Teachers
Teachers get paid in foodstamps and moonlight as bartenders to afford a studio walkup on the 30th floor. Why anyone chooses this profession willingly is a mystery.
A Brief History of Teaching
1700's: teachers are young guys who don't feel like getting a real job, so they just hang around some kids all day, shooting the shit. No one paid them, so all they could hope for was to sponge free ale and meals from their students' parents. When harvest season came, they ditched teaching for the more lucrative and high-status positions like potato picker, and cowshit spreader.
Featured: Typical American teacher, circa 1720.
1800's: Sick of seeing their male counterparts get all the glory and hot snatch teaching brings, women begin to enter the teaching profession in droves. They still don't get paid, but that's okay, because their husbands took care of the little women anyway. It was sooooooooo cute to see their ladies, trying to do a job no one wanted anyway! Awwwwww!
The only downside to women experiencing the newfound joy of having a career of their own was the shame of having to resign if they found themselves "in the family way". No one wanted a married woman showing her new shape to impressionable children. Whore.
"Teach me to be a whore like you, Mrs. Henderson!"
Early 1900's: Teaching is now seen as a natural extension of child-rearing. Women are still able to teach little kiddies their letters and numbers, and hand off the job to the next slut-in waiting when they got knocked up. However, no one takes this 'educational system' seriously, until the phenomenon of high school gets introduced. Of course, to handle the important subjects, male teachers are brought in. Sluts and sluts-in-waiting were not allowed.
Featured: a common early 20th century street sign for the elementary school district area.
Late 1900's: women are eventually allowed to teach high school because some guy (probably while drunk) gave women the right to vote and be considered as "people". Given that, the first thing women did was bust out of their homes in droves to get teaching jobs, leaving countless husbands hungry and their clothes dirty. But, just to make sure the little ladies didn't fuck up the seriousness of high school education, the government decided to save the dumb women from themselves by creating teacherproof curriculum. So, all the pretty ladies had to do was show up, open a book, read from it for an hour, and repeat as necessary for the rest of the day's classes.
That's what the government thought of teachers: automatons who regurgitate some higher being's knowledge from a script to make sure they don't fuck it up by thinking or speaking independently.
Featured: teacher and government.
Teachers: A Modern Perspective
Teachers today are a diverse group of people from both sexes and all races and creeds. However, they all share the same challenges: they are at the mercy of the little shits they teach; the actual work day is close to 12 hours long, and the threat of violence against teachers just for doing their damn job is always present.
But hey, if you can just reach reach one child... how does the rest of that saying go?
Oh, yeah:
If you can reach just one child, back away! Don't get within grabbing reach of any of those little fuckers. They'll tear your eyes out just to film it on their phone and post it to Youtube.
Teachers are so misunderstood. I'd just like to point some things out:
Reply1. Teachers are paid according to how any years they have been teaching as well as what degree(s) they have; it isn't linked to performance. That means many great teachers are underpaid and many sub-par teachers are over pad.
2. Teachers never get a break; they spend hours grading at home, even on the weekends, and especially over semester breaks (grading tests). And many, if not most, teachers tutor or work odd jobs over the summer.
3. They have no idea what their impact is half the time
I once had a band teacher who taught all day, and directed the jazz bands before and after school as well as starting and directing jazz combos for the more driven students, helped run the marching band and drumlines (which included long hours in the summer), started a guitar class, directed the show choir combos, directed the pep bands, helped oversee auditions for the music educators association, organized invitationals and other events, etc. Honestly, I cant remember everything he did for my school's fine arts department when I was there, but he only taught half as many classes during the regular school day as most teachers (he taught 2 during regular hours; there were 4 class periods during the regular school day. It was block; classes changed halfway through the year).
My point is that someone might have thought he wasn't working very much because he only taught 4-6 hours during the school day. But most of his work was outside of the actual school day. You only see the tip of the iceberg with teachers.
Research women's history before writing another article.
ReplyIn fact, research history in general. Or did you never pay attention in class?
I paid attention; didn't Catherine Beecher Stowe outline and propose the notion of women being perfect for teaching in her Doctrine of Separate Spheres?
With hindsight, that first graph with the "precocious 15 year old" flirting with teacher applies to almost every class I've ever been in. I guess I always underestimated teachers' sex appeal
ReplyAs far as "PAY" goes... the teacher's unions are under attack because as the economy went sour, people starting realizing that teachers get paid ALOT compared to the national average and the unions provide healthcare with no hassle.
Reply#1 Teachers in NYC start at $46,000. If you start with a MAster degree (or obtain one within 3 years), your pay goes up to $55,000.
#2 Teachers automatically get healthcare. By itself, healthcare is worth a good $50,000 (or more if something's wrong with you.
#3 If you are fortunate enough to teach in a rich school district you never have to worry about overly bad kids...just snot nosed, tenacious spoiled brats. The most you have to worry about is a kid getting dumped and coming back to the school armed to the teeth to kill everyone in the lunchroom.
The inner city (poor district) schools are nothing more than organized, government subsidized daycare centers. PERIOD.
1. are we talking about high school teachers? Middle School teachers? High School teachers? Regardless, that seems very high compared to the rest of the US.
2. Or less, I believe, if you get the minimum. Also, that isn't the same as earning $50,000 + salary. It may seem like it, but that is healthcare, not money. That money has already been spent. It is a pretty generous perk, but it isn't the same as getting $50,000.
3. I'm not to disagree too much here, but you seem to neglect everyone in between. Teaching has great job security; that's why people are scapegoating teachers in this economy.
Let preface what I'm about to say with this: I've worked in Education for many years in a number of capacities and I come from a family of teachers. Therefore I am the final word on this subject and my opinion should be taken as objective reality.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThat being said, Teaching is a strange profession in that the quality of the profession depends a lot on where and for whom you teach. The bulk of my experiences and the experiences of people I know are in the NYC Department of Education, the country's largest public school system. I also know many folks who work in NJ.
Working for the DoE is sweet if you start at 45K, and while that's not enough money to supply Hipsters with the emulsion of PBR, Cocaine, Vintage-T's, needed to fashionably survive in Brooklyn, the benefits kick in right away. After three years most teachers who haven't molested and/or strangled more than 5 kids usually get TENURE. When you get your masters you get bumped automatically to the 55K neighborhood, 30 more bs credits and you get a 5K raise for showing up to work. Pension=Half of your salary in your last two years of work. So if you earned 110K in your last two years, and many teachers earn more than that because the load up on OT (which is automatically $45 per hour) in their last two years, you're looking at a pension o about 55K after retirement. Not to mention an Anuity, you and your family keep their benefits, Banks LOVE loaning money to teachers for houses and cars and what have you. You can add your domestic partner to you benefits like nothing. And when you retire you can WORK another job and keep your pension flowing, as long as its not in the DoE. Meaning you can go teach at a college. Oh did I forget to mention that second master's degree puts you in the 67K neighborhood?
I know a Guidance Counselor who happens to have a master's in English she started out making about 70K, she works 8 1/2 months out of the year like all teachers and regularly comes into school at 10am and leaves by 3:30 pm. Sure there are some rough weeks through out the year, but for 70K in a Union that pretty much tells the Mayor what to think, its not harsh at all.
TEACHERS HAVE IT EASY in nyc at least. So do School Administrators. School staff on the other are screwed royally. they see almost none of these benefits.
TEACHERS are usually regarded as the Whiny Cry Babies of the industry.
And if you happen to molest a kid or rough one up or do something incredibly unprofessional like disclose the sordid details of your sex life they dont fire you...you get to go to the RUBBER ROOM! A place not unlike the Catholic Church's LIMBO, where you await a fair hearing for up to 20 years while you get paid and enjoy your benefits for reading books to yourself, maybe playing ping pong or writing that novel you always wanted to write...
1)"Why do I have to work after 3pm?"
2)"God grading 30 one page hand written essays is sucking the life blood out of me! How can anyone be expected to work under these terrible conditions."
3) "The kids in my class are behaving disorderly (i.e. like freaking kids) it's so damned stressful, wahhh!"
4) "So I told the kid his girlfriend is fat and he could stand to loose some weight also...what? It's true, they're gonna be a hell of lot meaner to those two in the 4th grade next year"
the list of complaints heard by teachers is endless. Yet I know a ton of teachers who regularly say things like this:
"This is a racket man!"
"I spend all day with people who are stupider than me and get paid"
"I just finished paying of my house and I still have 8 years to go before I retire at 45 and live in Itally."
"I'm going to spend this summer in Paris learning French and eating cheeze, what are you doing?"
As for NJ it really depends on WHERE you're Teaching. Jersey deprives its cities of any adequate funding so teachers get screwed there...but in the Suburbs The usually have it WAY better than DoE teachers...I'm talking about money. Jersey is rediculous...just an example of how public employees are paid in Jersey Lambertville cops are paid a starting salary of about 75K while Newark police officers get about 39K.
The only good schools are in the "rich" suburban neighborhoods. There are a few inner city schools that are pretty good, but, THEY ARE IN THE RICH URBAN neighborhoods (i.e. PARK SLOP BROOKLYN, Midtown, dowtown Manhattan, etc)
I am a Science teacher working towards a PhD so I can escape to College Professor.
That must be unique to New York teachers. I live near Chicago and many members of my family are educators. I'm also fairly sure that the high school I graduated from didn't have policies like NYC. The district definitely skimped on overtime, too. One of my band directors ran a lot of after-hours and early bird curricular ensembles, and he eventually stopped quite a few of those programs because he was never paid for them (he was already working a lot of hours outside of the school day). You definitely have it better for teachers in New York.
As a future NYC teacher, I somewhat agree with the "teachers have it easy comment" in comparison to the rest of the work force. Where I heavily disagree and which you of all people should know, an "easy" life teaching in NYC is the reward to the struggles of college life.
I eat pasta 6 nights a week because it costs me $3 to eat. I often get little sleep over stress of paying my rent and making sure all my homework is done. Not many businesses are willing to hire me because of my lack of availability due to being in school all day. Let us not forget how much future teachers are going to have unbelievable amounts of debt because the CUNY schools continue to raise tuition every year.
55k a year, with benefits, and raises every year with the bonus of having a job that may make a difference in this world? Yea, I think it is well deserved.
P.S. My father is a Physics teacher Upstate and head of the science depart in a high school. He has been teaching for twenty years with 3 masters degrees(Physics, Chemistry, and Math) and makes about 70k a year. How is that justice?
Wow o.O Teaching is a really well paid job where I live (you can make mountains of cash :O) I'm on my way to become one! Hurray for spending my day on cracked and shouting at teens!
Replyyou know, i was about to shout at you about well-paid teachers, but i checked you are from switzerland, and i just remembered that just because my country sucks ass at education policies, doesnt mean everyone else sucks. good luck on your teaching
Boo friggin' hoo. You forgot the part about 1. Being part of a union that rivals the Mafia for corruption and government influence. 2. Starting salary between $45-50k. 3. Terminal salary closer to $115k or so. Bullshit to anyone who says they're underpaid.
Reply Hide All See All 8 RepliesUm, what planet are you living on? Cuz it's not this one. My mother is a teacher, and she lives and works in new jersey which has one of the most so called "mafia-esque" unions in the country. And yet she makes barely $45-50K with three decades of teaching experience in two different countries and a freaking masters degree. Not to mention the fact that if a student assaults her she can't so much as pinch him back without risking losing her job, which is especially idiotic since she's received death threats from students which resulted in absolutely no response from the school administration which however saw fit to call the cops on another student for writing on a desk. Also there might be a total of five teachers in all of the US or maybe even the world who make the $115k figure you cited, if any make that much at all. Not to mention that many teachers have to get s****y jobs during the summer to suppliment their income like the guy who I worked construction with when I was in college. Not to mention the fact that teachers have to deal with jerkass parents who make the same assumption you just did and act like assholes to them during parent teacher conference day.
You obviously know nothing about the teaching profession. Maybe you should reserve your comments to things you know about... You rock D_R_The_Great.
You're an idiot
Haha, I'm from GA and I agree with Moditters. I personally know three teachers at my old high school that got paid $100k a year to teach and they were absolute crap.
Teachers at high schools need to be evaluated by the students just like college ones; once you actually take feedback from the kids you'll actually get some performance from the teachers.
I guess it really depends on where you are from. In my town the teachers do make s**t tons of money and have lots of stupid benefits. But just two towns over the teachers do have to get extra jobs and stuff.
There is not enough cash on earth to make me want to be a teacher, largely because of the parents. I'd be in prison after a week. Kudos to all humans that have the patience and the tolerance to do the job...it's the most thankless, I would imagine, more so than motherhood (I am a mom so I can say this)
Starting rates change according to district wealth. D_R_the_Great, I'm sorry to hear of your mother's situation; after 3 decades, she should be earning twice that amount. As a matter of fact, in most places, I believe 3 decades is how long it takes to reach 100k salary.
As to whoever said teachers need be evaluated by students... I don't trust a 15 year old to have the emotional maturity to accurately evaluate a teacher. That idea sounds great on paper, a good teacher could easily get bad reviews for giving a few kids their first bad grade.
All I can say is, LAUSD is a terrible, terrible place for teachers.
I'm actually on my way to becoming a teacher (elementary). This article was both hilarious and frightening.
ReplySeveral more reasons to burn down the world...
ReplyExcept if we did that, we would no longer have a place to live.
Thanks, Captain Obvious.
haha that was genuis when you said the students (when they show up) are high haha
ReplyFreaking hilarious. Especially teachers in the 1800's. "Teach me to be a whore!" lol
ReplyI say that the teachers should be allowed to taze children regularly. That would improve discipline.
ReplyAlso, they should try to make school about learning how to think, not how to recite-and-forget, but that's probably our school system's problem.
I think most teachers abuse their power/students and yet it's like socially acceptable. Those fuckers:@
ReplyWhat school did you go to?
As a teacher, I can confirm every word is true. Quite why I decided to get paid (badly) to be abused by adolescent shits all day is beyond me now... maybe I have a burgeoning masochistic streak that I never knew I harboured or something.
ReplyAny hoo, thanks for not portraying us as a bunch of stupid morons who are only out to ruin kids' lives ("put my mobile away? How very dare you!")
haha we are little shits most of my friends show up really late and high me 2 and we dont give a s**t what they say.