<story><title>Nobody wants to teach anymore</title><url>https://jessicalexicus.medium.com/nobody-wants-to-teach-anymore-66f09b877b11</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jschveibinz</author><text>I am an early-retired EE and I thought that I could have a second career in teaching HS physics.  I got the MA Teaching in Maryland, and did my one year student teaching assignment.  My thoughts:&lt;p&gt;1. The degree program was decent, although a certificate program would be better for prior professionals if the law allowed it (lower cost, too much wasted time in redundant classes).&lt;p&gt;2. Teachers are sad.  Very sad.  They are underpaid and overworked, even at the better suburban high schools.  Parents treat them poorly, even when they are veteran teachers with lots of experience.&lt;p&gt;3. In general, the public resents that teachers get “3 months off” in the summer.  I believe that this is the justification for lower pay.  It is silly, because teachers work more in 9 months than most professionals and they also pay for things out of their own pockets.  They also counsel and tutor students after school.  It’s a difficult job.&lt;p&gt;4. In my job interviews, the first and most important qualification was “classroom control.”  Math, science, engineering, life experience were all distant seconds.  Teachers—-even in advanced math and science classes—-are first and foremost caretakers.  Think about that for a second…&lt;p&gt;5. What is the current model for education based on?  There are several competing historical arguments, but the salient factors like student-teacher ratio, subjects, grades, facilities, etc. are based on economics and legal requirements.  The quality of either a student’s experience or a teacher’s experience is not very high on the list.  Education is about checking a box on a list of requirements that was developed 150+ years ago.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, I decided to tutor rather than to teach in a classroom.  I consider this a personal disappointment, although I learned a lot from the educational experience.  I wish there could be a “town hall” type of discussion to consider ways to improve the situation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>draebek</author><text>The emphasis on &amp;quot;classroom control&amp;quot; personally doesn&amp;#x27;t surprise me.  If two or three students start refusing a teacher&amp;#x27;s orders, that teacher is done for the year, and maybe forever at that school.  In my middle school, discipline was all but lost in most of my classes.  Play cards in class, tell the teacher to shut up.  What&amp;#x27;s she going to do?  We stole her phone and keys in first period, locked the doors to the room, and we disconnected the intercom weeks ago.&lt;p&gt;You can send an administrator or a police officer to sit in the class, but are they going to sit there all day, every day, until the end of the year?  Are they going to do that in all twenty classes that need the treatment?  The second they get called away because someone set another fire in the woods, it&amp;#x27;s game on in the classroom.&lt;p&gt;At least we almost never actually assaulted staff.  Someone I grew up with became a teacher and quit after just a few years.  She had a student actually beat her up.&lt;p&gt;I regret a lot about my behavior in school, and reflecting on that has led me wonder why so many students hate being in school so much, and how—if?—we could educate children without making them resent the activity.</text></comment>
<story><title>Nobody wants to teach anymore</title><url>https://jessicalexicus.medium.com/nobody-wants-to-teach-anymore-66f09b877b11</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jschveibinz</author><text>I am an early-retired EE and I thought that I could have a second career in teaching HS physics.  I got the MA Teaching in Maryland, and did my one year student teaching assignment.  My thoughts:&lt;p&gt;1. The degree program was decent, although a certificate program would be better for prior professionals if the law allowed it (lower cost, too much wasted time in redundant classes).&lt;p&gt;2. Teachers are sad.  Very sad.  They are underpaid and overworked, even at the better suburban high schools.  Parents treat them poorly, even when they are veteran teachers with lots of experience.&lt;p&gt;3. In general, the public resents that teachers get “3 months off” in the summer.  I believe that this is the justification for lower pay.  It is silly, because teachers work more in 9 months than most professionals and they also pay for things out of their own pockets.  They also counsel and tutor students after school.  It’s a difficult job.&lt;p&gt;4. In my job interviews, the first and most important qualification was “classroom control.”  Math, science, engineering, life experience were all distant seconds.  Teachers—-even in advanced math and science classes—-are first and foremost caretakers.  Think about that for a second…&lt;p&gt;5. What is the current model for education based on?  There are several competing historical arguments, but the salient factors like student-teacher ratio, subjects, grades, facilities, etc. are based on economics and legal requirements.  The quality of either a student’s experience or a teacher’s experience is not very high on the list.  Education is about checking a box on a list of requirements that was developed 150+ years ago.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, I decided to tutor rather than to teach in a classroom.  I consider this a personal disappointment, although I learned a lot from the educational experience.  I wish there could be a “town hall” type of discussion to consider ways to improve the situation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>prepend</author><text>&amp;gt;  teachers work more in 9 months than most professionals&lt;p&gt;I want to understand this more and think we need to measure this well.&lt;p&gt;As a software dev, I’ve always struggled with measuring the amount of work performed and usually disregard measures of intellectual output as misleading measures (eg, lines of code, story points completed, whatever).&lt;p&gt;What makes you think teachers work more in 9 months than a typical professional (engineer, attorney, healthcare worker) does in an entire year? Wouldn’t it then make sense for these teachers to change professions? Or other professionals to teach? Or is everyone just stupid? Or just really dedicated to teaching as a passion?&lt;p&gt;I only have my own experience but I’ve always had a stack of work after hours- training, mentoring, networking. And I assumed all professions have this kind of additional metawork that is unpaid. Is it harder to tutor a student than to mentor someone?</text></comment>