hornetball

iTrader: (4)

Serious comment. If you learned all that in school, you went to an exceptional school.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

I want to jump out a window every time someone suggests that teachers should earn as much as *insert high-barrier-to-entry, high-demand, low-supply occupation here*.

I could see myself as a proponent of teacher "shelf life" - that is to say that once you become a teacher, you have X number of years to teach before you enter maturity, at which point you get an annual assessment by an uninterested external third party to determine if you still meet the qualities of excitement, passion, and innovation for the job that qualified new young teachers bring to the field.

I would also be a proponent of "you're not allowed to be a teacher if you have greater than a bachelor's degree" - It's absurd to me that you need a master's degree to compete in a career field that is going to earn you slightly more income than the poverty level. With this plan, you would have pretty much the same number of unemployed teachers, except that those unemployed teachers would be paying back bachelors degree loans instead of masters degree loans.

Oh, and they would have 2 fewer years to be brainwashed by the liberal higher education system.

z31maniac

While I agree that, and it's proven by Harvard studies, that most teachers both in undergrad and grad school tend to have the lowest test scores and entry scores of nearly every profession/major.

But the better students pick better paying jobs. Perhaps if the standards and pay for teachers were higher we would see a corresponding jump in quality.

I graduated OSU with a Journalism degree in Dec 2005. The starting salary for teacher in OK was something like $28,325 per year. I went to State Farm and became a Claim Rep for nearly $10k more per year. Changed careers and within 5 years was making double of what a teacher with 5 years of experience would make.

What would be my incentive to become a teacher? "For the children?" That ain't cutting it. Go look at the Finnish model.

It's amazing to me that people who are so influential on a student's success are regarded so poorly and make less than the Assisant Manager at a Rent-A-Center........and we wonder why we're something like 34th in Math and Science education in the world.

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

I guess you're not aware OH dropped the requirement for a teacher to have his/her masters. We'll see how that works out for the state over time.

FYI: http://www.ohea.org/fact-finder-for-the-ohio-teacher

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I am friends with a couple of people who entered the teaching field at the public school level. Its definitely something you do because you want to do it. Melissa, for instance, works with ESE-type students at the elementary level. Well, she's since been promoted to a district-level program manager sort of role, after getting her Master's degree, but she says she misses being in the classroom every day.

You know how people sometimes say things like "You couldn't pay me enough to...", only usually they're talking about things that are gross / dangerous / scary? You couldn't pay me enough to teach developmentally-disabled elementary school kids. Sure, I say that as I'm sitting here in my comfortable office with my nice six-figure salary, but I'd rather be shoveling pig manure or gutting fish all day than dealing with a room full of emotionally-disturbed children.

But for some people, that's just their calling. A lot of folks wouldn't want to climb radio towers and work with equipment that operates at the multi-kilovolt level, or spend more time in hotels and airplanes than in their own home, and that's fine- to each their own. Me? I miss having gold-medallion frequent flier status and getting Christmas cards from the CEOs of Marriott and Hertz.


Besides, it's cold in Finland.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

good2go

iTrader: (2)

True, but they do have good beer, so there's that.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Apparently we differ either in our definition of "beer" or in our definition of "good. "

Speaking not of which, I ask this seriously: how many different genders of dog are there?

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

I wasn't actually aware that we had a requirement to have a masters degree to teach. When I suggested "it's necessecary to have a masters degree", I was merely commenting on competition. Originally, new teachers got masters degrees as a way to get ahead or set themselves apart from the average teacher, before long, everyone was doing it, and it became such that those who didn't have masters degrees need not apply merely because they would be competing with an overwhelming pool of job suitors who themselves did indeed pay for master's degrees.

Your children's teachers have masters degrees - the teachers who taught your children's teachers had bachelor's degrees, and the teachers who taught them had high school diplomas.

And as has already been suggested, people who teach don't do it for the money.

The reason teachers don't earn a good wage is not because we don't value them in society - in fact, we place exceptional value on good teachers in our society. Good teachers don't earn a good wage simply because there are 100 good teachers vying for every teaching job, and anyone who thinks it makes sense to pay surgeon money for your choice of any one of 100 teachers with masters degrees simply didn't have a very good economics teacher themselves. The problem is that once you hire a teacher, it is nigh on impossible to fire them, regardless of how much they suck, so there's an incentive to be an exceptional candidate during the hiring process, but after that, there remains no incentive to be an exceptional teacher for the 30 years that many of them will be squatting on their positions.

good2go

iTrader: (2)

I guess I should have said "stout beer". Seems like most all cold places excel at making a good stout.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

I've got a good stout for your mom.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Antidote to GenWu:

good2go

iTrader: (2)

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

why are black kids so racist and hung up on slavery?


meanwhile, black kids are still being slaved by black Africans.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

Because the slavery argument continues to get them free things a century and a half later.

If I told you that "you can have a free new car every year for life, all you must do is convince someone that your life depends on it" would you start trying to convince people that you will die if they don't buy you a car?

Now what if I told you that "you have convinced people that your life depends on having a new car every year for life, and they are giving it to you, but you don't wan't just whatever car they are willing to give you, you want a new sports car every year for life"....

The "slavery reparation argument" started with discount oil changes, and now they are no longer satisified with driving around in their shiny new hyundai accents.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

meanwhile, they continue to be in decline and continue to vote for the people who are currently enslaving them.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Some people choose to be cared for as children all of their lives rather than provide for themselves.

America is about self-reliance and rugged individualism. I remember hearing that as a child. I also heard it was a melting pot. E Pluribus Unum.

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

You, sir, are deplorable!