Reply to Teachers are underpaid?

Forum Index » Schools and Education General Discussion

Reply to "Teachers are underpaid?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Absolutely. For the amount of nonsense they put up with?

I was a teacher for 6 years before leaving the profession to pursue medicine. It's strange because there are parallels to the fields, but I found a massive amount of disrespect for the importance of good pedagogy and achieving real learning outcomes (instead of generic test based outcomes). I also felt a huge lack of respect personally. I found it frustrating because we don't want seasoned teachers. We want cheap ones who will shut up and teach from the outline. And will be at-will employees (even though the hiring timeline for teachers runs once a year).

I got into teaching because I love childhood development, learning, and science. I found fostering these connections to be my true calling. After spending so much time, money and energy on my students, I realized that my passion doesn't matter because my classrooms aren't funded enough, my leaders (i.e. principal) do not have an interest in anything beyond beating last year's numbers, and my kids, who were from FARMS households, didn't have a framework to support their success beyond the bare walls of my classroom. I don't even think the school was invested beyond not getting shut down. The main goal was just to get above the minimum required passing rate. So, rote memorization took the day. And my county really didn't care about this population, so I gave up. Because I'm rational and realized that pushing a boulder up a hill over and over isn't a life.

No one blames me if a patient of mine who I've spent years counseling (along with their caregivers) develops a condition like type 2 diabetes. There is a sense of personal accountability in medicine (since no one wants to die), which doesn't apply to teaching (since lots of people hate learning difficult things).

Teaching is just so different. Outcomes, many of which are beyond your control, are your responsibility. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you don't have that support, it's a house of cards.

At conferences, I hear doctors complain about the state of medicine and the decline of respect for our field. It takes a lot for me not to laugh. Yes, insurers are terrible. Negotiated rates hurt. And coming up with ways to make a decent living while not working insane amounts is hard. Yeah. It's bad, but man, I've had it worse.

I don't pay for medical supplies. I am compensated fairly and my clinical judgment is given some form of deference (even though parents still second guess me). I do a decent amount of medicine in the Medicaid space. I feel a similar burn to churn through but people tend to give me a bit more room (including insurers) when I give a medical justification. There was no parallel when I was teaching. No reason, no matter how evidence based, mattered if it went against the fiat of numbers above all else.

I think people give me this space because they don't think they could be a doctor. I think no one bothered when I was a teacher because they felt any idiot could teach.

I actually work less as a MD. And I make a multiple of my previous salary. [/quote]

Thank you for articulating this well. I've been a teacher for 10 years and I'm burnt out. I bust my ass but constantly only hear negativity. I'm at the point where I'd like a 9-5 admin desk job where I can leave work at work and not be made to feel like crap because students aren't meeting some arbritrary score on a standardized test.

The question is always what more can we be doing? I can't do any more. There are circumstances way beyond my control. Administration sees students only as data points. There is no acknowledgement that they are actual humans coming to school with tons of variables in their lives. According to administration it shouldn't matter that a child sleeps on an air mattress in a room shared by their entire family and couldn't sleep because the baby was crying all night. But it's my fault that the student is reading below grade level even though their guided reading group meets daily and the student receives academic intervention daily but the reading books are brought home but never read at home and homework is never completed.

So then I have to sit at a data chat meeting and be asked what more I can do. Other than moving the child into my house, I can't do any more.

[/quote]

+1000. I am leaving teaching after 29 years when this school year ends. I'm a very good teacher. This is no longer a viable or respectabe profession. I feel demoralized just about every day from unrealistic expectations and behavioral issues.  Time to move on. Interestingly enough. ..ALL my colleagues feel the same way.  Most can't leave. The young ones are paying off student loans..the mid range ones can't go back to school to retrain..they are supporting families..the older ones have x amount of years toward a pension. They also have kids in college. Not a good career choice anymore. I'm only sorry that I came back this year. I love the kids but no one can do what the system is now asking us to do.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics