% school teachers who just show up for the paycheck?

[AccuTron]

Disclaimer:  I never taught school, find it intimidating to even consider, and all teachers have my sympathy.

 

 

I was speaking with a woman today about how her child was doing in public school.  She described this and that, and talked about how most teachers try really hard, some try but have trouble, and some just show up for the paycheck.

 

I was curious about that last one.  Most of my school teachers were pretty good teachers.  The bullying took place outside the classroom, so not their fault.  I found school largely a waste of time, but that was because I was being undercut by bullying/shunning at home, bullying/shunning between classes, and of course so-called physical education was institutional degradation (and virtually never attempted to educate me).  But the teachers elsewhere were good.

 

Your thoughts, re teachers who just show up to punch the time card?

[Koroviev]

My wife is going through one of the many public school teaching programs at the moment. She's in her last quarter of classes and started student teaching in March last year. She's also worked at a private Catholic elementary school on and off for about 2 years. 

 

I can tell you from experience the % of teachers who show up for the paycheck is way higher than you'd believe. Even a lot, not all, of the "good" teachers can be heard talking about how much they hate this kid, or how awful that class is. From what I understand the student teachers are way worse too. Many of them couldn't think of anything else they wanted to do with their college career, cant figure out how to do some of the simplest things (did I mention it was elementary education) and have to be reminded of things like showing up on time, dressing nice, and showering (there's almost no men in the classes....). The really expensive private catholic school "teachers" spend most of their time on Facebook or pintrest instead of interacting with the children then baby their favorites and punish anyone else. Even one lady we know somewhat personally who just got a job at the catholic school, after going through montessori training, walked into the kindergarten classroom my wife works in halfway through the year tears down all of the decorations and gets rid of over half of the kids' favorite toys. The Tonka trucks just reminded her too much of guns.

 

It's REALLY scary when you get a chance to peek behind the curtains.

[McBeer]

I don't understand what you are saying.

If most of your teachers were pretty good teachers, then how was school a waste of time?

 

Personally, I can only think of two, maybe three teachers I have ever had that were any good at all.

There was a physics teacher in high school that actually treated students like human beings, and a college calculus teacher that worked hard to actually teach calculus and make it interesting. The rest of my time in school was a waste.

 

The "no child left behind" mentality of schools means that no child is allowed to get ahead. I always felt that the purpose of school was hold everybody down to the level of the slowest students. If everybody progressed at their own speed then it would make the slower kids feel bad. 99% of school is just waiting for everybody else to catch up. I never struggled to pass their stupid tests, so no attention was ever given to me. In public school it was as if I didn't even exist.

 

I cannot have sympathy for teachers, because they did not have sympathy for me. 

[Aether]

Teachers get abysmal pay compared to other professions and the reason some people teach is not for the paycheck although that is not always to case since if they wanted the paycheck they would get a job that pays. I think that some teachers actually enjoy teaching but don't put much effort into it or are swayed by the children either by misbehaving and what not. So to answer the question i think around 30% of teachers only do it for the paycheck and do not like or want to work as teachers.

[brucethecollie]

I've spoken with many fellow women and this naturally includes many teachers. From our conversations I have gathered that about half figured that since they weren't incredibly passionate about or skilled for anything, that being a teacher would be a smart avenue for life long job assurance.  I've always noticed how many teachers say that they wanted to do it since they were kids and they talk about it like it was an idealized notion they just had to follow.  Many have warm feelings towards children but not children as they are-mostly, children who are completely obedient to all rules and commands and can sit still and pass tests and make things run smoothly for them.  I hear terrible comments about the other kids, the ones that question authority, the ones that bring up an issue with some "fact" in a text book, the ones that learn by moving and touching versus just reading and writing.  I have spoken extensively with two teachers who got into teaching because the plan was to find a job right out of college, pay off loans, get tenure, start a family, and then divert focus into the passionate endeavor they had from the very beginning.  They made it sound like a strategy.  I wonder how many truly see it as practical, secure, and strategic?

[Koroviev]

Wife just got home from student teaching apparently there's a movement going around that says you're not allowed to praise kids anymore because it might be discouraging/offensive to the kids who don't get praised. Just thought I'd share...welcome to America!

[mlsv2f]

Teachers get abysmal pay compared to other professions and the reason some people teach is not for the paycheck although that is not always to case since if they wanted the paycheck they would get a job that pays. I think that some teachers actually enjoy teaching but don't put much effort into it or are swayed by the children either by misbehaving and what not. So to answer the question i think around 30% of teachers only do it for the paycheck and do not like or want to work as teachers.

 

Not quite sure about that. Considering the following:

 

They PV of the pension they obtain around age 55- is roughly 1.2 million dollars (lifetime average salary of the average of your best 5 years)

 

Consider that this accrues from age 23-55, you're looking like on average its a $37,500 in pension benefit every year from age 23-55, on top of their salary. (keep in my the 37.5k isn't taxable either)

 

Lets say they start off at 30k and end at 60k, you're looking at at average compensation of 67k-97k in their 32 year career.

 

Keep in mind they get about 10 weeks in the summer, spring break, 2 weeks at christmas, 10 school holidays, you're looking at 15 weeks off a year. 

 

Not taking a shot at teachers, as I had some good experiences with some as a kid, but this myth that they are underpaid, is well, a myth IMO.

[Guest Gee]

Almost of them do. Consider the following, if you removed the pay check, how many would actually show up?

(or if you really wanted to offer all teachers another job on original pay with same benefits and then slowly decrease the teaching pay to zero to figure out the value the get from 'moulding young minds')

 

There is nothing wrong with it, I don't see anyone criticising a factory worker showing up only for the pay check, or any other profession for that matter.

 

I would suppose that the reason it is a problem for teachers is because parents require the fantasy that these people actually give a shit about their children in order to abandon them to said schools.

[AccuTron]

I don't understand what you are saying.

If most of your teachers were pretty good teachers, then how was school a waste of time?

 

Personally, I can only think of two, maybe three teachers I have ever had that were any good at all.

There was a physics teacher in high school that actually treated students like human beings, and a college calculus teacher that worked hard to actually teach calculus and make it interesting. The rest of my time in school was a waste.

 

The "no child left behind" mentality of schools means that no child is allowed to get ahead. I always felt that the purpose of school was hold everybody down to the level of the slowest students. If everybody progressed at their own speed then it would make the slower kids feel bad. 99% of school is just waiting for everybody else to catch up. I never struggled to pass their stupid tests, so no attention was ever given to me. In public school it was as if I didn't even exist.

 

I cannot have sympathy for teachers, because they did not have sympathy for me. 

To answer your question, the bullying killed it all, and it really originated at home, I now understand.  If it had been a healthy time, the education would've been part of my growth.  Kind of like putting grand masts and sails on a ship, while tearing holes in the hull.  It sinks.

 

I'm glad I don't have children, for things like gummint achievement programs you mentioned, would probably appall me.  I know a public elementary school teacher who thinks astrology is real...her words, regarding real scientists and astrology, were "well maybe they just haven't figured it out yet."  And she's around young minds.  Where do you start with something like that?  And sad to say, probably a fair chunk of the parents would see nothing wrong with it.

... The really expensive private catholic school "teachers" spend most of their time on Facebook or pintrest instead of interacting with the children then baby their favorites and punish anyone else. Even one lady we know somewhat personally who just got a job at the catholic school, after going through montessori training, walked into the kindergarten classroom my wife works in halfway through the year tears down all of the decorations and gets rid of over half of the kids' favorite toys. The Tonka trucks just reminded her too much of guns.

 

It's REALLY scary when you get a chance to peek behind the curtains.

As to the montessori art and toy killer:  AAARRRGGGHHH!   I hate know-it-all females who have no idea what they are doing, just believing that they must be right.  What especially snags my bile, is that as a mental groupthink, these women want men to protect them across a dark parking lot, but never actually develop the skills, over years, that it takes to actually do the protecting!

 

Thanks for the detailed feedback.  The FB remark echoes what that woman I was talking to was saying, about one troublesome teacher who NEVER responds to emails about her daughter's difficulties, giving the impression the teacher's FB time is more important.

Wife just got home from student teaching apparently there's a movement going around that says you're not allowed to praise kids anymore because it might be discouraging/offensive to the kids who don't get praised. Just thought I'd share...welcome to America!

I'd thank you for the info but I don't want to suppress the egos of others who didn't post....

[dsayers]

Teachers get abysmal pay compared to other professions

 

How do you know? They aren't paid for by way of voluntary means, so we don't actually know what they're worth. If you don't know what they're worth, how can you be certain their pay is inappropriate in either direction?

[Tyr]

How do you know? They aren't paid for by way of voluntary means, so we don't actually know what they're worth. If you don't know what they're worth, how can you be certain their pay is inappropriate in either direction?

 

 

Stefan has done a thorough presentation on the subject. Teachers in fact get payed better than virtually all other professionals.

 

 

Also...I don't want to attack anyone personally because it's counter productive to try to convince people that are already financially invested in harming others, but there's no such thing as a good public school teacher. They are among the MOST immoral government workers because they willingly inflict state indoctrination to children that are forced to be there.

[dsayers]

Stefan has done a thorough presentation on the subject. Teachers in fact get payed better than virtually all other professionals.

 

Also...I don't want to attack anyone personally because it's counter productive to try to convince people that are already financially invested in harming others

 

I understand and I agree. I was confronting Aether on the lack of integrity in putting forth an objective claim with a certainty I don't see how he could possibly possess.

[asreon]

As a student in high school I've noticed that quite a vast majority of my teachers seem to turn up just so they paid. None of these teachers did any real "teaching", instead choosing to give us these "research tasks" to do. Every lesson we'd get a new one which was supposed to "enhance our knowledge", but I'd honestly be surprised to see just how many teenagers actually do work in these kinds of conditions where the teachers neither "patrol" the classroom nor check the work afterwards, especially with laptops being brought into play. 

[MichaelMcGillicuddy]

One of my jobs is to run a completely new type of school, currently in Asia.  The mission is for schools to pay students.  Our tag line we tell parents is, "We don't teach English.  We teach life skills.  We USE English."  Our Big Hairy Audacious Goal is to produce the world's first 18-year old billionaire by 2030. 

 

I cannot tell you the trouble I've had with teachers here.  We're teaching entrepreneurship to the kids, and just about every teacher we interview says, "Sure, I think I have an entrepreneurial mentality."  But they don't.  They don't.  They expect their salary.

 

One teacher quit, then demanded his last month's salary.  Per the contract we have the option to withhold it.  He was not a good teacher, didn't love the kids, give his best.  He often missed work and was "physically present."  His student numbers were the lowest of any teachers.  When we met with him after telling him it'd be really hard to pay for his time, since he didn't produce much.  His student numbers stayed low, et c. He just kept hammering that "He deserved to be paid for his time."  This guy also wanted to organize the Occupy Wall Street protestors I found out after he starting working with us...Ugh.

 

Anyway, I gave him the analogy that if we were on a farm, and we spent all our time DOING nothing, but we were in the fields the whole time, and no food grew...He cut me off saying, "OK THANK YOU TONY ROBBINS!"  I felt proud.

 

But yeah, just about all the teachers we've had at our school and most I've interviewed have been ALL ABOUT DAT STEADY CASH.  And my experience has been that the ones who say "Money's not important" are the first ones to object if there's a problem with their salary.  Ayn Rand was right, "Run for your life from anyone who says that money is evil.  That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter."

 

So yeah, I'd say most are there for the taken-by-force paycheck.

 

What do you think would be the value of most teachers on the marketplace?

[dsayers]

What do you think would be the value of most teachers on the marketplace?

You mean free market, right? I don't think there would be teachers in the free market as we think of them today. Say you wanted to be a mechanic. You would work under a more experienced mechanic and he would teach you by doing the work with you, first with you just observing, ending with them just observing you.

 

If you were capable of teaching, you could just as easily take the time to write a book. Imagine it takes as long to write a book on a subject as it would to teach it for a 9 month school "year." By investing that time in writing a book rather than teaching, you not only reach a much larger audience, but you free up all your subsequent years to hone your craft, write about other things, etc. For interactivity, you could set up a web forum where people who wanted to ask questions or offer feedback could interact with you.

 

Thinking of it like this, it's painfully obvious how inefficient it is to pay somebody to stand up and say the same shit year after year. "Teacher" present day is more of a babysitter than the imparter of knowledge.

[MichaelMcGillicuddy]

Thinking of it like this, it's painfully obvious how inefficient it is to pay somebody to stand up and say the same shit year after year. "Teacher" present day is more of a babysitter than the imparter of knowledge.

Of course it is.  We'll have a good test soon.  Our school (in China) is transitioning from having "employee-based" teachers to teacher partners.  Renting out our facility to one-man schools.  And not really teaching English, because English by itself is useless, but real life skills.