[HN Gopher] Teachers are leaving and few people choosing the field
___________________________________________________________________
Teachers are leaving and few people choosing the field
Author : Victerius
Score : 105 points
Date : 2022-02-05 19:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| sumosudo wrote:
| Teachers are leaving the broken system. Two home school
| associations have sprung up in my town and those are working
| well.
| ipnon wrote:
| Education is an area where I believe private competition
| against the public sector can have huge gains. If the local
| school board cannot implement simple evidence-based education
| reform, then they've failed to provide the community's children
| their most fundamental need.
|
| Maybe a startup to facilitate the founding of private schools
| is in order?
| peter303 wrote:
| That could dovetail with the pandemic demographic contractions
| where births have declined 25% during the pandemic. This is
| compounded by the fertile generationX is smaller than normal. And
| immigration has been politically reduced. This could wreck havoc
| on institutions that depend on youth cohorts like schools,
| colleges and low-skilled jobs.
| dchuk wrote:
| My wife is a 1st grade teacher, has been for 11 years now. She
| has incredible patience and genuinely enjoys helping children
| succeed and grow.
|
| A few years ago, she got her first salary increase in seven
| fucking years after her union threatened a strike. And it was 7%.
| This all during one of the biggest economic run ups ever. While
| the district and admins had all gotten consistent wage increases
| every year she didn't.
|
| She has multiple children who literally take off their clothes,
| flip over tables, and try to climb the fences of the school to
| leave every single day. Not kidding, multiple grown adults have
| to intervene multiple times a week to protect these kids and
| their peers. And literally nothing changes, absolutely no support
| from admin to get these kids support they clearly need. I have
| zero respect for the professional abilities of school
| administrators, I've regularly interacted with them and wondered
| how they are employed, it's crazy.
|
| School administrators are by and large bureaucratic idiots that
| are incapable of innovating or improving schooling. The pandemic
| proved this perfectly. My wife was required to do 3 hours of real
| time education a day, to 6 year olds, including filling out a
| physical piece of paper for attendance at the beginning of the
| day, then taking a photo and sending it in.
|
| For virtual school.
|
| For 6 year olds.
|
| She has to perpetually pull individual children to test their
| progress against state standards, while the rest of the class has
| to occupy themselves with activities.
|
| 6 year olds.
|
| The amount of bullshit wrapped around public education, along
| with completely upside down incentive structures, will be ripping
| apart the very concept of school over the next ten years.
|
| She wants to educate, but we are already working on pursuing that
| as a small business vs being a public educator.
|
| It's a sad state of affairs.
| tejohnso wrote:
| > She has multiple children who literally take off their
| clothes, flip over tables, and try to climb the fences of the
| school to leave every single day
|
| All serious potential legal issues. Whatever happened to
| expulsion? No way I'd accept students like that. If your child
| is that out of control they're your problem to deal with.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| At least your school has a fence. My wife's school they can
| just head for the woods.
| scsilver wrote:
| I think this is they way things are heading. Learning pods with
| private teachers based off a accredited college approved prep
| curriculums. I hope your wife does well.
| [deleted]
| chasd00 wrote:
| > School administrators are by and large bureaucratic idiots
| that are incapable of innovating or improving schooling.
|
| This can't be overstated and, unless you have first hand
| experience, impossible to comprehend. We're talking the very
| basic levels of competence like don't smoke weed in your car
| before school because you're the principal of a middle school
| level of competence.
|
| /wife is a long time teacher quitting this year
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Meanwhile, at least back in the mid-2000s when I was in
| school, they're doing stuff like stationing cops at every
| school so they can run drug dogs through the halls and arrest
| + throw into juvie any kid they find with a jacket that
| smells like weed in their locker.
| dwater wrote:
| I was a teacher and my experience was that I always felt
| administration as a whole was counter productive, but almost
| all of the administrators I could think of were really great.
| They were great teachers who had great relationships with
| students and knew how to teach well. So it stands to reason
| that the problem is with the system and incentives, not the
| individuals.
| brnt wrote:
| > School administrators are by and large bureaucratic idiots
|
| I think that the size and uselessness of the para-ecudational
| layer should not be underestimated. The ministry, committees,
| the commercial education ecosystem; they have been extremely
| successful in absorbing whatever money we have been trying to
| poor in. It's like a ship with two seamen and a council of 5
| captains and 20 contractors to keep the messhall's leisure PC
| running in exchange for 80% of personell expenditures.
|
| It's ridiculous. And if that was not enough, some people
| believe even more privatisation is the solution.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Privatization changes the incentive structure for
| administration. If the school needs to turn a profit they are
| less likely to hire unnecessary or incompetent staff. That is
| just a waste of money. Public schools get away with hiring
| excess staff because they get paid by the number of kids in
| the school regardless of performance.
| brnt wrote:
| Quite the contrary. Private schools spends even more on
| excess. Their business model is after all to make money,
| which they do, like any modern capitalist venture, with
| brand management.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| mprovost wrote:
| I read somewhere (that I can't find now) that the quality of
| teachers has gone down as the workforce has opened up
| opportunities for women. Jobs like teaching and nursing used to
| be some of the only socially acceptable professions for women, so
| overall the quality of teachers (and nurses) was higher. And
| since it was traditionally "women's work", with an expectation
| that a man would be providing a larger income to support the
| family, they were underpaid. (Fields like healthcare and teaching
| still are.)
| notfromhere wrote:
| It makes sense. Why go into teaching for the bad pay and
| terrible hours when you can go be a doctor or some kind of
| highly paid professional?
|
| Teacher pay in the US doesn't attract stellar candidates.
| Further in the comments here people claim that 65k a year for a
| field that typically requires a bachelors/masters is great,
| when those are mid career earnings and if you have a modicum of
| drive or ambition, those earnings are what you could get as an
| entry level salary at any tech company.
|
| Anecdotally, I can't think of many smart, ambitious people that
| I personally know that went into teaching. My experiences
| aren't a statistical sample, but its telling that its not a
| career choice that anyone talks much about aspiring into.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| So the fact that one of the most powerful unions (at least in my
| state, CA) has orchestrated a pay scheme in which new entrants to
| the field do not benefit whatsoever is not in the least bit
| surprising.
|
| Teachers unions don't exist to help students, they don't exist to
| help those who might want to become teachers, they exist to help
| entrenched teachers maximize the amount of money they pull out of
| the state.
|
| This is why in California entry level teachers, who are doing the
| same job as 65 year old teachers, are making less than half.
| tedivm wrote:
| > Teachers unions don't exist to help students, they don't
| exist to help those who might want to become teachers, they
| exist to help entrenched teachers maximize the amount of money
| they pull out of the state.
|
| This isn't true at all. I know of teacher unions (that my
| family members belong to) that have refused deals because they
| weren't fair to their younger members. My local teacher's union
| refused a deal that wouldn't have applied to substitute
| teachers. Just because California has an entrenched entitled
| boomer problem doesn't mean all unions are bad. You're using
| one of the worst examples in the country to generalize unions
| with.
| defterGoose wrote:
| This feels correct as a California transplant. The incumbents
| in a lot of verticals have taken entrenching to a new level.
| Prop 13 being the capstone.
| tedivm wrote:
| I lived in California for 10 years (I moved to Chicago last
| July). The entrenched power is just ridiculous- old
| politicians never retire, it's all political machines
| everywhere, and while there are a lot of amazing activists
| they're fighting huge uphill battles. At the same time
| costs in lots of areas have risen a huge amount, and Prop
| 13 incentivizes people being landlords and forces higher
| prices on newly purchased property to make up for
| subsidized taxes on those landlords.
|
| It's all very frustrating.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| Welcome to Illinois. More school districts per capita
| than anywhere else. Everyone gets their own highly
| inefficient fiefdom.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Yeah, it's great paying 10x the tax of our neighbors with
| similar house values because they moved here 30 years
| ago. The argument is always "people shouldn't be forced
| out of their homes because of rising prices!" but we shop
| at the same grocery stores, eat at the same restaurants,
| pay the same power and gas bills...
|
| What we end up with is neighborhoods with literal multi-
| millionaires in >1m properties living next to squalor,
| and people living in such a situation can't afford to
| move anywhere else within 50 miles. They stay and try to
| scrape by until they can't take it anymore and move
| somewhere cheaper, or pass away and the property is
| promptly torn down, rebuilt, and sold by the family for a
| ~1m profit. The reality of someone who can barely afford
| that even massively-reduced tax bill living in a million-
| dollar house that they can't sell without moving out of
| state isn't pretty, but these are the situations that
| Prop13 advocates are supposedly protecting (when really
| they just want to keep their own much lower tax bill
| forever in a vacuum detached from reality).
|
| A lot of the really bad Prop13 offenders are businesses
| though. I don't have much sympathy for landlords, but I
| have even less for Disney paying 1/100th of their
| property tax because of prop 13:
| https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-
| news/dis...
|
| https://aagla.org/2021/12/the-california-chamber-of-
| commerce...
|
| Unfortunately, boomers and existing home owners will keep
| voting against ANYTHING that reduces Prop13's benefit to
| businesses because they all think it's a slippery slope
| and that they'll come for residential next.
| tedivm wrote:
| Most states have some variety of "homeowners" or
| "homestead" tax policy that gives deductions for people
| who live in their own home. I don't mind that, as long as
| it is fair. In California it isn't fair, and it isn't
| limited to a the home someone lives in.
| chii wrote:
| > maximize the amount of money they pull out of the state
|
| the root "cause" of the problem is that the money spent on
| education does not produce profit (to fund the endeavour). It
| is reliant on a taxation scheme, which means the source of
| funding is adversarial to the payment of wages.
|
| Private schools _do_ align the profit motives, but it also
| breaks the social good that free public education has. I dunno
| how one can solve this problem.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| The standard answer seems to be vouchers. Keep the free
| eduction, but let schools compete for students.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| We are seeing the outcomes at universities. We are getting
| football teams and really fancy gyms but not better
| education. On the contrary, if you fail students who
| shouldn't really be there you get in trouble with the
| administration. The naive free market solution does not
| work.
| ryan93 wrote:
| The government gives out unlimited money for university
| loans. not a free market. Its okay if you arent familiar
| with american higher education.
| spamizbad wrote:
| The government doesn't actually do this. Your eligibility
| for such loans is means-tested and you're only obtaining
| them at a discounted rate. And they cannot be discharged
| during bankruptcy in most cases.
|
| It's like saying home mortgages are free money because
| they're also partially backed by the fed.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Anyone can get a loan for any university. Even scam for
| profit. There is basically no limit on it.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| It's pretty much universally accepted at this point that
| the flood of government student loan money has both
| distorted the higher education market, and created a trap
| for millions of people who have gotten an ineffective
| education with that "free" money.
|
| Your analogy to mortgages is right on, but you've drawn
| the wrong conclusions. Fed-backed mortgages absolutely
| functioned as free money. Because the risk of unqualified
| borrowers was assumed by the government and by opaque,
| byzantine, and corrupt securitization schemes, banks were
| incentivized to hand over money to people who weren't
| able to pay it back.
|
| This was, in every sense that matters, "free money". And
| it led directly to a financial crisis that many millions
| of people have never fully recovered from.
| spamizbad wrote:
| This is how the American higher education system works.
|
| The problem with this approach for public schools in the US
| is that there are multiple taxing authorities involved in
| determining how much $$$ gets attached to a student, and
| most of it comes from local property taxes.
| notfromhere wrote:
| Private schools don't align the profit motive. Private
| schools are able select what students go there, public
| schools aren't.
|
| The biggest factors that contribute to student academic
| outcomes are household income and parental education levels.
|
| Private schools as having a superior educational experience
| is really about being from wealthier households than it does
| about better teachers.
| iamkroot wrote:
| Weirdly (to me, at least) private school teachers make
| substantially less than public. The ones I know say it's
| worth it to be free of the onerous beauracracy that plagues
| public education.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| This makes sense to me (and matches the facts I've found)
| -- when folks talk about private industry being "more
| efficient" they often mean cheaper, which also often means
| those near the bottom rung are the worst paid relative to
| work and experience. It's unnecessarily explosive and
| results in qualified and motivated teachers leaving the
| industry prematurely.
| onphonenow wrote:
| It's a lot more than that from a QOL standpoint.
|
| Private schools
|
| - a lot less paperwork and mind bending BS. - flexibility
| is higher. Hey, we're going to teach outside on stumps
| during the pandemic -> no problem. This is with most
| things. That said private schools tended to stay open with
| modifications (so if you didn't want that public school
| would be better to be at to check out during pandemic). -
| Teacher has a lot of authority in their class. - Teachers /
| teacher aids etc that don't work out, pretty simple process
| not to bring them back for the following year - so peer
| group tends to enjoy working with each other. - You don't
| have to wade through the massive teacher certification
| processes necessarily. - Admin often has your back on
| discipline issues.
|
| Some downsides too. - You can be let go easily if school
| feels its not working out (practically, if you have things
| covered its hard enough to find teachers they will work to
| keep you). - Pay is lower. - Expectations can be higher at
| good schools ie, you might need a masters etc. - Quality of
| programs varies WILDLY!
| joecot wrote:
| Unfortunately one of those onerous bureaucracies involves
| having an actual education in how to educate, or a teaching
| certification. Which is how my private catholic high school
| had a baseball coach as a history teacher who didn't really
| know how to teach history.
| caddemon wrote:
| I had a few former scientists (left the field after PhD)
| teach me in high school and holy shit it was amazing,
| leagues above anything my friends were learning in the
| local public school. There are pros and cons, but the
| point I was at in high school I found much more value in
| talking to those science teachers than the ones that had
| an education in education with science as a secondary
| concern. Teaching certifications have a place but I also
| think it is a good thing most private schools don't
| require them.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| Private schools (non charter, non voucher) have more
| engaged parents and by being selective and flexible may
| have a lower number of children with special needs,
| behavioral disorders, and/or more flexibility in providing
| services for them.
| sjtindell wrote:
| I googled a stat thinking you were wrong and you're very
| right, $50k public vs $36k private in US.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Shame on whoever thinks the salary difference goes to the
| education management companies behind the charter school
| movement. (Looking at you, Edison Schools failing the
| young people of Philadelphia!)
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| Charter schools are not the same as private
| caddemon wrote:
| Not only that but a career public school teacher in many
| places can retire with a nice pension, private school
| teachers don't. Even if you look at some of the best
| private high schools in the country the teacher salary
| just isn't great.
|
| The only way it makes sense financially to teach at a
| private school is if you have kids you want to go there.
| Many schools will do reduced or even free tuition for
| teachers' kids. It's relatively common for private school
| teachers to either be early retirees from a more
| lucrative field or have a spouse that works.
|
| That said, many private school teachers do it because
| they have more flexibility in designing a curriculum, are
| much less likely to encounter disruptive students, etc.
| Private schools also don't actually do 180 days. So it is
| a more enjoyable job day to day for sure.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| That's not surprising, the private teachers are not
| unionized. I think a lot of the hate for teachers' unions
| is driven by decades of propaganda - both from private
| institutions and both of the major political parties.
| Slashing teacher salaries by ~20% is the wet dream of many
| "education reform" advocates. Though I wonder what effect
| that will have on society and the quality of education,
| especially for those that can't afford the top tier private
| schools.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| A big part of the hate for teachers unions is the
| inability to fire bad teachers.
|
| >California has more than 1,000 school districts and
| 300,000 teachers, yet only 667 dismissal cases were filed
| with the Office of Administrative Hearings between
| January 2003 and March 2012, according to the Los Angeles
| Unified School District"s chief labor and employment
| counsel, Alex Molina. Only 130 of those actually got to
| the hearing stage, and 82 resulted in dismissals -- fewer
| than 10 a year.
|
| https://www.willitsnews.com/2013/01/26/firing-a-tenured-
| teac...
| jrgaston wrote:
| Not all teaching stories are sad.
|
| I was lucky. I taught high school in northern California for
| almost a decade and it was a lovely job. Sure, the work expands
| to fill your nights and weekends, and part of every summer
| vacation I worked on improving my lesson plans, but it was an
| enjoyable job with good students, great fellow teachers, a
| supportive administration, a wonderfully diverse and accepting
| student body, and only the occasional annoying parent.
|
| Benefits were decent, pay was decent, and psychological rewards
| were tremendous. It was far more rewarding than the previous
| fifteen years I spent in software development. I felt I developed
| software not because the world needed it but just so some rich
| guy could get a little richer and maybe a bit of that richness
| would filter down to me. Not an inspiring reason to get up in the
| morning.
|
| I could tell right away I had an impact on my students,
| introducing them to new areas of knowledge (in my case it was
| chemistry). My goals were to be a role model; for them to know
| what kinds of questions chemistry addressed; and for them to just
| maybe fall in love with science a little bit. I had no illusions
| they were going to grow up to be chemists.
|
| I would have remained a teacher if I hadn't decided to leave the
| US. I am fortunate to have left before COVID because teaching
| online sounds really hard.
|
| Just my 2 cents.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Public schools are a nightmare. My wife is long time middle and
| high school teacher but decided to quit after this year. It's not
| the kids, it's the administration and how utterly incompetent
| they are. We'll see what's next for her but I hope my wife gets a
| chance to work with functioning adults at least once in her life.
| onphonenow wrote:
| It's it the admin or the politics. At least in some areas there
| is such pressure around graduation rates, attendance (for the
| money) and such sensitivity around disparate impact (ie,
| poor/minority students with higher than average detentions etc)
| that you end up with basically no failing allowed, attendance
| is everything including students who are massively outside of
| classroom ability to manage in a large class, and limited
| discipline
| Clubber wrote:
| >basically no failing allowed
|
| Both my parents were teachers. My mother was a teacher in
| public schools. When we would talk about this very thing, she
| said whenever they would fail students, it would glut up the
| system and it would start to cease to function. It's a tough
| problem. When I was young, they had alternate schools for bad
| kids. At least two levels. The bad kid school, then if you
| got kicked out of that, the really bad kid school. If you got
| kicked out of that, you didn't go to school anymore. I don't
| know why we stopped doing that. The public school system was
| bad then and it's bad now, so it might not matter.
| onphonenow wrote:
| It's complicated. At least in SF race is a major item -
| there is a real push to avoid disparate impact. Things like
| D's and F's they have shown disparately impact certain
| groups. Race is a major topic at least in SF school
| district.
|
| "A gay dad volunteers for one of eight open slots on a
| parent committee that advises the school board. All of the
| 10 current members are straight moms. Three are white.
| Three are Latina. Two are Black. One is Tongan. They all
| want the dad to join them.
|
| The seven school board members talk for two hours about
| whether the dad brings enough diversity. Yes, he'd be the
| only man. And the only LGBTQ representative. ... The gay
| dad never utters a single word. The board members do not
| ask the dad a single question before declining to approve
| him for the committee."
|
| https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/S
| a...
|
| They have trouble recruiting for these spots. He was white.
| His credentials, interest, commitment, skills he might
| bring to the position were not relevant.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Two things I would have liked to see added to this article:
|
| 1) regarding state differences in pay, how does that compare to
| cost of living? California pays more than Florida, sure but its
| cost of living is higher also (https://www.insure.com/cost-of-
| living-by-state.html). Looking at how cost-of-living-adjusted pay
| varies between states would be more informative. California
| probably still pays more, but how much more? It's like comparing
| housing costs now and 20 years ago without adjusting for
| inflation.
|
| 2) how many of these teachers are leaving the profession
| entirely, vs. going into private or religious schools or
| tutoring? Knowing that would help tease out how much of the issue
| is due to how the public schools are administered, vs. how much
| they are afraid of contracting covid-19, vs. whatever else.
|
| 3) how does the labor shortage in teaching compare to the labor
| shortage generally? The article gives the impression that it's
| worse, and I could believe it, but I'd like to see some
| comparisons.
|
| What the article had was a lot of quotes, and not much in the way
| of facts or good analysis. Which is probably because the reporter
| in question had 1 hour to write it, perhaps from their bedroom or
| their parents' basement, before they had to move on to the next
| article. Disclaimer: I have no facts to back up that last
| sentence.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If anything, the facts they presented seem to go against their
| case. A salary of $65k is not low. Compared to the median US
| income, it is quite good. Especially depending on the local
| cost of living, as you point out.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| The inability to discipline children I think has greatly
| contributed to the power and balance for teachers in the
| classroom. It means bullying, and misbehavior can just fester.
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Good.
|
| Education is ripe for disruption. The US should move to a South
| Korean model where a few very good superstar teachers lecture
| thousands of students simultaneously.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrDfCy5Q9wI
| mythrwy wrote:
| In the USA though we'd need another couple hundred "enforcers"
| to make sure kids stayed in their seats and didn't hit one
| another during lecture.
|
| And that (in my opinion) may be part of the reason so many
| teachers are leaving the field. Teaching is very rewarding,
| playing social service aid giver and municipal cop not as much.
| tomdell wrote:
| Individualized attention and small class sizes are important
| for socializing and educating children.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| You can do both. Flipped classroom, where the students watch
| video lectures ahead of time on their own schedule, and the
| time in the classroom is for supplemental recitation sessions
| and/or getting practice with the material.
| watwut wrote:
| That is just bullshit buzzword. Overwhelming majority of
| classes involve both exercises and lecture like segments.
| They switch.
|
| Plus, watching and reading stuff does not mean teacher can
| skip it. It still needs to be said again, either because
| many kids read only half of it or because they forgot it
| all due to not switching between active and passive
| learning by themselves.
| asdff wrote:
| I can't even get undergrads who are paying thousands a year
| to do the readings ahead of discussion sections.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| _Jeff Bezos_ can 't get his employees to do the same,
| apparently. That's why meetings at Amazon start with a
| reading period, to ensure that everyone has read the memo
| that's on the agenda. The "flipped classroom" is an edfad
| than only works in advanced courses. Even worse: process-
| oriented guided inquiry with students who don't want to
| be there.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Even if the students won't do their homework, they're
| better off doing discussion and practice in the classroom
| than just lectures.
| pydry wrote:
| I guess that could work if most of those students never had to
| ask a question ever again.
| truffdog wrote:
| Questions are overrated. Most people will never ask for
| social reasons, and most of the time either the teacher won't
| understand the question or the student won't understand the
| answer. You can't really learn with an audience.
| some0x80070005 wrote:
| It's one thing to suggest the Socratic method may not be
| the best learning strategy, but it's quite another to
| suggest that questions are overrated. Questions are so
| fundamental to increasing our knowledge in an intuitive way
| - just look at Stack Overflow, Quora, etc. for the success
| in helping people find answers (of decidedly varying
| quality). There is no limit to creative questions a group
| of people can ask but there is a limit to how much a single
| human thinks they know about a subject or can write in a
| single lecture, article, or book.
| sjtindell wrote:
| I totally disagree and I feel like the only real value I
| got from schooling was being able to go and ask my teachers
| tons of questions any time.
| nemo44x wrote:
| What if you were distracting and slowing down many other
| students?
|
| I think there's ways to address the need to ask questions
| here. Forums and discussion pods for instance.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Or had any unique or special needs.
| turndown wrote:
| I think the most infuriating thing about "growing up" and
| becoming an adult is that obvious problems you think should
| simply be _fixed_ without any particular ideological emphasis end
| up becoming bogged down by people who know the least about a
| problem(and, in my view, the kind of people least likely to be
| experts on anything) trying to make sure the solution conforms to
| their uninformed world views.
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| There's also the equal and opposite force of experts who have
| such tight ties to their slice of everything they fail to see
| alternatives.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I don't understand why usa is so adverse to metal detectors at
| the door for public institutions like schools. I spent a few
| years in India having to be metal detected to enter any metro,
| mall, or hotel. And they have far fewer weapon and terrorism
| concerns than USA does. It's annoying and you get used to it.
|
| Small steps like these could improve the confidence of those
| working in schools and the many parents trusting schools to
| safely educate their children
| colinmhayes wrote:
| My school had metal detectors. Wasn't a big deal. They were
| only for when you enter in the morning though. If you wanted to
| bring something in you could do it at any other time and leave
| it in your locker.
| tdeck wrote:
| Many American schools do have metal detectors. The public
| school in the area where I grew up (known as a "good" school
| district) not only had metal detectors, but required everyone
| to use flimsy backpacks made of clear vinyl so staff could
| always see the contents.
| closeparen wrote:
| Like other physical security measures (tall fences, razor wire,
| bars on windows, steel doors) it's a sign that you are in a
| low-trust, high-crime environment.
|
| If in fact you are, then those things are important, but most
| Americans don't want to think of their local communities this
| way and resent developments that reify such a perception.
| Especially when it comes to children. We really don't like
| young children being cognizant of evils and threats and other
| such "adult" concerns. Innocence is important.
| olliej wrote:
| They do have metal detectors.
|
| My wife's school had:
|
| * metal detectors
|
| * police
|
| * drug dogs
|
| * 12 foot fencing
|
| * no doors on toilets
|
| * active shooter drills
|
| * no on-site medical staff
|
| * restrictions on access to medication, including inhalers
|
| That is what public schools in America are. They are prisons,
| and the on-site police treat the children as criminals.
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| No doors on toilets? What the fuck?
| olliej wrote:
| Yuuup
|
| My wife went through school never using the bathrooms
| filchermcurr wrote:
| My elementary school was like this. No doors on any stalls
| or the bathrooms themselves. It wasn't a safety thing, it
| was a 'kids are dumb' thing. Kids would hang on the doors
| and break them, pee on them, smear excrement on them, crush
| other kids body parts in them (which I guess is a bit of a
| safety thing...), etc. Finally they just gave up and got
| rid of the doors entirely.
|
| Nobody ever seemed to care, but I sure never set foot in
| those bathrooms.
| _dain_ wrote:
| no we're not going to turn every public space into airport-tier
| security. it's an affront to human dignity.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| There's probably some truth to this-- but I think people should
| look at these kind of notices with some skepticism.
|
| Consider who is quoted as an expert: someone who makes money
| training teachers. Seems like someone who will profit from
| greater funding of the general system.
|
| A while ago, a friend of mine read articles in the newspaper
| about a dire shortage of math teachers. So he enrolled in a
| teacher training program, put in the hours and couldn't find
| anything anywhere. He's a personable guy. Polite and very
| sociable. So when he couldn't find anything anywhere, I started
| to believe that this is one of those self-serving fibs circulated
| by the unions and the teacher prep programs. There may be some
| truth to it, but it may be wildly inflated.
| halpert wrote:
| I don't know who in their right mind would want to be a teacher.
| Bad pay, hard work, ungrateful students and parents, and limited
| opportunities for growth.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Plus the massive shootings lottery if you are in US :-(
| marssaxman wrote:
| Massive drama but low probability; twice as many people are
| killed by lightning strikes every year. Beyond that, the
| "mass shooting" tallies often include gang fights and cartel
| wars, which most of us do not need to worry about.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| I'm wondering why schools have active shooter drills but
| not lightning strike drills?
| nemo44x wrote:
| Because it's something you can actually react to. There's
| almost no chance a tornado will hit your school but
| schools do tornado drills. All schools and businesses do
| fire drills. There was a time they did nuclear bomb
| drills and many buildings from the era have fallout
| shelters.
|
| So yes it's unlikely to occur. But it could and it
| requires very little effort to be prepared.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Low probability, but it happens each year and several
| times. Just in 2021 it happened 32 times. I bet that each
| time a mass shooting happens in a school it affects
| emotionally to all teachers in the country.
|
| As teacher is normal to deal with problematic, or even very
| twisted children sometimes, but the feeling in Europe is
| very different. I can perfectly understand somebody that
| leaves after experiencing such traumatic events non-stop
| each ten days.
| vanusa wrote:
| Maybe you were ungrateful.
|
| I am extremely grateful for the talents of several of my public
| school teachers (and until they were downsized) counselors.
| touisteur wrote:
| > Maybe you were ungrateful
|
| That wasn't really necessary? Your point is taken and some of
| us are indeed grateful (and I don't doubt GP is or was), but
| I think we're in the minority. And it seems a general thing
| in Western societies? There's a lot of teacher bashing in
| France too, and also a difficulty to find ones. The pay, the
| teaching conditions, the permanent bashing and ridiculing by
| the elites, the ruling class, and any class really...
|
| I mean, when your secretary of education tells teachers
| during the first covid lockdown, most of them fighting to
| keep classes running, to go help pick strawberries instead.
| Err... When you can't even fund 5 kn95 masks (to be reused)
| for every teacher and you relax all covid constraints because
| the economy is grinding to a halt. 15 euros... Not even that.
| Even my company pays for 2 daily kn95 masks and I'm not
| exposed to kids.
| vanusa wrote:
| _That wasn 't really necessary?_
|
| Perhaps not. I guess what I'm trying to say is:
|
| Yes, it's a woefully underappreciated and underpaid job.
| But unlike what must of us fully-hatched adults do with our
| lives - I do feel that (good) teachers are in fact doing
| something very valuable and important, and ultimately, at
| least some of their students will appreciate their efforts
| long after the fact.
| 0xdeadb00f wrote:
| This opinion and appreciation for teachers you hold could
| be held by the OP as well, you know?
|
| What OP is saying is that most people don't appreciate
| teachers, and aren't greatful for them, not that THEY
| (OP) don't appreciate teachers.
| vanusa wrote:
| I did not express myself well. And now it has gone down
| on my permanent record.
|
| Had I only listened to my teachers more, when it still
| mattered.
| jsnodlin wrote:
| It's definitely not hard work relative to other fields. That
| plus 3 months off and a relatively short day and low barriers
| for entry make this a no brainer for many, many people.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Just like CEO jobs must be so hard because of all that
| _responsibility_ on your shoulders. My violin really couldn
| 't get any smaller here...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Teachers have a lot of vacation, sure. But all the teachers I
| had were at school from 7-4 minimum every day and worked
| much, much harder than I ever have as a developer. And I make
| 3 times as much as any of them.
| dwater wrote:
| I work less than half as much over the course of a year as a
| senior tech consultant than I ever did as a public school
| teacher. No question. And my salary doubled within 2 years,
| is set to hit triple now in year 6, and my stress is so much
| lower as to be negligible.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I think it would be mentally exhausting dealing with ~30
| children all day. It's not a job where you can take a quick
| mental break if you're feeling overwhelmed since the kids
| will be there regardless.
|
| > relatively short day
|
| Citation needed. Teachers I know spend a ridiculous amount of
| time prepping, marking, and going to meetings outside of
| class hours.
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Unfortunately, exactly the kind of people who shouldn't be
| teachers: rent seekers or "education" majors with sub-1000 SAT
| scores
| staticman2 wrote:
| The median wage for teachers seems to be equal to the median
| pay for college graduates, maybe a bit higher if you account
| for benefits.
|
| It's not terrific by Hacker News standards, but should be a
| living wage in most places especially if you marry or room with
| someone who can split housing costs with you.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The $ per hour and quality of life at work are terrible
| though. You do not get to browse the internet whenever you
| want, take on enormous liability dealing with children, and
| of course, entitled parents.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| The number of synchronous commitments teachers have every
| day would be a disqualifier on its own for me. Teachers
| have a highly structured schedule of daily "meetings"
| (class sessions), and they are conducting every "meeting"
| rather than being just a participant. And they are probably
| doing so on their feet. That just sounds exhausting.
| etempleton wrote:
| Media entry level wage is typically pretty good. The problem
| is it doesn't scale as fast as most other professions. Look
| at mid-career salary and it is a bit different story.
|
| Remember educators also have to get a master's within 5-10
| years in most states.
| euroderf wrote:
| Kinda starts to sound like the closing act of a decades-long
| death spiral. Rarely is the question asked: Is our children
| learning?
| emptybottle wrote:
| > Is our children learning?
|
| Oh the irony
| slavik81 wrote:
| > Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
|
| ~ George W. Bush, during a campaign speech in South Carolina
| (2000)
|
| That particular question had probably not been asked much
| before, but it's been asked more frequently ever since.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Let us not forget Betsy DeVos' wonderful impact
| https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936225974/the-legacy-of-
| educa...
| d12345m wrote:
| In case you missed the reference, this was a quote spoken
| without irony by a US president.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism
| sega_sai wrote:
| It is a sad state of affairs when such important jobs like
| teaching young kids are not respected and compensated well.
| nemo44x wrote:
| That's not really true. They get amazing benefits, pensions
| with retirement in their mid-50's, and lots of time off
| throughout the year.
|
| Additionally in most cases their unions negotiate their
| compensation. Clearly they wouldn't work if their unions didn't
| believe they were being compensated fairly.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > They get amazing benefits, pensions with retirement in
| their mid-50's
|
| Those benefits are for those who stick it out as teachers.
| More and more, new teachers don't even last until their
| benefits start vesting at 3 years, let alone 20 years!
| ColinWright wrote:
| People (rightly) ask: Why would anyone be a teacher?
|
| For some it's genuinely a calling, a vocation. The buzz you get
| from seeing the lights go on, from making a difference, from
| seeing a student blossom, is unequalled.
|
| But external pressures are squeezing that out, and the utter
| neglect of the teachers and utter contempt for the profession is
| finally catching up.
|
| The warning signs have been there for decades, the momentum is
| growing, and it may now be too late.
| olliej wrote:
| I think the biggest indicator of a problem is that now even
| those people for whom it's a "calling" are leaving the field.
| Epecially those in public education
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| Yes I think public education is the _worst_ option for people
| who want to become teachers because they love teaching, which
| is not a good sign.
| nmstoker wrote:
| Presumably the "calling" is the aspect that has been abused
| in order to underpay teachers. In my experience they are
| underpaid across the board but particularly in public
| sector roles (at least in the UK).
|
| What's interesting, and isn't something the article covers,
| is that demand side at the high end is nearly insatiable.
| Private schools in London consistently increase fees well
| above inflation year after year and never fail to fill
| places. The teachers there do okay but it's hardly stellar
| pay and although many of the schools discourage teachers
| tutoring it's commonly the way that income is boosted.
| hpcjoe wrote:
| My wife is a college prep (public charter) high school math and
| physics teacher. She noted recently, that she could make as much
| money working at a local department store, or fast food joint, as
| she does at the school. And when she'd return home, she could put
| the other work out of her mind.
|
| She works about 14 hour days during the week, and 12 hours per
| day on weekends. Hourly equivalent is about 1/2 the department
| stores.
|
| She told me about the new safety policy the police advise to use
| in the event of a shooter, after the Oxford MI incident (about an
| hour from us). The idea is to barricade the door, get anything
| you can use as a weapon, and defend the kids. Alternatively, you
| can break out a window and run away. Of course, they won't let
| the teachers open carry weapons, which, honestly, would turn the
| soft targets into very hard ones.
|
| Aside from that obvious solution, the problem is, what do you do
| if you have a kid who doesn't want to leave for any reason? This
| literally becomes a trolley problem, decide whose life is more
| important. Should she stay with the reluctant child, or should
| she save her own life and as many of the others as she can?
|
| And I don't know if I mentioned it, but the pay really really
| sucks.
|
| Add to this, parents who don't work with the teachers to help
| their kids. Often major communication problems with parents who
| don't speak english. Parents who only sometimes take their kids
| to school. Kids who just don't care enough to do any work, and
| then come begging at the end of every quarter/semester for "extra
| credit", which they are ineligible for, given that they have not
| completed a majority of their work. Often any work at all.
|
| I hear about this. Every day. It is burning her out.
|
| But more than that. I see what these schools are producing, see
| the attempts not to make the kids unhappy by giving them a 50%
| score for doing no work, not even showing up to class, or tests.
| Letting them retake tests to improve grades. All these little
| things we do to coddle, and protect people from the consequences
| of their own decisions.
|
| And I think what sort of adults we are unleashing. Which explains
| much of what we see in society now.
| [deleted]
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > She told me about the new safety policy the police advise to
| use in the event of a shooter, after the Oxford MI incident
| (about an hour from us). The idea is to barricade the door, get
| anything you can use as a weapon, and defend the kids.
| Alternatively, you can break out a window and run away. Of
| course, they won't let the teachers open carry weapons, which,
| honestly, would turn the soft targets into very hard ones.
|
| Wait so the correct way to defend yourself against an active
| shooter is to... seek cover and run away? Why can't she simply
| carry a weapon, as the second amendment gives her the
| inalienable right to?
| hpcjoe wrote:
| That's the question that needs to be asked widely.
| 0F wrote:
| My dad always told me that during the 40s and 50s children would
| be paddled for being disrespectful. Students wore uniforms.
| Parents would be angry at their children if a teacher or
| administrator scheduled a meeting. The _parents_ would be mad at
| the _kids._ it is clear that times have changed dramatically so I
| think it's insane to expect the model of the old times to work.
| If you want a good result for your child then enroll them in a
| program that is suited for these times. I suspect private school
| is the only good option.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| But WHY is private education better?
| icecap12 wrote:
| The key difference is that it's a conscious choice on the
| part of the parents to invest in the child's education. But
| there are other factors. For example, most private education
| at the gradeschool level requires heavy parent involvement
| and even volunteerism. Private schools are generally much
| smaller. The school also has the ability to kick out
| troublemakers or those who obviously don't want to be there.
| Not to say there aren't problems in the private schools -
| there are. But you don't have to deal with people who are
| just there because the state law says they must attend
| school.
| giaour wrote:
| The whole curriculum isn't beholden to No Child Left Behind.
| ravenstine wrote:
| There's middle ground, I think, but we don't live in a time of
| balance, and we have completely swung the other way in terms of
| raising children. Ironically, we may be doing more
| psychological damage to them in the long run than we did when
| we paddled them or put soap in their mouths or make them chew
| spruce gum (not that I condone any of that).
| meristohm wrote:
| It's a difficult job for not enough pay and an expectation to
| work far more than 40 hours per week, and that was before the
| COVID-19 pandemic. (I got out to raise my child and support my
| employed spouse)
| [deleted]
| etempleton wrote:
| This enrollment decline is across the board in education. While
| not high paying, education was at least once considered a safe
| and reliable profession in a respected field. It is really none
| of those things anymore.
|
| The job has gotten harder and more involved and the pay has
| gotten, relative to cost of living, much worse. In many districts
| teachers do not know if and when their next raise will come. It
| could be next year or in 10 years.
|
| If as a society we value education we need to fund it.
| greggman3 wrote:
| Is this true the world over or just the USA? I have a friend
| that complained his high paying FAAMG job didn't get him any
| respect when applying for a home loan at a Japanese bank but
| his wife's college professor job got lots (both of them are
| foreigners).
| etempleton wrote:
| Probably not globally, every country will be different,
| though I suspect a similar thing is playing out across
| numerous western countries. My knowledge is of the American
| educational system.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| Every time this topic comes up on HN I see a lot of comments
| along the lines of "Don't try to fix the problem; just move
| kids to private schools", an incredibly privileged, net harmful
| point of view... very sad to see.
|
| The reality is that teachers in America make horrific wages for
| a job that requires a degree, are treated like garbage, held to
| impossible standards, constantly subject to budget cuts, and
| then we wonder why America, the wealthiest country in the
| world, ranks 14th in education. It's not a mystery. Teachers
| deserve better.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Teachers deserve better.
|
| _Some_ teachers deserve better, to be sure. The reality is
| that educational spending in the U.S. is quite high by
| developed-country standards. But the system still fails to
| reward the best teachers, and many teachers are quite simply
| not properly qualified for what they 're supposed to teach.
| "Education" degrees are practically meaningless.
| icecap12 wrote:
| This is no shock if you are friends with any teachers or have
| kids of school age. My wife and I have 5 close friends who are
| all public school teachers (2 of the 5 are a married couple). 4
| of the 5 send their kids to private schools. I think that says a
| lot, given that they aren't paid well and choose to sacrifice and
| pay the tuition.
|
| The harsh reality is that the pay sucks, you need a masters
| degree to even be a teacher, parents view public schools as
| glorified daycare system, and shitty bureaucrats run it all into
| the ground. Combined with the general lack of discipline and
| culture of disrespect among kids (I fault the parents), it's a
| completely miserable experience that was worsened by COVID and
| remote learning.
|
| I've heard so many ridiculous stories from our friends that I'm
| shocked any of them remain doing it. In fact, 1 of the 5 I
| mentioned had enough and threw in the towel for the 21-22 school
| year. She's doing something else now, like running a study abroad
| program in association with the local honors university. She only
| gets the smart, disciplined kids who want to be there. The house
| of cards that is public education is coming down.
| andirk wrote:
| > (2 of the 5 are a married couple). 4 of the 5 send their kids
| to private schools.
|
| So 1 of the married couple sends the kids to public school
| while the other sends those same kids to private school?
| [deleted]
| BadCookie wrote:
| No. The only teacher in the group who doesn't send their kid
| to a private school is unmarried or married to a non-teacher.
| The married teacher couple must send their kid(s) to private
| school based on what was said.
| cgriswald wrote:
| > Combined with the general lack of discipline and culture of
| disrespect among kids (I fault the parents)...
|
| In what capacity do you blame the parents?
| goda90 wrote:
| Schools are very limited in the ways they can discipline
| children. On top of that, they are dealing with ~30 children
| to one adult. A child's guardian is the only one in a
| position to effectively teach them to be respectful of
| others.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| And parents only really have weekends. I think peers (other
| kids) have the most influence with the way things are
| structured now.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Well, that's sort of why I asked the question. The poster
| may blame the parents for not teaching their children; or
| may blame the parents for hamstringing the schools' ability
| to foster a respectful environment.
|
| I was successful in raising a respectful child. However, I
| also pulled him out of two very negative school
| environments (one public, one private).
|
| Regardless of what lessons I taught him, I am sure it would
| not have been easy to encourage that respect if he had
| remained in an environment where he was not respected and
| where he saw adults and children alike treated with
| disrespect without consequence.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Discipline and respect to authority must be taught at home,
| not at school.
| johnnyb9 wrote:
| I always thought a significant benefit of being a teacher is
| receiving a pension, summers off, government benefits, not
| necessarily pay. https://www.aei.org/articles/no-teachers-are-
| not-underpaid/
| bastawhiz wrote:
| If you can't pay a mortgage or feed a family, summers off and
| pension aren't useful. Teachers don't have equity like many
| other industries. They pretty much universally don't get
| bonuses. The mindset that teachers have something that
| offsets the embarrassingly low salaries that we offer them is
| the result of decades of politicians trying to justify
| cutting money from education.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| > Teachers don't have equity like many other industries.
|
| What "many"? Are there any industries besides software and
| finance that offer equity compensation?
|
| I had real jobs in a couple fields before I became a coder,
| and never once did they give me free stocks. I think one
| company you could use part of your pay check automatically
| _buy_ their stock at nearly market prices, which would have
| been a silly thing to do.
| sershe wrote:
| Cutting money from education? Education funding has
| expanded massively over the decades [1][2]. With, arguably,
| nothing to show for it.
|
| [1] https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.ht
| ml#ch... [2] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables
| /dt19_236.55.a...
| bastawhiz wrote:
| That data doesn't look to be adjusted for inflation, no?
| 1990 dollars are worth essentially half of today's
| dollars, so those charts don't say very much, even if
| they only go to 2005.
|
| Edit: it's also the case that the population has grown by
| 50 million people since 1990, which would bring an
| expected increase of 15-20% in expenditure. Accounting
| for both, I'm surprised we don't spend more.
| granzymes wrote:
| I glanced at the links, and there are inflation-adjusted
| figures included. See for example bullet 5 in the first
| link.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Considering the average pay was about $65k, I'd say that
| most states seem to have decent pay. That's slightly higher
| than the average pay in the US, and significantly higher
| than the median.
|
| My state has good teacher pay. I know someone working as a
| secondary ed biology teacher making a little more than I do
| as a dev (about $90k; both of us have masters).
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Average isn't a useful metric here because you'd be hard
| pressed to find an "average" school. Teacher salaries
| generally don't do a good job of tracking the cost of
| living. $65k might be a good salary for some parts of
| America, but if a bigger chunk of those teachers are in
| dense urban areas with high costs of living (see: the bay
| area) it's not good at all. It's also not useful if you
| lump public school teachers in with private school
| teachers.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If it's not a useful metric, then it seems the article
| has no support for it's argument about teacher pay. If
| you also look in the article, it mentions that many of
| the states with higher costs of living also have
| significantly higher average pay, while states with lower
| cost of living have lower pay. It seems to generally
| track.
|
| Now there could be localized areas that have pay
| problems, like the bay area. But are these widespread? Or
| is this a symptom of some underlying problem like locale
| specific policies or preferences (property taxes, housing
| prices/zoning/preferences, and the largest income
| inequality in the country)? Using other anecdotes, like
| in my area, there doesn't seem to be a problem.
|
| So basically, if we can't use averages, what quantitative
| evidence is there that teacher pay being low is a
| widespread problem? Or is it possible that the audience
| on this forum is used to pay which falls in the top
| 5-10%, and thus skews the perception of what is "good"
| pay?
|
| "Teacher salaries generally don't do a good job of
| tracking the cost of living."
|
| You make this claim, but is there evidence to back that
| up? Because I don't see it in the article nor the
| comments.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >$65k might be a good salary for some parts of America,
| but if a bigger chunk of those teachers are in dense
| urban areas with high costs of living
|
| Seems like the location of teachers would match the
| location of workers and children. It seems reasonable to
| compare the average worker salary to the average
| teacher's (or public teacher if that is your main
| interest)
| liveoneggs wrote:
| That pension starts well before 65 for many teachers. In many
| (most?) states it's based on years of service, not age.
|
| These benefits are, of course, slipping away.
| 62951413 wrote:
| You make it sound like variety and incorporation are less
| important than math and physics. If only we lived in a
| democracy where people had a chance to make Orwell fiction
| again. Do you know which party the very same teachers' union
| contributes to by a large margin? Those teachers and their
| families failed to recall CA governor given a unique chance.
| They contributed to the 2020 election fiasco. Forget about
| school vouchers, people are happy with the ruling party
| abolishing algebra and cancelling magnet schools.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "you need a masters degree to even be a teacher"
|
| Really? The states I've been in doesn't require it. Generally a
| bachelor degree with a teaching certificate is all you need.
| doktorhladnjak wrote:
| This varies state by state. In several states, teachers have
| to complete a masters degree within a certain number of years
| to keep their job.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Interesting. Do you happen to know which ones or have an
| example?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That sets a cap on the salary. In the US southeast (last
| place I took a long look at the numbers, in NC and GA, but
| other states had similar numbers I just didn't study them
| closely), typically capping out with a bachelors at between
| $50-60k/year after 20-30 years. A masters degree often
| confers a $5-10k increase in salary, and a doctorate of
| education getting another $10k+ increase.
|
| So, no, you don't really need a masters to be a teacher in
| the US. But you will be perpetually at the bottom of the pay
| scale if you don't get one, aren't in an in-demand subject
| area, or obtain some useful and in-demand specialist
| certificates.
|
| GA: https://www.gadoe.org/Technology-Services/Data-
| Collections/D... (updated to 2021 PDF, fixed link again not
| sure how that got goofed before)
|
| The T-# levels are certification levels, largely dependent on
| getting a graduate degree or specialists degree or
| certificate. Without those, you will stay at the lower tiers.
| School districts do offer pay above and beyond this, but
| unless you're in a wealthier district you won't get much past
| these numbers.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah, I'm familiar with the pay being tied to the
| attributes, location, etc. That's why I was asking if there
| was a state that actually requires a masters.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Teachers are paid quite poorly, expected to do a _ton_ of work,
| beyond their purview, unsupported by their administration, and
| regulated like crazy.
|
| It's a labor of love. People become teachers because they love
| the idea of being in that profession.
|
| Unfortunately, governments, corporations, parents, and even
| students, see this as _carte blanche_ to pay them even worse,
| and yank all support from them.
|
| IT is a crazy field. People make a _lot_ of money here, and we
| are used to being given a fairly free rein. Most folks in IT
| like their jobs, don 't question whether or not we made the
| right life choices, are valued by our employers and customers,
| and, on top of that, we make great money.
|
| Night and day. It's fairly hard for people to understand what
| teachers face.
|
| I know quite a few.
|
| Despite all the crying about teaching jobs being open, it's
| actually really difficult for teachers to find work; especially
| work that doesn't involve a two-hours-each-way commute, to
| teach in neglected urban schools, while being paid far too
| little to live near their work.
|
| It's a tough gig.
| pelasaco wrote:
| My wife is teacher in the elementary school, and we have the
| same issues. Now with covid restrictions, changing all the
| time, is really hard to be sure that you are not braking any
| rule. One consideration however regarding your comment:
|
| " parents view public schools as glorified daycare system"
|
| We shouldn't forget that it is not just for the teachers that
| the world is getting complicated. Almost everyone is lost with
| family, job, personal happiness and etc.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| And homeschooling is skyrocketing nationwide as more parents
| decide to pull their kids from government schools. Long-term, I
| think we will see an even greater move in this direction.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'd _like_ to be excited about homeschooling and other
| alternate-schooling, but unfortunately my anecdotal
| experience with people (acquaintances, sometimes co-workers)
| who were the outcome of homeschooling biases me. The theory
| is great: DIY things that you can do better than the "pros".
| I DIY almost all the maintenance on my house, so it makes
| sense that one could possibly teach better than public school
| teachers.
|
| But then you look at the _actual_ reasons people are
| homeschooling, and by and large, it 's parents who are
| opposing some perceived "indoctrination": Fundamentalist
| Christians objecting to things like sex ed, biology,
| evolution. More and more now, it looks like it's not just
| being driven by religion but by political ideology. Our local
| "moms" group is full of people pulling their kids out to
| prevent them from "being indoctrinated by the liberals" and
| for anti-vax reasons. For every 1 parent homeschooling
| because they really can provide a better education at home,
| there are probably 100 parents who are totally unqualified,
| will leave huge gaps in their kids' education, and are only
| doing it for ideological reasons.
|
| In theory, having a smart parent at home DIYing their kids'
| education sounds like a great idea, but in practice, it's all
| the wrong people doing it for all the wrong reasons.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Everyone I know that has the funds are pulling their kids
| out primarily for the indoctrination aspect, and I plan to
| do the same.
|
| I would dispute that this is the wrong reasons. The most
| common complaint I hear is around racial theory/ identity
| politics/ or whatever you want to call it. People don't
| like their 1st grade child being taught that they are an
| oppressor by virtue of their birth and guilty and
| responsible for generations of injustice.
|
| These are views that I believe are harmful and untrue. I
| would feel the same way if the school was was teaching the
| earth revolved around the sun, or God made women to be
| subservient to men
| doktorhladnjak wrote:
| > if the school was was teaching the earth revolved
| around the sun
|
| Uh, the earth does revolve around the sun
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Haha, thanks. I guess my educational indoctrination won
| out even when I tried to type it wrong. too late to edit
| and fix.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I don't think the parent was arguing necessarily that its
| wrong for parents to want their children to be taught
| certain things or a certain way. I think the argument
| being put forth was that most parents don't have what it
| takes to teach their kids. Let's say you take your kid
| out of school because you don't like what he's being
| taught in history class or whatever. Okay, well do you
| have what it takes to teach your kid music, art,
| geometry, calc, English, physics, biology, chemistry,
| etc. Most people I would say don't have that kind of
| broad capacity.
|
| So what happens is parents start forming homeschool
| support groups, they pool resources, divide
| responsibilities based on expertise and knowledge, and
| eventually recreate the concept of a school from scratch.
| I guess it can then eventually undergo the same moral
| fracture and the cycle repeats.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| The homeschool support groups add a lot in this context
| and I foresee a time where every suburb and neighborhood
| will have one or more of them. That, combined with all of
| the curricula available offline and online, there isn't
| much specialized knowledge that parents need to have in
| order to get started. By the time kids hit middle school
| and high school, they are able to do quite a bit of
| learning on their own and are taught how to seek out help
| if they need it.
| phil21 wrote:
| > The homeschool support groups add a lot in this context
|
| Also was home schooled for 5 years. From watching others
| I can fairly confidently say my parents were far above
| average for the time and area in terms of being educators
| and trying to get ahead of the "socialization" curve.
| They had degrees and tried their best to teach to lesson
| plans prepared by professionals, modifying as they saw
| fit.
|
| These groups tout how well-rounded they are, but many are
| bluntly filled with extremist nutjobs. Abusively so in
| many cases. My parents were utterly blind to this, and to
| this day like to talk about how "well rounded" socially I
| was.
|
| I was not. I was exposed to the nutjobs and crackpots of
| society in a fairly intimate manner at a very young age,
| with very little supervision other than whichever adults
| were performing a given lesson at the time.
|
| Not saying this to scare anyone away from home schooling.
| If done thoughtfully, carefully, and evidence-based it
| certainly can have great outcomes. I just have my hairs
| stand on end when I hear folks talk about these groups as
| some sort of fix for the problem - when in fact they are
| the problem to begin with in my experience.
|
| Homeschool may be becoming more "mainstream" but I think
| a lot of folks just now starting out due to the pandemic
| are in for some very hard truths in the next couple
| years.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| You seem to be projecting your personal experience on to
| a large population.
| [deleted]
| ryandrake wrote:
| I don't think leaving huge holes in someone's education,
| because a parent (or one of these co-ops) can't teach it
| properly, is a good trade-off for shielding him/her from
| perceived indoctrination. Notice I specifically said
| _perceived_ because it 's mostly exaggerated or outright
| untrue. If merely teaching kids that the Civil War
| happened, and that it was actually about slavery is now
| indoctrination, then anything can be considered
| indoctrination. There are a lot of parents out there that
| oppose teaching facts they personally disagree with, and
| these people are the ones who least should be
| homeschooling.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >I don't think leaving huge holes in someone's education,
| because a parent (or one of these co-ops) can't teach it
| properly, is a good trade-off for shielding him/her from
| perceived indoctrination.
|
| I generally agree that forgoing basic education is not a
| solution. Most parents I know readily admit that they
| don't have the bandwidth for homeschooling and choose
| private schools as a solution.
|
| I'm not to interested in tilting at individual facts, so
| hopefully we can skip that part, and agree that different
| world views are instilled in children as part of their
| education (by whatever means).
|
| I often hear it parroted that certain people are
| oppressors by virtue of their birth and guilty and
| responsible for generations of injustice. I do not want
| my children to internalize this message.
|
| With that context, perhaps we can agree that _all_
| parents are opposed to teaching children ideologies they
| don 't personally agree with.
|
| I would further suggest that many parents currently
| pulling their children from schools are doing so based on
| the message above.
| notfromhere wrote:
| You can barely get kids to do the assigned reading, what
| indoctrination do you think is happening? Same goes for
| any areas of higher education where people think the
| universities are turning their kids into liberals.
|
| This has a whole satanic panic feel about it from people
| who should know better.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| I think you just made the case for more homeschooling.
| Families are allowed to educate their children with their
| own values, whether or not we all agree on the same things.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "We agree on an alternate set... of facts"
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| That's what happens when open inquiry and free speech are
| curtailed.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| The fact we call teachers "teachers" does not inherently mean
| anything valuable is being taught. Rote knowledge--easily
| accessible online--is not teaching, in my opinion. Where are the
| life skills? Where is the _wisdom_? It doesn 't exist in school.
|
| The entire model of how humans pass on knowledge and experience
| to others needs to change. To what, I'm not sure, but what I do
| know is the current system is woeful.
| [deleted]
| timbo1642 wrote:
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| It's a shame teachers are held in such low esteem in U.S.
| society. In Asia, the teaching profession is prestigious (if not
| highly paid) and the students pay teachers a lot more respect.
| When I lived in Taiwan, I witnessed it: from kindergarten through
| university, students stand and bow when the teacher enters the
| classroom, and the same when he or she leaves. Of course there
| were terrible teachers there, as well, but at least they probably
| enjoy higher job satisfaction than our teachers (both good and
| bad).
| nemo44x wrote:
| Asian countries haven't had decades of social programs
| advocated for by "activists" that have encouraged people to
| abandon the family structure and devalue personal
| responsibility. So we have a large part of society that is
| completely dysfunctional and reliant on the state to raise
| their child. Many people consider these people heroes even.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| The failure of public schooling would mean a reversal of much of
| the public safety and poverty gains we made over the past 50-70
| years. So here's hoping it turns around.
| robotburrito wrote:
| One of my best friends has been a teacher for ~20 years or so.
| They said the parents and the kids treat you insanely terribly.
| Society also barely respects what you do and treats you like
| glorified baby sitting. The only cool part is the 3 months off a
| year my friend used to use to go live in Italy or something and
| explore/learn about the world. Most jobs don't provide you with
| that time.
| Day1 wrote:
| Public school is overrated. I would choose Khan Academy, the
| South Korean model, or Charter schools over public schools any
| day of the week.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The point of elementary school is to teach kids how to
| socialize appropriately. Khan academy/MOOCs fail utterly.
| Day1 wrote:
| I agree. But go beyond elementary school and you've
| completely lost me.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| What about the charter schools that teach the Earth is 6000
| years old?
|
| https://ncse.ngo/creationism-texas-charter-schools
|
| They should accurately teach subjects such as science.
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| You're confusing the US's requirement for religious freedom
| with the education model. It's not like you're forced to pick
| a school that teaches things you don't agree with.
|
| For every one of these schools teaching kids religious
| nonsense that is clearly wrong, there is some other school
| using that freedom to try alternative ways of running
| classroom. If you don't allow this you end up with a pretty
| rigid system that basically everyone but educational board
| members hates, like the Common Core requirements that are so
| tight that teachers basically have to design their entire
| quarter around them.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Ah, I love the choose your own story model of education l.
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| If they receive public money, they may not introduce
| religious concepts into science courses. A chain of charters
| in Texas does indeed seem to be working around the ban on
| religious doctrine, a ban tested in court, by using tricky
| language e.g. "Evolution is one theory; there are competing
| theories." However sooner or later they'll probably be taken
| to court and lose. Probably nationwide, 99% of charter
| schools are secular and do indeed teach proper broadly
| accepted science and other subjects.
| ericd wrote:
| Yeah, there's a real problem with people generalizing from
| sensational news about isolated incidents. It seems to be
| creating really distorted mental world models.
| unmole wrote:
| Don't send you kids to such schools?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Except charters these don't scale down to kindergarten or lower
| elementary grades
| Day1 wrote:
| That's true. If public schools only focused on lower grade
| levels that would free up resources tremendously.
| arrakis2021 wrote:
| Privatize schools.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Being a teacher just keeps getting worse and worse as a job.
|
| It was bad enough when the worst parts of the job were
| standardized testing, and that you were paid little and had to
| spend your own money on school supplies for your classroom.
|
| Then it got worse when school shootings became so commonplace
| that bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills became a
| thing. Of course you still have to pay for your own school
| supplies, but now you also have to pay for body armor, ammo for
| target practice, and therapy.
|
| Now there's covid, and it's more of a shitshow than it's ever
| been. Inability to find substitutes. Bus driver shortages. Staff
| shortages. Faculty shortages. Even though there's a vaccine,
| there's no mandates for vaccination. Here's a running tally of
| educators and staff in Georgia who have died since July [1]. The
| average age of 42 teachers on this list who have died is 46 years
| old. FORTY SIX! The youngest was in their 20s!
|
| And then on top of it all, if you think that maybe your workplace
| is dangerous for you as your colleagues drop dead around you, and
| you'd prefer to teach from home or at least offer some
| protections at work, then you are called lazy and unamerican by
| parents in your district. If you hold the opinion that there
| should be a vaccine mandate at your workplace you are called a
| Nazi. Meanwhile, legislators are working to pass laws empowering
| students to sue you personally (for an amount which is maybe
| 25-30% of your annual salary) if they feel what you're teaching
| goes against their religious beliefs [2]. You have a moral panic
| over Critical Race Theory which has metastasized into rumblings
| about book burnings [3], and moral busybodies combing their way
| through your library...
|
| Yeah, it's no wonder teachers are leaving and it's hard to find
| replacements.
|
| [1] https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/60-georgia-
| teachers...
|
| [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
| politic...
|
| [3] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/book-burnings-1933-2022/
| olliej wrote:
| Who wouldn't want a job that pays a pittance while also being so
| underfunded that some of that tiny salary has to be used to buy
| resources needed for the job? While also being continuously
| attacked for everything and being threatened with fines for doing
| your job properly
| mythrwy wrote:
| 50-60K a year with summers off and a generous pension is an
| acceptable salary in many areas of the country.
|
| Many people who teach would have trouble at other jobs from
| what I've observed.
|
| I don't think it's about the money.
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| wildrhythms wrote:
| I implore you to look up starting teacher salaries in your
| area. Where I live, a single family homes average $550k, and
| teachers start at $35,200. For a career that requires a
| degree that is horrific, and far from 'generous'.
| mythrwy wrote:
| Ok, I did. They are in the process of raising salaries
| (most teachers make in the range I was talking about anyway
| now). Now they will be starting at 50K with many making
| 70K.
|
| https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2021/12/01/governor-
| plans-t...
|
| Oh, and we are ranked 50'th in the nation in education.
| Down again, I think we managed to bump up to 49'th place
| last year.
|
| This is more then a fair salary for the area, with the
| pension, and time off, and the (nearly complete lack of)
| results being obtained.
| nemo44x wrote:
| They should take it up with their unions. We could probably
| pay good teachers what they are worth if we had a market
| for them. But we don't. Unions negotiate their pay and
| unions exist to protect the group, not individuals.
|
| So, good teachers who want to be rewarded on merit should
| seek to abolish their unions and abolish public schools
| generally speaking. Let parents compete for the best
| teachers in part by using taxes to fund children and not
| administrations and unions.
| [deleted]
| timbo1642 wrote:
| 01100011 wrote:
| If my wife's experience in healthcare is representative of a
| larger phenomenon, then expect a massive shortage of health care
| workers just as boomers need them most.
|
| People are getting sick of shitty jobs, regardless of pay, and I
| think it's going to force us to redefine some roles. Unless the
| economy absolutely crashes and makes people desperate enough to
| take these jobs, I think the trajectory is clear.
|
| We might be able to import enough workers to fill the gap, but
| with the attitudes towards immigrants changing in the US, I'm not
| so sure.
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| i left teaching in 2 years, and I wanted to leave it pretty much
| as soon as i started...took me 2 years to get out...what a
| mess... my day was full of personal conflict...not something I
| ever enjoyed...but I did grow as a person, but it was certainly
| not a pleasant process... the main problems? Inability to punish
| students, lack of respect...back in my day, if we disrespected
| the teacher, we got licks in front of the classroom... also, kids
| don't read that much anymore, making it hard to teach them
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| one other problem is that the classes are not separated as to
| ability anymore...now in each classroom you are going to have
| one or more kids who have mental issues and who will wind up in
| prison, maybe for most of their adult lives...think about that
| --you have to ride herd on kids who are future lifer
| convicts...you can tell that these people will be in prison
| from an early age...they are really messed up...from birth,
| most likely...these kids are angry at the world because they do
| not fit in...and they take it out on the teacher...a lovely
| situation...the teachers warn each other about these kids...you
| can spot them fairly easily...naively, society believes you can
| get them on your side...you think we don't try? It does not
| work, long term...these kids fail at everything and cannot
| succeed at anything...
| vgeek wrote:
| Going to public schools in KY, I look back at how we were
| grouped by horse families (e.g. thoroughbreds were gifted,
| clydesdales the laborers) based on academic achievement.
| Teachers could easily and openly identify which type of
| student by asking which family they belonged to, and students
| being entirely unaware of the joke unless they were aware of
| different types of horses and their applications.
| Meritiooo wrote:
| That's very disappointing to read.
|
| Imagine you are the kid which will end in prison. Wouldn't
| you feel betrayed from society if society can already see
| that you will end in prison and is doing nothing against it?
|
| You can we haven't accepted the right answer though: more
| money for education.
|
| Smaller classes, more support, proper trained psychologist
| 01100011 wrote:
| I was a bad kid growing up. I ended up at a pilot program
| consisting of about 14 kids, mostly more screwed up than
| me, and about 3 psychiatrists and 5 support counselors. It
| did basically nothing for the kids. The thing that helped
| me the most was my parents moving away and putting me in
| normal school in a different state and peer pressure
| helping me be normal.
| ipnon wrote:
| The United States already has below average class sizes,
| and spends 37% more per student than the average.
|
| There is some evidence that _large_ class sizes produce
| better results, and it would seem that whatever the US
| spends its education money on isn 't working, because our
| students test much lower than our investment would predict.
|
| [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| most teachers will tell you the truth--it's there from
| birth, and basically incurable
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| yeah, I understand your meaning, but you fail to
| understand the situation...did you read the article? NO
| ONE can do the job...
| defterGoose wrote:
| I mean...I'm kinda glad you got out of the profession...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I think it's become tragically obvious that a whole lot
| of children are born to parents who should've never had
| children and have no business being parents. These
| children end up dumped on educators with zero support at
| home, and so little social system support we could also
| say it's zero.
|
| This isn't nature versus nurture per se (although I
| believe the data does show some ability and intelligence
| is genetic/inherent), but that it takes a lot for a human
| child to succeed unless they're at the higher end of the
| bell curve (and even then it's no guarantee).
| ryan93 wrote:
| The schools with the most future prisoners are already
| highly funded. Psychologists cant do anything for people
| stupid enough to end up in prison.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > more support
|
| Mostly outside of education. The US spends a lot on
| education and gets poor results for the investment because
| it also spends on lot on institutionalizing racism and
| reinforcing socioeconomic insecurity in the working class,
| which creates a lot for the education system to work
| against.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Sounds like the system dodged a bullet, but would be improved
| if it could have ejected you in less than 2 years. Bemoaning
| the lack of beatings and then making an analogy between your
| pupils and livestock? Nice.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I didn't think they were bemoaning a lack of beatings. It
| sounded like they were talking about how they don't have
| tools to discipline students. Stuff like some schools doing
| away with detention, etc. Then they put in their experience
| of corporal punishment growing up.
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| lol...did you read the article? It's the same all over...i
| was the rule, not the exception
| watwut wrote:
| Not being able to beat kids is not something new. It is
| something that existed for decades and over a generation.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Spanking is not the same as beating. Words matter.
| watwut wrote:
| Spanking is when hit them repeatedly. Beating is when you
| hit people repeatedly.
|
| The only difference is ritual around it.
| kylebyproxy wrote:
| Spanking specifically means open-palm slaps on the ass,
| though. It's done in such a way as to inflict pain
| without injury (as opposed to beating).
| watwut wrote:
| Belt spanking is spanking. Paddle spanking is spanking.
|
| It was literally never true that the word would refer to
| beating a kid by open hand only. The books that teach
| parents to spank also give advice to use instruments and
| call it spanking.
|
| Old books that contain spanking use the word beating as
| synonyms. It started to be used as different word when
| people started to take issue with it more often.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| It's a little absurd that this needs to be explained to
| adults.
| [deleted]
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Spankings are beatings
| Clubber wrote:
| Sure, would you rather get a spanking from your mother,
| or a beating from a drug lord or a CIA interrogator at a
| black site? It's not the same.
| jahewson wrote:
| This might be the all-time worse comment I've seen on HN.
| Clubber wrote:
| That's very dramatic. Maybe if people would stop being so
| comfortable with meaningless hyperbole such as yours,
| we'd re-learn how to communicate better.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| This is beyond bad faith. Would you rather get a beating
| from your mother or a spanking from a drug lord?
| Clubber wrote:
| >This is beyond bad faith. Would you rather get a beating
| from your mother or a spanking from a drug lord?
|
| This is in bad faith, a drug lord won't give you a
| spanking unless it's sexual in nature. I assume you know
| the difference between a sexual spanking and a beating in
| the street. Perhaps not. A parent can give a beating, but
| that is different from a spanking.
|
| I think trying to equivocate a spanking with a beating is
| intellectually dishonest. If you can't tell the
| difference in both intent and intensity, I have no idea
| where you are coming from. You might be against spankings
| but to argue the words spanking and beating are synonyms
| is simply wrong, and quite honestly, juvenile in the
| level of reasoning. As the OP said, words matter.
| phil21 wrote:
| Zero punishment is quite new. We are seeing the results of
| the first generation raised in such an environment.
|
| We were well down this path when I graduated in '99, and went
| full steam ahead during my kid's primary school career. You
| either escaped to a (private or suburban) school not full of
| juvenile delinquents who had parents that still cared, or you
| simply gave up on having your child have an actual education.
|
| The inner city school I had to attend in 1998 was more or
| less a daycare even back then, and the anecdotes I hear today
| have only gone further in that direction.
| watwut wrote:
| Young people are better behaved now then at periods you
| talk about. Drugs abuse goes down. Young people commit less
| violent crime. They drink less alcohol. They even get
| pregnant less often.
|
| Young people now literally behave better wherever you look.
| The generation that grew in 90ties just was not better
| behaved.
| phil21 wrote:
| > The generation that grew in 90ties just was not better
| behaved.
|
| I'm not talking about better behaved. I'm talking about
| better behaved in school, or you got expelled very
| quickly. That left others who were there to learn (or at
| least not to be disruptive) move forward in peace. I have
| no opinion on if kids were better behaved outside the
| classroom - likely not, having grown up during that time.
|
| A single kid can ruin an entire semester for 40 kids in
| the classroom. I've personally watched it happen, and
| there was nothing the teacher could do. Averages don't
| matter in this situation - only outliers do.
|
| I'd go back to a "rougher" generation that learns to
| behave when appropriate (and those that don't learn, get
| removed) any day of the week over what we currently have
| in the average urban public school system.
|
| Edit: Heck, I got suspended from a couple classes in high
| school due to attendance issues. Rightfully so since I
| was holding back other students on group projects and the
| like. Today that would be utterly unheard of in that same
| school system.
| watwut wrote:
| Except that, it does not seem to be the case. There is
| absolutely nothing to suggest kids were better behaved in
| schools. The rougher generation did not behaved better
| where appropriate. Even issues I mentioned were about
| them misbehaving when not appropriate.
|
| You just idealize own generation, that is all. Which is
| odd, because at the time superpredators panic was going
| on and people fretted.
| phil21 wrote:
| > You just idealize own generation, that is all. Which is
| odd, because at the time superpredators panic was going
| on and people fretted.
|
| I still believe we're talking about entirely different
| things. One of my schools was incredibly rough. If you
| talked back to a teacher you'd get instantly suspended,
| and on the third one bounced to alternative schooling. I
| was one of those kids.
|
| That no longer happens, and was starting to slip when I
| was due to graduate. These days I've witnessed students
| literally hurling desks at teachers and smashing windows
| only to be back in the classroom on Monday.
|
| Yes, I totally agree violence was more in your face in
| the 90s. The utter disrespect towards teachers and those
| trying to learn with zero consequences for your actions
| was simply not there yet, at least in my small section of
| the world. Perhaps on the coasts and other major cities
| this was already the norm.
|
| There simply is no mechanism to separate the small
| percentage of troublemakers from the general student
| population any longer, much less providing challenges for
| the high achievers. This drags down standards and morale
| on a massive fashion, and the results simply speak for
| themselves.
|
| The "best" school I went to during my illustrious
| schooling career was an inner city private school where
| almost all the kids were on 90%+ needs-based
| scholarships. Selection bias where only the parents who
| cared enough to jump through the loopholes made that
| place bearable - so teachers that actually taught stuck
| around. The difference in attitudes and hope was utterly
| night and day. Almost entirely because the bottom 10% or
| so wasn't dragging everyone else down to their
| behavioural level.
| onphonenow wrote:
| In many districts you can't fail a student (banned), you
| can't hold them back and you can't discipline.
|
| This does make things harder and disrupts learning for
| others.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Reminds me of this story[1] of Baltimore students
| repeatedly advanced despite passing essentially no classes.
|
| >According to transcripts, France's son passed only three
| classes in his four years of high school, earning a 0.13
| grade point average. What's worse is that her son's GPA
| puts him near the top half of this class. He was also late
| or absent to school 359 days.
|
| https://www.willitsnews.com/2013/01/26/firing-a-tenured-
| teac...
| pupppet wrote:
| This is the real issue. Zero repercussions. It also affects
| the quality of teachers. What stops some teachers from
| sleepwalking their way through the year if they know their
| students will move forward regardless of how poorly they've
| been taught.
| Ekaros wrote:
| If students can't be held back why do we even test them?
| Ofc, it is helpful to show them their knowledge, but I
| think that is quite early... Or to discover where to try to
| improve process, but I think fear of being held back and
| losing the group could be reasonable tool to get at least
| part of the students to learn.
| watwut wrote:
| Afaik, it did not worked like that. Repeating grades did
| not lead to better success, which was one reason for
| ending it. The age difference between failed kid and
| younger kids in next class did not made anything easier
| either.
|
| And kids at the very bottom have better and more support
| available now. It is not perfect, it often sux and is not
| available to everybody. I definitely don't mean to say it
| is somehow super great. But the kids at the bottom with
| cognitively issues or impulsive control issues have
| better chance to learn more then used to be normal.
| otikik wrote:
| > the main problems? Inability to punish students,
|
| Is this some kind of joke? If you want to lead with _that_, I
| hope you never are put in a position of power over any kid ever
| again.
| giantg2 wrote:
| What do you see as the alternative to punishment when trying
| to maintain an environment that students can learn in?
|
| I was generally a good and respectful student, and I was
| punished on the occasions I misbehaved or was disruptive. I
| think that punishment was necessary and helpful.
| drsnow wrote:
| Punishment is not per se problematic, beating as punishment
| definitely is. Physical violence is too far. Send them to
| detention or wherever.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I thought they were talking about in general and threw in
| a personal experience of themselves having corporal
| punishment. Some schools have done away with detention.
| cgriswald wrote:
| As a child I was punished three times without cause,
| including once when I was a straightforward victim and had
| several witnesses; and twice by a teacher who disliked me
| only because a troublesome family member had been her
| former student. One of those times I was "convicted" on the
| word of my bully for something I had not done and my bully
| regularly did. They tried to get me to admit to things in
| each case, but even though I denied it throughout, I was
| still punished.
|
| As a father, I remember the only time my kid got in trouble
| at school. I received a strongly worded letter from my
| child's school that my child had been disrespectful to a
| teacher and that he was going to receive detention. It was
| like pulling teeth to get them to tell me what my child had
| actually done that was disrespectful. When asked (in email)
| they just kept repeating that he was disrespectful and they
| talked a lot about the teacher's feelings but never told me
| what my specifically kid had done or said. I wrote them
| back a last time suggesting I meet with the principal and
| the teacher in person to discuss the issue. They never
| replied to me, but I found out _through my kid_ that they
| dropped the detention. I 'd have pressed further, but we
| were already moving our kid to another school because of
| other shenanigans and overall low education quality.
|
| I asked my kid for his version of events. He said that he
| took a test about the field trip they had been on, and he
| had left the last question "What did you learn?" blank. The
| teacher suggested he answer the question. My kid said
| leaving it blank was his answer and the teacher left to
| check on the other kids. If this bothered the teacher, it
| wasn't even addressed at the time.
|
| Now, I had a good talk with my kid about the situation and
| I agree that he shouldn't have left that question blank. (I
| also sympathized with him because the field trip was the
| same each year and not exactly information rich. It was
| overall I think a good learning moment for him.) But _this_
| was what hurt the teacher 's feelings and she found
| disrespectful? If the kid refuses to answer the question
| let his score reflect it. If you're not okay with blank
| questions, make _that_ a detention-worthy offense. But to
| bring me your hurt feelings and how my kid was
| disrespectful... and then to not even be willing to tell me
| about it? I thought maybe my kid had a tone or was
| otherwise rude in his delivery of his decision; but if so,
| they wouldn 't tell me about it. And I've talked to my kid
| about this incident since, and even _as an adult_ he has no
| idea why the teacher had the reaction she seemed to have
| had.
|
| Anyway, the point of this is that discipline in schools is
| mostly unfair, arbitrary, and not clearly effective. In the
| general case there are no trials, no weighing of the
| evidence, or anything to protect the student from unfair
| treatment or abuse.
|
| I don't know what the solution is; parents suck and let
| their kids get away with murder. But many current parents
| also experienced such 'guidance' and have no desire to see
| their kids experience it as well.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "One of those times I was "convicted" on the word of my
| bully for something I had not done and my bully regularly
| did. They tried to get me to admit to things in each
| case, but even though I denied it throughout, I was still
| punished."
|
| "Anyway, the point of this is that discipline in schools
| is mostly unfair, arbitrary, and not clearly effective.
| In the general case there are no trials, no weighing of
| the evidence, or anything to protect the student from
| unfair treatment or abuse."
|
| To be fair, the criminal "justice" system works the same
| way - abuses of power, arbitrary punishments, recidivism,
| etc. And, you can have a trial if you feel like starting
| a law suit, but I don't know how much justice one finds
| there either. Up to 10% of the incarcerated are
| wrongfully convicted. I think we should be working to fix
| both systems, but given this it's perhaps better to learn
| that this is how the system works when the stakes are
| detention vs prison.
| dqpb wrote:
| > Inability to punish students, lack of respect
|
| It sounds like you leaving the profession was best for everyone
| involved.
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| did you read and understand the article?...i got out because
| I COULD get out...lots of teachers cannot get out or are
| pushed out before they can find an exit option. You think you
| understand, but you do not...
| dqpb wrote:
| I did read the article. It didn't say anything about
| teachers inability to punish disrespectful students.
|
| Rather, it said things like this:
|
| > One of the things that students benefit from (diverse
| educators) is this idea of seeing themselves not only
| leading classrooms, but also in the curriculum
|
| Do you see the difference? They want to engage students by
| empowering them. In contrast, you wanted to demand respect
| through fear of punishment. It's not hard to imagine why
| your days were plagued with interpersonal conflict.
| [deleted]
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| "Inability to punish students, lack of respect"
|
| When I was growing up in Texas, most teachers had a wooden
| paddle, often prominently displayed. To be spanked by a paddle
| was called "getting licks". Female teachers would sometimes
| delegate the paddling to a coach or other male teacher. Most
| all this that I recall occurred in Junior High (what they now
| call middle school. Grades 7-9). By high school, "licks" were
| quite rare, as most students had learned how to behave better
| by then.
|
| To people today this all sounds barbaric. However, there were
| far fewer "broken people" coming out of that system than is
| produced today. That generation was not filled with sociopaths
| and 'challenged" people -- quite the opposite. It's the system
| today that produces those. Lack of ability to administer
| punishment is part of why teachers get so little respect.
|
| The past 2 years was very revealing as to how our modern public
| schools are failing today. It's embarrassing, and I understand
| and support the moves many parents are making to private or
| home schooling.
| DenisM wrote:
| But the teacher-student violence only normalizes violence in
| the minds of the victims. Consider that as the practice
| receded in the US so did the violent crime. I claim it's no
| coincidence. Yeah, I know, leaded gasoline etc. Whatever.
| That's my story and I'm sticking to it - violence begets
| violence.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| +1, it's why the "good guys with guns" stuff doesn't work;
| more guns = more shootings, e.g.
| https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-research-
| conceal...
|
| People will argue this until they're blue in the face, but
| pulling a deadly weapon out escalates the situation, when
| de-escalation would likely lead to a less physically
| harmful outcome.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > back in my day, if we disrespected the teacher, we got licks
| in front of the classroom
|
| The evidence that physical violence as punishment against
| children is counterproductive and harmful to their development
| is pretty overwhelming (and the evidence that it is harmful for
| those who merely witness and are under pervasive threat of it
| rather than actually punished with it is also strong.)
|
| Promoting abuse of children just because you were raised in an
| environment where abuse was normalized (and one where that
| might have been excusable as nonculpable ignorance because the
| evidence of harm was not as compelling as it has since become)
| does little but demonstrate what the phrase "cycle of abuse"
| means.
| busyant wrote:
| Not sure why I'm sharing these stories, but...they are amusing.
|
| My father, 84 years old, remembers his elementary school
| teacher kicking him _full-force_ on his flank (for fooling
| around with his buddies). Probably not the best approach, but
| he remembers it to this day.
|
| He also remembers students being forced to kneel on hardened
| kernels of corn as punishment.
|
| And I was repeatedly told when I was in elementary school, _"
| If you were stupid enough to go home and complain to your
| parents that your teacher beat you, you just got beaten twice
| as hard."_
|
| kids these days...
| jahewson wrote:
| They're not amusing, they're horrible. The fact that these
| stories are re-told just goes to show how traumatising they
| were as experiences for those involved.
| [deleted]
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