Teacher: ‘I love my students, I love my job, and I feel fulfilled. But I’m broke.’

Jiggyfly said:
There are definitley worst things .

I make Ok money but I am in the sweet spot of living in a rural area that pay is competitive and I have minimal dependents.

If I had a big family those things would change significantly.

It's not a question of being able to live a reasonable life it's about being able to live that life and have any cushion or disposable income.

I just get tired of people treating the job like its white collar fast food and only "unskilled" people do it and should be paid accordingly.
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If you had a big family you'd just have to go find something that pays more to support them, wouldn't you?
 
pdom said:
In fact, don't even need a high school degree to teach 2+2. Maybe we should entertain 16+ year old dropouts to fill in for grade school teachers (obviously with the right screening). Or at least eliminate a college degree and just have minimum high school degree. They'd be more satisfied with a $57k salary than a 30-year old with 2 kids.
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You're trying to be a smart ass, but yeah.... to teach kindergarten, first grade, second grade... a high school degree is probably all you need. High school degrees can go up to calculus level math, so yeah.... you would be well educated enough to teach low level math, low level reading, low level whatever subjects you have at those grades.

It's the maturity level that those graduates lack that prevents them from being qualified. The knowledge they have more than enough of.

I suck at math and could have taught second grade math when I graduated from high school. In fact I did teach a summer class (though it wasn't math) of like 5 year olds one summer when I was just out of high school and on my way to college. The rest of the skills are organizational, interpersonal, etc. Those things come with maturity and experience but you can't get any more of that from going to school longer.
 
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pdom said:
Or just not have a big family. A low-paying job grants you a spartan, but good married life, maybe one kid.

But decide to have a big family and you're not much better than a welfare recipient having any kids.
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Yeah. But that's not society's fault.

Jiggy said "can you get and keep the best teachers at these wages."

But the answer to that question is yes and no. Can you get and keep the smartest people, the people who have the ability to go on and do math, science, medicine, and tech jobs? No, you can't. They are smart enough to go do those jobs which are in demand, and they will.

Can you get and keep the people who lack the skills to do math, science, medicine, tech and other high paying jobs? Yes, you can, if their most marketable skill is teaching.

But I don't want the people who are good at math, science, medicine, and tech staying in middle school teaching jobs. I want them going into production. If those smart people are needed in teaching I want them teaching the hard stuff, the college and grad school levels where -- Oh my, look at that! Salaries are in the high five digits and low six digits!

The market has a way of working itself out and in this country it has settled on teachers being valued as second income generators in family units or as entry level jobs that you move on from.

I am not inclined to artificially inflate pay by raising taxes, to try to draw back all the mathematicians and engineers into teaching middle school, that's stupid.

The biggest problem isn't that the teachers aren't capable of teaching curriculums and therefore we need to attract or keep better teachers with better pay...... it's that students and parents don't take education seriously.
 
pdom said:
What's so smart ass about it? You established that you could have taught second grade as a high school graduate. You were smart enough as a 9th grader. As long as you have the maturity/temperament, go teach 2nd grade. I agree with you.

Think about this. When you put your kid into daycare/preschool to teach numbers, colors and alphabet, you're not going to check for high school degrees. Numbers, colors and alphabet isn't much different than 2+2.
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Schmidt doesn't have the maturity or temperament to be a kindergarten student, much less a teacher, he'd be sent to the corner inside half an hour for calling everyone idiots.
 
The public school teachers aren't underpaid. They just want more handouts.
 
townsend said:
Schmidt doesn't have the maturity or temperament to be a kindergarten student, much less a teacher, he'd be sent to the corner inside half an hour for calling everyone idiots.
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Oh pot meet kettle.

To be fair, I said "teaching attracts a lot of idiots" without knowing anyone here specifically was a teacher. Then I got called an idiot. So.... yeah, apparently Jiggy doesn't have the temperament either.
 
pdom said:
just cause it attracts lots of idiots doesn't mean they have to be hired. Police officers, military and firemen assuredly attract lots of idiots, too, as they frequently only require high school degrees.
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Well idiots need jobs too.
 
mschmidt64 said:
That's not at all what I said.

Maybe you should read it again.

There are a lot of idiots in teaching. And my wife being a teacher is a first hand witness to this. Lots doesn't mean all.

She also has a degree in physics so she is probably way overqualified and certainly smarter than Jiggy.
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If she has a physics degree there is no doubt she is smarter than me and you to for that matter.:lol
 
mschmidt64 said:
If you had a big family you'd just have to go find something that pays more to support them, wouldn't you?
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Yes I would and that would be a shame because more male teachers are definitely needed especially in areas with high minority population.

Teaching salaries are the reason I waited so long to get back into it but I have always enjoyed teaching.

And this is my point people that actually want to teach should not have to get out because they want to provide for a family it should be more competitive.
 
And just to clarify I am not claiming poverty or destitution from teaching, you can live a comfortable lifestyle but you will be living closer to check to check than living the american dream.

I just think teachers should be paid closer to what they are being asked to do. A lot was made about the burden cops are being put under, well a lot of those same things teachers are asked to deal with concerning societal issues.

I never realized how much is asked of teachers until being in a classroom full time, with all of the testing pressures and "theories" on teaching that people want to implement it is way over a 40 hrs a week.

It has come a long way from reading textbooks and handing out worksheets.:lol

And I love my job but I am a different cat that actually enjoys most interactions with kids and does not take stuff personally.

These kids can be brutal if they find a weak spot.
 
Jiggyfly said:
And just to clarify I am not claiming poverty or destitution from teaching, you can live a comfortable lifestyle but you will be living closer to check to check than living the american dream.

I just think teachers should be paid closer to what they are being asked to do. A lot was made about the burden cops are being put under, well a lot of those same things teachers are asked to deal with concerning societal issues.

I never realized how much is asked of teachers until being in a classroom full time, with all of the testing pressures and "theories" on teaching that people want to implement it is way over a 40 hrs a week.

It has come a long way from reading textbooks and handing out worksheets.:lol

And I love my job but I am a different cat that actually enjoys most interactions with kids and does not take stuff personally.

These kids can be brutal if they find a weak spot.
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Just out of curiosity, do you feel that "No Child Left Behind", Common Core, and the Achievement Testing have helped teachers at all?

These seem like the 3 biggest pain points to me.

They used to be able to split up a class of 200 students based on the kids' abilities. Now we have high achievers, mid-level, and remedial learners all in one class.

We as humans figured out how to perform mathematics simply, but now we're teaching our kids to think like a computer.

Teachers are so stressed to complete the standard checkoffs that they're not actually teaching and connecting. They're basically just checking off standards as they go through the year.

It may be different elsewhere, but our local school system just seems so frikkin ass backwards that nobody wins...they don't want to change anything because it will mess with their federal money.
 
mschmidt64 said:
Oh pot meet kettle.

To be fair, I said "teaching attracts a lot of idiots" without knowing anyone here specifically was a teacher. Then I got called an idiot. So.... yeah, apparently Jiggy doesn't have the temperament either.
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You ever see him try and construct a proper sentence complete with spelling and punctuation? I think your idiot theory has some legs.
 
NoDak said:
You ever see him try and construct a proper sentence complete with spelling and punctuation? I think your idiot theory has some legs.
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That's why he googles then copies and pastes so much.
 
mcnuttz said:
Just out of curiosity, do you feel that "No Child Left Behind", Common Core, and the Achievement Testing have helped teachers at all?

These seem like the 3 biggest pain points to me.

They used to be able to split up a class of 200 students based on the kids' abilities. Now we have high achievers, mid-level, and remedial learners all in one class.

We as humans figured out how to perform mathematics simply, but now we're teaching our kids to think like a computer.

Teachers are so stressed to complete the standard checkoffs that they're not actually teaching and connecting. They're basically just checking off standards as they go through the year.

It may be different elsewhere, but our local school system just seems so frikkin ass backwards that nobody wins...they don't want to change anything because it will mess with their federal money.
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To tell the truth I don't really know the specifics of Common Core and NCLB but in Texas we have Starr testing which is what everything is focused on.

I understand a lot of the concepts they is striving to obtain but its hard to implement a lot of this stuff without proper training of the Teachers implementing it, I understand the concept of mixing all learning levels but once you get past 15 kids everything kind of gets out of whack and nobody is really benefiting.

And 15 kids is a small class in my school.

But yeah we are ass backwards on a lot because of the testing guidelines but it's mostly because people try and take shortcuts instead of taking their lumps and revamping things from the elementary level.

The biggest issues are reading and comprehension skills which are the basis for everything because most of the kids just do not understand what the questions are asking because they are higher level questions.

I am still learning a lot, I just try to keep the kids engaged and doing as much learning as possible through whatever means is available. I always have them do some reasoning exercises so they have to think things through.

Most issues are just being lazy and not wanting to put in much effort, which is very frustrating.

As for the current testing models, I understand why but they should not hold as much weight as they do.
 
NoDak said:
You ever see him try and construct a proper sentence complete with spelling and punctuation? I think your idiot theory has some legs.
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And yet this idiot runs circles around you on a regular.

I mean really dude Coming at me is more than half of what you post here anymore does that not give you any shame?

Don't you have some other poster to stalk and call out?
 
Jiggyfly said:
And yet this idiot runs circles around you on a regular.

I mean really dude Coming at me is more than half of what you post here anymore does that not give you any shame?

Don't you have some other poster to stalk and call out?
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He calls you out the same manner you troll me so don't get too worked up.
 
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