Why These 18 Oklahoma Teachers Are Quitting Their Jobs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The only thing that has changed is that Teacher was previously one of the few respectable positions a woman could obtain pre-1950s. That salary was never enough to live alone, it just gave a wife something to commit to other than sitting at home. Teachers made $60 - $70 month in California in the late 1800s. The railroad attendants they were married to? $130 - $140 mo.

Now women have gone on to other more esteemed professions and the ones left behind think they should be paid more (adjusted with inflation) when that was never an objective of the education system or the state governments.

Maybe it wasn't then, but now it should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teaching is a great Mommy track job. You can use the Summers to plan your kids etc you just need to marry an affluent male

Teacher here. This looks like something my first graders might write at the beginning of the year. Bring back grammar and punctuation instruction in schools!

[Anonymous]

I've been teaching for more than half my life. I happen to live in a state that pays a living wage, however, I make about 25K less than I should be paid. Why? Because when teachers change districts, they rarely start in their new district at a comparable wage as the job they left. I've moved 3 times for various reasons. For my education level and years in the classroom, I should be making 90K a year. Instead, I'm paid 65K. Yes, it was my choice to change districts. At the same time, what other profession does that to people? And please, if people do regularly take pay cuts when they leave other jobs, I would sincerely like to know! I work a second job to make ends meet as my city is expensive. This takes away from time I should be spending on my classroom, but I think of it as, "well, if my district wanted me to spend more time on my classroom, then they should be paying me a wage that supports a family in my city".

Also, I have discouraged many young people I know from entering teaching. Here is what I tell them:
1) If you want to be successful in the classroom, year 1-2 will mean 80-90 hours a week, years 3 and on will mean 60 hour work weeks. Every time you change a grade level, which happens VERY OFTEN in elementary, your hours will go back up for a year or two again.
2) I cannot see pensions lasting. So make sure you can survive on 80% of a teacher's pay and put away 20% of it your whole life if you do it. Also, many states do not allow teachers to collect social security, so you won't even have that.
3) Find a district and NEVER leave, to maximize your pay.
4) You will be blamed for every bad thing in your students' lives and get no credit for any of the good things.
5) Most school districts are so terribly dysfunctional it is amazing that they can operate at all.
6) If you teach elementary ed, plan on spending 1-3K a year out of pocket on your classroom.
7) Plan on not being able to go to the restroom when you need it and plan to see the doctor for the UTI's you get.
8) Do anything else.
9) I always tell my own children that they should not be teachers.
10) Avoid teaching anywhere in the south and most of the west
11) If you are going to be a teacher, get a degree in Spanish bilingual or sped. There are next to no jobs in desirable areas outside these fields.
12) Be prepared for people to think you work a "mommy track" job, hahahahahahahaha.
13) Classroom management and endless, pointless meetings will be the bane of your existence. You can work hard to be a great manager, but when first and second graders regularly call teachers "bitches" and admins do nothing to support you, it is dicey. There is not one thing you can do about the pointless meetings. In fact, if you bring up the fact that you are spending 3-4 hours a week in pointless meetings, your school will likely hold a meeting about all the pointless meetings. Think I'm kidding, think again.

I could go on but won't. Do not let your children become teachers.

[Anonymous]

I had a few administrators visit my classroom from my school and other schools this year. I used to teach 5th grade and was moved down to first this year. They wanted to know why my center activities weren't more "visually engaging." They said I should have laminated and colored activities for the students instead of black and white paper/pencil work. I said, "That sounds like a great idea. I don't happen to have the money for that." They were speechless. Maybe teachers need to speak up more about the unrealistic expectations placed on them. Little by little I have slowly made center activities this year but I cannot afford to have different center activities in color and laminated every week my first year in a grade. My colleague spends thousands each year making colored and laminated activities as well as printing books in color. That should be a choice, not an expectation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a few administrators visit my classroom from my school and other schools this year. I used to teach 5th grade and was moved down to first this year. They wanted to know why my center activities weren't more "visually engaging." They said I should have laminated and colored activities for the students instead of black and white paper/pencil work. I said, "That sounds like a great idea. I don't happen to have the money for that." They were speechless. Maybe teachers need to speak up more about the unrealistic expectations placed on them. Little by little I have slowly made center activities this year but I cannot afford to have different center activities in color and laminated every week my first year in a grade. My colleague spends thousands each year making colored and laminated activities as well as printing books in color. That should be a choice, not an expectation.

Oy. I can't imagine being in the private sector and expected to pay for things like that yourself. Our current system is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a few administrators visit my classroom from my school and other schools this year. I used to teach 5th grade and was moved down to first this year. They wanted to know why my center activities weren't more "visually engaging." They said I should have laminated and colored activities for the students instead of black and white paper/pencil work. I said, "That sounds like a great idea. I don't happen to have the money for that." They were speechless. Maybe teachers need to speak up more about the unrealistic expectations placed on them. Little by little I have slowly made center activities this year but I cannot afford to have different center activities in color and laminated every week my first year in a grade. My colleague spends thousands each year making colored and laminated activities as well as printing books in color. That should be a choice, not an expectation.

This is my 25th year teaching in an elementary school. I have never spent more than $100 and rarely do I spend more than what my PTA will reimburse, which is currently $80. I have a difficult time understanding why some spend so much of their own money. It seems to me that just enables the district to not make the purchases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teaching is a great Mommy track job. You can use the Summers to plan your kids etc you just need to marry an affluent male

Teacher here. This looks like something my first graders might write at the beginning of the year. Bring back grammar and punctuation instruction in schools!

Truth, it was never next to be a single income job

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a few administrators visit my classroom from my school and other schools this year. I used to teach 5th grade and was moved down to first this year. They wanted to know why my center activities weren't more "visually engaging." They said I should have laminated and colored activities for the students instead of black and white paper/pencil work. I said, "That sounds like a great idea. I don't happen to have the money for that." They were speechless. Maybe teachers need to speak up more about the unrealistic expectations placed on them. Little by little I have slowly made center activities this year but I cannot afford to have different center activities in color and laminated every week my first year in a grade. My colleague spends thousands each year making colored and laminated activities as well as printing books in color. That should be a choice, not an expectation.

This is my 25th year teaching in an elementary school. I have never spent more than $100 and rarely do I spend more than what my PTA will reimburse, which is currently $80. I have a difficult time understanding why some spend so much of their own money. It seems to me that just enables the district to not make the purchases.

Not all schools have PTAs. My school doesn't have one and this year we aren't getting any BOY supplies. So if students don't bring in supplies (I normally only get supplies from 70% of the class), we have to buy them or do a Donors Choose. Every few years, we get random donations. Two years ago, we got a ton of masking tape? A few years before that, we got a ton of lined paper except it was college rule which doesn't work well with little kids. Not everyone has what you have PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teaching is a great Mommy track job. You can use the Summers to plan your kids etc you just need to marry an affluent male

Teacher here. This looks like something my first graders might write at the beginning of the year. Bring back grammar and punctuation instruction in schools!

Truth, it was never next to be a single income job

It's 2018. The idea that women don't need a decent income because they have husbands who are the main wage-earners is at least 80 years out of date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a few administrators visit my classroom from my school and other schools this year. I used to teach 5th grade and was moved down to first this year. They wanted to know why my center activities weren't more "visually engaging." They said I should have laminated and colored activities for the students instead of black and white paper/pencil work. I said, "That sounds like a great idea. I don't happen to have the money for that." They were speechless. Maybe teachers need to speak up more about the unrealistic expectations placed on them. Little by little I have slowly made center activities this year but I cannot afford to have different center activities in color and laminated every week my first year in a grade. My colleague spends thousands each year making colored and laminated activities as well as printing books in color. That should be a choice, not an expectation.

I have not taught in years. But, you have just stated part of the problem: administrators who are clueless. They are interested in optics-not reality. They are interested in test scores-not every day progress. Most were only in a classroom for a short time and then went into administration or became college professors.

My favorite college professor/administrator "advice": "If you have good lesson plans, you will have no discipline problems. " Clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half of all teachers are union members.
That's part of the problem.

Union-forced lemon dances are NOT for the benefit of children.

Half? Is it that many? Do you have data? I would think less.

I think it's less too. But I can't imagine why PP thinks teacher unions are the reason that teachers are underpaid. It sounds like kneejerk anti-union rants.

Isn't it interesting no one complains about law enforcement unions. I get paid overtime for work outside of contract hours. I get protected. My wife, who is a teacher doesn't. And we ALL know why.

Teaching is primarily a female profession and law enforcement is male. Just own the sexism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half of all teachers are union members.
That's part of the problem.

Union-forced lemon dances are NOT for the benefit of children.

Half? Is it that many? Do you have data? I would think less.

I think it's less too. But I can't imagine why PP thinks teacher unions are the reason that teachers are underpaid. It sounds like kneejerk anti-union rants.

Isn't it interesting no one complains about law enforcement unions. I get paid overtime for work outside of contract hours. I get protected. My wife, who is a teacher doesn't. And we ALL know why.

Teaching is primarily a female profession and law enforcement is male. Just own the sexism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The only thing that has changed is that Teacher was previously one of the few respectable positions a woman could obtain pre-1950s. That salary was never enough to live alone, it just gave a wife something to commit to other than sitting at home. Teachers made $60 - $70 month in California in the late 1800s. The railroad attendants they were married to? $130 - $140 mo.

Now women have gone on to other more esteemed professions and the ones left behind think they should be paid more (adjusted with inflation) when that was never an objective of the education system or the state governments.

Maybe it wasn't then, but now it should be.

+1

The days of women doing heavy lifting and other invisible labor behind the scenes for little or no money are over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The only thing that has changed is that Teacher was previously one of the few respectable positions a woman could obtain pre-1950s. That salary was never enough to live alone, it just gave a wife something to commit to other than sitting at home. Teachers made $60 - $70 month in California in the late 1800s. The railroad attendants they were married to? $130 - $140 mo.

Now women have gone on to other more esteemed professions and the ones left behind think they should be paid more (adjusted with inflation) when that was never an objective of the education system or the state governments.

Maybe it wasn't then, but now it should be.

+1

The days of women doing heavy lifting and other invisible labor behind the scenes for little or no money are over.

Really? I think its just begun. The resurgence in the ridiculous pride of being a SAHM hasn't been seen at this levels since the pre-1980s women in the workforce movement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1

The days of women doing heavy lifting and other invisible labor behind the scenes for little or no money are over.

Really? I think its just begun. The resurgence in the ridiculous pride of being a SAHM hasn't been seen at this levels since the pre-1980s women in the workforce movement.

Yes, it's easy for a person to believe that history didn't begin until they were born, but this belief is factually incorrect.

Here's Peggy Seeger singing "Gonna Be An Engineer": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IGVxBb5uYk