skubikky
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Post by skubikky on Apr 22, 2011 8:35:28 GMT -5
I was going to retire from this thread, Skeeter, but I will now bite. Please remember that the model for teachers is shifting. You still have people like me for the next 10 or 15 years. But you have a new wave of teachers coming in. We were of the generation where if you were smart, you got either a teaching or a nursing degree. This assumes you were female. Sorry that is a most inaccurate statement and definitely not what I observed. I'm 52, grew up in NYC. If, for those women and men, that I knew, they were smart, as you say, they went to medical school, law school, got an MBA or various degrees in engineering/computer science. Also, in the culture that I was raised in, teaching was a good choice, but most certainly not typically the choice made by those with strong academic skills and intelligence, if anything it was a fall back profession. Nursing, on the other hand was certainly a tough major(BS/RN). But, most of the women I knew who wanted to go into the Health Sciences went to medical school.
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skubikky
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Post by skubikky on Apr 22, 2011 8:42:34 GMT -5
The fact is, this society does not value education. That's why school teachers get screwed and that's why every time a self-serving politician wants to win points with his/her know-nothing constituents, the education budget gets slashed. The problem with this theory is that EVERY budget is getting slashed. Infrastructure funding is down, social programs are being cut, education funding is getting cut. This isn't a slam on teachers; this is the way the US is right now. With 9% unemployment across the country, cuts in standards of living are going to be made. It happens. This shouldn't be unexpected. Very well put. Up until now, tax and spend policies had helped to avoid laying off teachers and other public sector workers on such a large scale. It's a rude awakening to professions that have been somewhat shielded.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Apr 22, 2011 12:13:17 GMT -5
You make a valid point, Susana, which you will see from the except quoted from the final sentence of my comments, I acknowledged as an issue.
The point that I was trying to make is that teachers, as a group, seem to be becoming more and more disconnected from the realities of the people who provide teacher's pay checks. I think of it as an "I don't care what is going on in the world around me, I'm a teacher and I don't think I should have to deal with the same issues that other people deal with" attitude. It comes across as a complete lack of empathy by teachers for the person who provides the teacher's pay check. (Not a good way to win friends and influence people.) My thought was that a more direct connection could raise the level of empathy and understanding.
Regarding your comments about the quality of people entering the education field, I tend to agree. I am concerned that teaching used to be a pretty highly respected occupation and today it is not. I think the people in education and their behavior have a lot to do with the level of respect accorded teachers. Interestingly, I think the level of respect pretty closely coincides with the philosophical shift within the NEA that transitioned the NEA from a professional association into a labor union.
When I was a senior in high school, coming from a family heavily involved in education, I briefly considered a career in education. One of the primary factors that dissuaded me was my teachers. An assessment of my teachers skills lead me to conclude that they would not be unusually heavily represented on the Mensa membership roles. So I chose a different career path. The college I attended had started as a "normal" school. A teacher's college. As a result, many of my college friends and acquaintances were pursuing careers in education. My contact with these future educators reinforced my high school assessment that the best, the brightest, and the most ambitious would not be found in overwhelming numbers in the education field.
Don't get me wrong. I think there are many outstanding teachers. I wish there were many, many more. And I wish teaching was the most highly respected profession there is. After all, what could be more important to our long term success than the education of our children? Unfortunately, I think too many people who have pursued careers in education have motivations similar to those of an employee of my parents, who was working on a degree in education. This woman didn't have an overwhelming desire to teach and to improve the lives of children. Her primary motivation to become a teacher was her belief that teachers get lots of time off and that teachers get paid pretty well. I don't think that this woman's entry into the field of education would elevate the profession in any way.
So what do you, as an educator, and I as a citizen, do to improve our education system? I think education is important. I'm game to try to make it better. But I don't buy into the idea that improving education is as simple as throwing more money at it to raise teacher compensation, build fancier and fancier schools, and practice still more social engineering.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2011 16:13:01 GMT -5
If you don't think five years made a major difference, you are wrong. Some of it, though, is your area of the country. I live in the South. We are traditionally five years behind any social trend. I am actually eligible for Mensa membership (780 or 99th percentile TWICE on the verbal portion of the GRE, twenty-something years apart), but that doesn't make me a "good" teacher. I actually have to watch my vocabulary although I will throw in a "problematic" word in here and there. (Think "aggregate," which is meaningless to the average high school student.) Good teachers can get into a kid's head and figure out what it takes for that kid to learn. I just got back from a Professional Development Day. One thing I learned? Tweet is a great replacement for what we used to call "summarizing."
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Apr 22, 2011 18:24:20 GMT -5
I congratulate you. I agree that eligibility for Mensa membership doesn't automatically make a person a highly skilled teacher. But having a Mensa level intellect does make it likely that you understood that I had a number of teachers who were not very impressive in their role as educators.
I'm not a Mensa candidate, or even a National Merit Scholar, but I was smart enough to recognize that I had teachers whose primary interest in being teacher was because school started late enough in the morning and ended early enough in the afternoon to allow them to fish both the morning and afternoon feeding periods. I decided that I didn't care to be part of a profession that accepted and protected the level of performance that more than one of my teachers demonstrated.
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Apr 22, 2011 23:32:43 GMT -5
Tea, thanks for the atta boy. In many cases, I think that teachers have come to actually believe the propaganda about how overworked and underpaid they are. If the NEA can't convince teachers that they are being taken advantage of by the school administration and the public at large, why would a teacher need the NEA to act as their advocate? I do try to stay out of stuff like this, partly because Susana says most of my thoughts already, partly because I just try to not get sucked into the "teachers aren't professionals" drama. However, I do want to say I've never really thought about it this way before. As a person who truly tries to consider every perspective, I will think about teachers' union being a form of propoganda. Please know that I do think that of the three different local teachers' unions I've belonged to, I find two of them to ridiculously extreme to the point of the leadership being bullies. For those who believe teachers only work less than eight hours per day, all three districts I've worked in have required building hours. They have varied from 7:00am - 3:30pm to 8:00am - 4:30pm. Two of the three districts I've worked in required timesheets with sign-in and sign out with the building secretary. I do believe that, with both a BS and a MA, I'm adequately paid for the 190 days I am contracted to work. The problem, and yes I sign the 190 day contract and do not choose to explore another profession, is that it is difficult to find a job for the ten weeks I don't work in the summer time. I don't believe I am well paid though. I will say that I did go into and stay in teaching because I believe it is a "noble" profession. I believe teachers should be well paid because it is a great responsibility to educate children. I also believe educators--a term I mean to use to include administrators--should be held to exceptionally high job description standards. In regards to the original post: Does it matter that the person complaining is a teacher/public employee? Who wants to take a pay cut? Even if I wasn't in debt up to , well about five inches above my pretty little head, I would be damned annoyed about taking a pay cut. And, hey, just since I do try to stay out of this most of the time, I'm going to through in this little opinion even though this hasn't been brought up in this thread: I don't understand why people say teachers have to stop wasting taxpayers money: Educators are taxpayers. Both my husband I are educators. We paid $15,000ish to the IRS in 2010. We, too, as taxpayers want politicians who propose and pass budgets want our money used responsibly. My husband...who is responsible for $8 million of taxpayer money...and I both strongly believe that all government entities should be transparant and ridiculously responsible with taxpayer funds. Happy Easter everyone!!!
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Post by commentator on Apr 27, 2011 1:21:59 GMT -5
Teachers can pick up another job in the summer, though. Sure. A piece of cake, especially in the economy we've had for the past couple of years.
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