benefits (not talking about US), much to the detriment of their students." This definitely happens in the US too. There have been documentaries made which include things like teachers just reading the news or a book whole letting the class do whatever it wants. Then the lawsuits and fight over tenure when the administration tried to fire them. Maybe the pay and benefits aren't great in many areas, but they're better than nothing, especially considering if you can do other things during work hours.
8bitsrule 3y ago
When I was studying educational research, it seemed that most sources agreed that - apart from individualized tutoring - decreasing class size was one key to better learning. IIRC, the magic 'threshold) was 12. (Mob vs. seminar?) Of course, teacher's real engagement with their subject and students, and teaching experiences (if they're in tune with what works, and also trying new methods) are important. As is whether their districts encourage (and can afford) innovation (in learning materials and media for example). Regardless, teachers have to begin at the level of their average student (TBD); if the spread is too wide, some will be bored, some challenged. All of this is a lot to ask, moreso for teachers with outside lives to live and grow themselves also.

derivative7 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xcv123 3y ago
> cushy jobs Compared to what? Coal mining? Sewer maintenance? > well-above-average remuneration No. Below average remuneration. Median Public School Teacher Salary in the United States: $57,947 [0] Average salary in the U.S. in 2024: $59,384 [1] [0] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-school-teacher-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-scho... [1] https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/average-salary-us/ https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll...
- vasco 3y ago
  Healthcare, pension and extra vacation make this harder to calculate for teachers than for other jobs. It's not 1:1.
  - xcv123 3y ago
    If we have to nitpick over a few dollars down to that level of detail, I think we can all agree it's not a particularly high paying job.
    - geomark 3y ago
      Health coverage is nitpicking? And two months of vacation every summer?
      - xcv123 3y ago
        Health coverage is only worth a few thousand dollars. It's not a $50k bonus. They earn well below a typical developer salary. It's not like our cushy jobs. Yes they have extra vacation time but have to use a lot of that on unpaid planning time or additional study for ongoing certification requirements.
        vasco 3y ago
        This thread wasn't comparing vs programmers but vs average I think. Most jobs get paid less than teachers.
        xcv123 3y ago
        Stats show teachers get paid around average.
        vasco 3y ago
        I agree with you. That's why I replied to a person that said they get paid below average as 1) they get paid around average as you say, and 2) they have a bunch of additional job perks that make it harder to calculate exactly. The bureau of labor statistics is clear about the fact they are not paid less than average. Elementary and High school teachers make $73,890 mean wage compared to $65,470 for "all occupations": 1. https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/featured_data.htm#largest2 https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/featured_data.htm#largest2 2. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252031.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252031.htm You can make this more complex and say that people with equivalent training get paid more, and they do, but then they don't have the perks I mentioned, like huge vacations, having the pleasure of teaching (there's a reason so many people want to teach and supply of teachers doesn't dwindle), pension after you retire, healthcare, and so on.
- nickcox 3y ago
  Teachers in the US are famously poorly remunerated compared to other developed countries.
ropable 3y ago
"Cushy"? Tell me you've never been a teacher without telling me you've never been a teacher.
- threadweaver34 3y ago
  I'll defend some of what [flagged] was saying. The pay is pretty fair. They're teaching material that every high school graduate should theoretically be able to teach, so the barrier to entry is low. Most of the prep work can be reused for the next year. Their hours are OK, and they line up with when their kids are in school. Plus they get summers off. It's a shitty job if you actually care, but pretty cushy if you check out and just do what's required.
  - neuronerdgirl 3y ago
    Teachers don't actually get a 3 month vacation in summer, they just do a shitton of unpaid labor to prep for the next school year while being told they should be grateful
II2II 3y ago
One thing to keep in mind is teaching is a psychologically demanding job. A good manager will provide the tools needed to succeed professionally and may provide you with the tools to deal with personal issues, but they ultimately have the option to cut an employee loose if they cannot make positive contributions to the workplace. Contrast that to teaching. The measure of success of a teacher is the success of the students who they teach. They often learn details of a student's life that few managers would ever learn of their employees. A well functioning adult would have difficulty dealing with these things, never mind a child or teenager. These are things like children who have had a parent who committed suicide, teenagers who are aging out of the foster care system, students with psychological conditions that would preclude them from most workplaces. These, and many more things, leave teachers working in an environment where a portion of the students are not ready to learn no matter how skilled the teacher is at motivating and delivering the curriculum. Teachers have to do much more than that. While maintaining their own mental health, which is challenging given the environment they are frequently working in. (Even more so since most teachers enter the profession with optimism and compassion.)
vundercind 3y ago
You definitely don’t know any teachers. If teaching paid what programming does and vice-versa, I’d… think about becoming a teacher. But I still might not. It sucks, a lot.
makeitshine 3y ago
Then why aren't you teaching? Go spend a few years teaching in a public high school and report back.
- jimbob45 3y ago
  Who has the financial ability to switch careers like that on a dime? The only place that such a move is feasible would be a state that doesn't require a degree to teach. So...Arizona, California, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin. Otherwise, pony up the cash for another degree and probably put your other career on hold.
  - makeitshine 3y ago
    Anyone in the US with a CS degree, or anything technical where they took enough math, would easily be able to get a teaching license in most states. I have a CS degree and was able to get qualified to teach while getting paid as a full time teacher. That was in 2006, and they're even more desperate for teachers today. That was Colorado. Anyone with a degree can get certified in New Hampshire and then you can easily transfer to other states.
  - KittenInABox 3y ago
    If it's so easy, you should easily be able to pay off any loans you take out to switch to teaching.

lannisterstark 3y ago

>Even if you pin the "blame" directly on teachers, they have a difficult situation In many countries, teaching is a government position that is pretty impossible to get fired from. Unfortunately, just like in any profession, there are those in teaching who find it that they dislike it but still trudge along because nice benefits (not talking about US), much to the detriment of their students. We talk about 'passion' a lot in a number of fields, but imho teaching is the only profession where you _NEED_ it.

Arainach 3y ago
Bad management kills passion instantaneously. The best teacher, faced with administration which will constantly kowtow to parents and refuse to discipline bad students, will lose their passion rapidly.
- giantg2 3y ago
  I had a friend who left teaching because of this sort of thing. They had a terrible experience as a student teacher and decided to work a job that paid less money. The policies didn't just crush the teachers. Many of the students didn't care at all. There were behavioral problems, of course. One major issue he saw was that the school just pushed kids through the grades. There was a policy of an automatic minimum grade of 50% if the kid just put their name on the test... and they still at least one kid who would refuse to put their name on the paper! Another friend of mine also went into teaching, but they refuse to work for public schools because of the bureaucracy, even though that sometimes means taking a paycut.
tracerbulletx 3y ago
Even in districts where there is a union issue with firing, you could not easily find good replacements anyways. The pool of passionate teachers willing to take these roles is a small percentage of the total jobs, and they tend to self select into good higher paying districts with better behaved students.
giantg2 3y ago
"there are those in teaching who find it that they dislike it but still trudge along because nice benefits (not talking about US), much to the detriment of their students." This definitely happens in the US too. There have been documentaries made which include things like teachers just reading the news or a book whole letting the class do whatever it wants. Then the lawsuits and fight over tenure when the administration tried to fire them. Maybe the pay and benefits aren't great in many areas, but they're better than nothing, especially considering if you can do other things during work hours.

8bitsrule 3y ago

When I was studying educational research, it seemed that most sources agreed that - apart from individualized tutoring - decreasing class size was one key to better learning. IIRC, the magic 'threshold) was 12. (Mob vs. seminar?) Of course, teacher's real engagement with their subject and students, and teaching experiences (if they're in tune with what works, and also trying new methods) are important. As is whether their districts encourage (and can afford) innovation (in learning materials and media for example). Regardless, teachers have to begin at the level of their average student (TBD); if the spread is too wide, some will be bored, some challenged. All of this is a lot to ask, moreso for teachers with outside lives to live and grow themselves also.