The Case Against Homework?

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I bought my house one year after my wife and I were hired as teachers.

We could never pull it off today.

Like many people working outside of education, the cost of living has exceeded the raises people deserve, no matter what the profession.

Teachers constantly demanding raises? Teachers settle on contracts that run over three year periods. The nature of contractual negotiations would lead one to believe they are constantly seeking more money.

Teachers are seeking to survive, like anyone else. They are looking for compensasion for the job they do. During the school year, most teachers are working hours before school begins and hours after their day has "ended". people throw the time off in their faces, but I can assure you that it is necessary for recharging of the batteries.
 
Dreadsox said:
I bought my house one year after my wife and I were hired as teachers.

We could never pull it off today.

Like many people working outside of education, the cost of living has exceeded the raises people deserve, no matter what the profession.

Teachers constantly demanding raises? Teachers settle on contracts that run over three year periods. The nature of contractual negotiations would lead one to believe they are constantly seeking more money.

Teachers are seeking to survive, like anyone else. They are looking for compensasion for the job they do. During the school year, most teachers are working hours before school begins and hours after their day has "ended". people throw the time off in their faces, but I can assure you that it is necessary for recharging of the batteries.

Hey, Dreadsox! Welcome to the discussion. For awhile I was afraid it was going to be just me and Yolland.

Just so we're clear, I agree with you 100%.
 
yolland said:



Why do you suppose this assumption exists? (i.e. about elem/high school teachers)

Things like this have been said to me, face to face. I have friends who honestly believe I don't work hard. I actually had a "friend" say to me, "Well people who go into education aren't smart enough to do anything else." :|

Regarding salary and sexism in the field of education. . .Last summer I bought a townhouse. I had 2 separate mortgage companies say the same thing to me. One was a man, one was a woman. They asked what I did for a living and I told them I teach high school. The reply I heard was, "Oh, that will be a nice supplemental income someday." Needless to say, I did not use either company.
 
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Dreadsox said:
During the school year, most teachers are working hours before school begins and hours after their day has "ended". people throw the time off in their faces, but I can assure you that it is necessary for recharging of the batteries.

To be fair so do tons of other people who only get 2 weeks off a year. I know plenty who are working 60 hour weeks, 50 weeks per year, and I'm sure they could recharge as well.

As for why teachers don't get any respect, I think it is related to this perception that "smarter" kids would have gone on to do a more prestigious program rather than go into teaching. And I think that's BS on one hand, on the other I won't even tell you how many people I knew who applied to the 1 year teaching program at the same time as they were applying for medicine, law, pharmacy, whatever else as back-up plans. They figured if nothing else, they'll become teachers. Out of everyone who I know that went on to get a BEd, a very small minority went there because it was their first choice and they always wanted to teach. Most of the others ended up there because they had no idea what they wanted to do, or they figured it was better than just your plain old BA, or they didn't get into whatever other program they wanted to do. Obviously this is anecdotal evidence, but it does further the perception.

My brother was born to be a teacher and I think he'll be great at it. He chose it over more lucrative fields. But if you ask him about his peers, you'll get countless stories of "well, I didn't get into ___...." and that's sort of sad.
 
anitram said:


To be fair so do tons of other people who only get 2 weeks off a year. I know plenty who are working 60 hour weeks, 50 weeks per year, and I'm sure they could recharge as well.


Would they be willing to take a pay cut to do so?

Teachers' time off is unpaid.
 
WildHoneyAlways said:
Would they be willing to take a pay cut to do so?

Teachers' time off is unpaid.

And yet, every prospective teacher knows this going into the profession. This isn't exactly a new and unexpected change in terms.

Melon
 
I've never felt that teaching is less prestigious a profession than anything else. Like I said in the other thread, I can't remember ever having a teacher or professor I honestly felt was not fit for his or her job.

Phil is going back to school for special ed and I know it's not a cop-out. I've seen him with kids and he was born to teach, especially with kids that have autism and downs syndrome.

As for teachers' salaries, yes, they get summers off, but most of the teachers I know work a different full time job in the summer. All of my male high school teachers started their own paint crew. The ones that did not work during the summer almost always had spouses who were also working 40+ hours at a higher salary (mainly nurses). These are private school teachers who make about $25,000/yr and most are probably qualified to teach in colleges and universities, but they stick with K-12 and the shitty salary because they love teaching. I find it very honorable that they would do this and not complain about it or even complain about having to moonlight and/or work another full time job during the summer.

Kudos to educators! :up: :bow:
 
WildHoneyAlways said:


Would they be willing to take a pay cut to do so?

Teachers' time off is unpaid.

Not always true.

My mother gets 100% of her salary during the summer as a teacher in a school board in Ontario (just outside of Toronto). They get it in 2 large installments.
 
anitram said:


Not always true.

My mother gets 100% of her salary during the summer as a teacher in a school board in Ontario (just outside of Toronto). They get it in 2 large installments.

Here in the states that is an OPTION. You defer your salary to the summer. It is not considered PAID time because you work iunder contract for a specific number of days.
 
WildHoneyAlways said:


Would they be willing to take a pay cut to do so?

Teachers' time off is unpaid.

I never realized this until last week. I had a second-round interview for a job at a local school. I'm not a teacher, but they said it would be the same pay scale. She said it was the entry teacher's salary, plus a little more because I'd have to put in summer hours at the end of August. I never knew that the salaries DID take into account the time off during the summer. I felt kind of guilty that I'd be paid more than a teacher, even if I would have to put in three additional weeks. Just another reason to appreciate teachers!
 
LivLuvAndBootlegMusic said:


Phil is going back to school for special ed and I know it's not a cop-out. I've seen him with kids and he was born to teach, especially with kids that have autism and downs syndrome.


The autism issue is becoming huge. More and more children are falling into the spectrum. Kudos to him. We need educators who are willing to work with these children. Many can be mainstreamed into the classroom if you can get a good team of people working together.
 
Well that may be the case, but it is not here. The salary is not deferred, they are paid over the summer time. If you elect to teach summer school, you get more $$.

In her school board, once you have 12 years of experience + an MA or MEd in your field + a specialization (requires you to complete 3 courses), you earn $82K/year.

That is an incredibly well paid position compared to many other people I know. Some teachers are poorly paid but in other areas they are very, VERY well compensated.

You find me another profession which pays $82K annually here in Ontario and whose workers get about 10 weeks of vacation per year, not to mention the extremely generous pension plan and excellent governmental benefits. There is no other such profession here.

I am not saying that a $25K/year salary is a myth. But it is by no means standard across the board and across the world either.
 
Most teachers do not get paid to set up their classrooms. They enter the school a week to two weeks early to prepare for the children coming in. UNPAID. Rainy days in August are the target days to get ready.
 
anitram said:
$82K/year.

There is not a single teacher in any of the surrounding towns making anywhere near 82K a year.

That is the starting salary of a principal working almost full year.
 
2004 Survey & Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends

For the first time since the 1999-2000 school year, the average teacher salary failed to keep up with inflation, according to the AFT's latest salary survey. The AFT teacher salary survey found that the average teacher salary in the 2003-04 school year was $46,597, a 2.2 percent increase from the year before.
 
I bet MArtha and other elementary school teachers put in SHITEloads of extra time to get ready for the year.
 
Dreadsox said:
To be fair, I have worked in the Army, Hotel Industry, Metal Casting Industry, Shipping and Receiving industry.

None of the jobs have the demands on them that my final profession does.

To be fair, I never said other professions shouldn't have time off. To be fair, I feel I have had enough other experiences in my life to feel comfortable saying the time off is needed.

Reading this thread in its entirety, there's obviously a lot of extremely disgrunted teachers in this country, and, despite what you all might automatically think of me after having read this thread, I do not discount your experiences.

On the other hand, most of these issues regarding salaries, etc. are issues that many Americans are having. The last 25 years, despite all the rosy inflation numbers posted by those respective presidents, have been brutal to the average American. Our collective buying power has crumbled under a load of debt.

Frankly, if teaching is such a terrible profession these days, it will eventually rear its ugly head in the marketplace. It was argued (whether you agree with that argument or not) that there was a glut of new teachers during the Vietnam War, because of the fact that it was a legal way to avoid the draft. Well, those teachers are starting to approach retirement, and, over time, they'll be gone. With a genuine shortage of teachers--and it will have to be a rather severe one, not just an impending crisis--the U.S. government will finally feel compelled to do something about it. Americans do not have a history of "preventative medicine"; they're best known for "crisis management."

Melon
 
What kills me Melon is that I find the veteran teachers who are leaving to be outstanding teachers.

They will all be gone before 2014 when every child has to be passing the state tests. Every CHILD.

The new teachers coming into the profession, while full of energy, and ideas, I think lack the complete skill package that it would take to not leave a child behind. Veteran teachers deserve MORE respect.
 
anitram said:
Well that may be the case, but it is not here. The salary is not deferred, they are paid over the summer time. If you elect to teach summer school, you get more $$.

In her school board, once you have 12 years of experience + an MA or MEd in your field + a specialization (requires you to complete 3 courses), you earn $82K/year.governmental benefits. There is no other such profession here.

There must be lines outside the district employment office. Lines, I tell you.
 
Dreadsox said:
What kills me Melon is that I find the veteran teachers who are leaving to be outstanding teachers.

The best teachers I had were the veteran teachers, so I'm not going to disagree with you here.

Melon
 
anitram said:


I am not saying that a $25K/year salary is a myth. But it is by no means standard across the board and across the world either.

I doubt it's anywhere near the average, but since the parochial schools get zero funding, it's definitely the norm for those teachers. There's many things I don't like about private schooling, but the one thing I do like is that you KNOW that at 25K, the teachers are only teaching because they absolutely love it.

As for the autism thing, yes I think Phil will be perfect for it. He's great at building relationships with little kids. He taught kids gymnastics for years, but a lot of his time was working with autistic kids, using sports to help them with confidence and learning to interact with peers. I'm glad he's found his niche and we don't really care what the pay is or how many hours he has to work. He loves doing it and that's all that matters.
 
melon said:


And yet, every prospective teacher knows this going into the profession. This isn't exactly a new and unexpected change in terms.

Melon

I was responding to anitram's suggesting that people in other professions needing time to recharge. I wasn't complaining about unpaid time off.
 
WildHoneyAlways said:
I was responding to anitram's suggesting that people in other professions needing time to recharge. I wasn't complaining about unpaid time off.

Fair enough.

Cheers...

Melon
 
Here's why people don't respect schoolteachers: They all think they can do it because they all remember their own school years. It's what everyone has in common. "I remember Mrs. Jones. I could do what she did." We make it look easy, so people think it's easy. Plus, many of us are women, and men tend to think that women's work is easier than their own.

Is there another profession that endures the bullshit we get from the public? Do people set medical policy by referendum? Do people put require lawyers to submit to the whims of the politicians to determine how they do their jobs?
 
melon said:


The best teachers I had were the veteran teachers, so I'm not going to disagree with you here.

Melon

And when they leave, they look at me and say, what the hell has happened to the profession. We are dealing with 6, 7, 8 year olds talking about sex like it is no big thing. We are dealing with children bringing weapons to school. We are dealing with two hour interviews almost daily trying to investigate incidents and make certain we are not going to get sued for disciplining a child.
 
Dreadsox said:


And when they leave, they look at me and say, what the hell has happened to the profession. We are dealing with 6, 7, 8 year olds talking about sex like it is no big thing. We are dealing with children bringing weapons to school. We are dealing with two hour interviews almost daily trying to investigate incidents and make certain we are not going to get sued for disciplining a child.

And we do this with people who don't know what the hell they're talking about trying to tell us how to do our jobs.
 
What killed me the other day, four schools in our area were able to get their scores up over two years to be removed from the Failing to perform list.

The headline...

"Four Schools ESCAPE"

Not, accolades, not praise ....ESCAPE...
 
Dreadsox said:
And when they leave, they look at me and say, what the hell has happened to the profession. We are dealing with 6, 7, 8 year olds talking about sex like it is no big thing. We are dealing with children bringing weapons to school. We are dealing with two hour interviews almost daily trying to investigate incidents and make certain we are not going to get sued for disciplining a child.

One of the biggest differences I've noticed between public and private schools is that private schools generally have wider latitude to enforce discipline, with parents having less recourse to complain.

I'm also a fan of fairly strict dress codes (although one of my major complaints with how they are applied is that they are generally made of clothes that are grotesquely unfashionable and poorly made).

I know that the laws are rather screwed up in these regards, although I see more and more public schools choosing uniforms these days. I do think that there needs to be something seriously done, legislatively, to clarify and strengthen disciplinary action, without resorting to draconian "zero tolerance" policies. Private schools generally don't have those either.

Melon
 
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