Everybody needs to read this commentary....Nobody Wants to Teach

[OrlandoDem2]

It’s getting pretty bad.

Schools are resorting to all kinds of last ditch measures. They’re planning to hold classes three or four days a week. They’re hiring teachers from outside the country. They’re recruiting military vets. They’re letting college students with no training into the classroom. They’re not going to be interns. They’re going to be in charge of everyone’s kids.

We’re not just talking about K-12 schools, either. The shortages have started hitting colleges so hard that, once again, they’re talking about increasing class sizes and upping our loads.

Nobody wants to teach. Not anymore.

Almost nobody respects teachers.

Teacher shortages have been a long time coming. They’ve been losing us for a solid ten years now, maybe longer. The solutions to every year’s teacher shortage makes the problem even worse. The teachers who stay wind up doing more work for less pay. We grind up our souls, and we’re rewarded with post-it notes and chocolate bars.

More teachers get fed up.

They quit.

Everyone secretly thinks they can teach because they watched Mr. Holland’s Opus. They don’t know the first thing about teaching.

They wouldn’t last a week.

There’s a long, long history of Americans undervaluing teachers. They’ve never paid us a living wage. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, it was seen as women’s work, and therefore constantly trivialized. Nobody even understands what teachers do. There’s times when politicians and administrators even promote the notion that teachers should work for free, because it’s “not about the money.”

When I tell someone I’m a teacher, they don’t say anything along the lines of “thank you for your service.” No, they usually talk about how much they hated school. They complain about your summers off.

More at the link…

https://jessicalexicus.medium.com/nobody-wants-to-teach-anymore-66f09b877b11

This pretty much sums it up!

[flying_wahini]

1. Kind of like nurses, too.

Nobody cares until you can’t find one.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. Hey, that one step toward a return to a peasantry, illiterate and only taught the Bible

via sermon. Can't have people thinking for themselves.

The christofascist agenda to kill the Enlightenment.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. It is a shame, after all, an educated society gets so much more done, and businesses don't have

to foot the bill to try and get somewhat educated people hired on (when they can find them).

We, at our company still ended up sending new hires to an extensive 18-week training program (IT-related). One of the pet peeves I had was trying to explain to students that they had to better their writing skills, after all, even thought they were in IT and such, they still had to communicate intelligently w/ the outside client world who didn't know IT (not all of them, some were IT-literate).

[kimbutgar]

4. School hasn't started yet and I already have two substitute teaching jobs

Usually don’t get job offers until mid September!

[bucolic_frolic]

5. The kids know before us adults do

There's only Google, Amazon, Facebook, and money. Nothing else matters.

[TrogL]

6. I taught middle school for three years - then had my nervous breakdown

I woukd never go back.

[Raastan]

7. K & R

As a 20year teaching vet, this is spot on.

[3Hotdogs]

8. Then there's the paper work -- record keeping. Reports to fill out, letters to send home because

Junior missed 14, then 16, then 17 classes and if he misses 18, he loses credit for the course. And these form letters to the house get filled out on pressure sensitive paper so parent gets the top copy. Second copy goes in kid's folder in guidance so that there is a "Due process" record. Teacher keeps the third copy.

On the 18th absence, teacher has to sit through the appeal after which credit is restored if the parents have political pull.

By May of the school year, teacher is spending at least an hour per day on this bullshit.


Then there are the meetings, for the sake of meetings. You've already spent 7 hours trying to keep your head straight. Then comes an hour or two more of listening to instructions that could have been handled by memos to staff.

But don't worry. If you hang in there for 25 years or more, there is a pension that'll at least keep you in rice and beans from month to month --- such pension is good unless you are in N.J. and Chris Christie puts an end to cost of living raises. N.J teacher retirees haven't had a C.O.L.A raise since 2008. Will other states follow?

And the bullshit goes on and on. My s-i-l retires in four years. Every September starts out the same at teacher set-up and "inspiration."

Some asshole stands in front of the room and says, "I know you have lots of paper work to fill out every day. We appreciated your effort. Now, here's some more stuff for you to fill out."

[slightlv]

9. I feel for my sister, who is 7 years from retirement.

She's just keeping track of the days until retirement. She teaches at a catholic school. With all the monies from the prosecutions, etc., they've taken away from the schools. This year, she didn't even get the usual small (too small!) stipend to buy school supplies. We helped her via Facebook/Amazon to get her classroom ready. She's taught at this school since she graduated college. You think there'd be a little merit and respect. But all she gets is more responsibility without any corresponding remuneration of any type at all. At my worst in contracting, I made more than she did. It's just not fair, she worked all the time -- at school, in nearly all her "free" time hours. She was lucky if she managed to get 6-8 hours of sleep, get up, commute an hour to school, and do it all over again. And of course, for her, there were all the added responsibilities of teaching religion classes, the masses, getting ready for first communions, etc. And, as the one with most seniority, it all fell on her.

The worst, IMO, tho, is that as the society has coarsened, a lot of the kids that have been kicked out of public schools for behavior problems, have found their way into her school system... and into her classes, in particular. This year she had 7. All 7 had records for behavior issues that went beyond fighting. A few were school arson issues. All of them had records for burglary. 2 were charged in off campus killings of some kind. She's suppose to teach 6th and 7th graders with these disrupters in the classroom. Meanwhile, I worry for *her* safety.

I'll be so relieved when she's done, I'm going to give a party for her retirement!