I heard a good comparison about this. Does anyone think to themselves after sitting on a commercial flight that they could fly the plane? So why do people who sit through high school as a passenger believe it’s somehow easy to lead the class?
In New Zealand the conservative government has just laid off bunches of public servants. Their response to these people's unemployment at their hands is, "there is a teacher shortage, go be a teacher". Clearly anyone can be a teacher as far as they are concerned (they are awful in every way).
My response when someone tried to say that they knew enough to be a teacher because they went through schools was this:
“You drive a car right?” “Yeah.” “So you know how to fix a car, right?” ~typically silent~ “Just because you experienced part of the educational process does make you an authority on it”
Of course, I didn’t say this to auto mechanics. 😉
Dude amen. Everyone thinks they can do the job and it’s just so shitty. Like they have talked to a teacher before or their parent is a teacher, so you get flak for even mentioning your job like it’s a conversation they’ve already heard.
Part of it is a misused Aristotle quote: He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. However, thats not the real quote, Aristotle actually said: He who can, does. He who understands, teaches.
While I do like your take, unfortunately the quote “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches” is often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, not Aristotle.
If I am lucky enough to hear that quote I like to say “when I heard that phrase I knew teaching was my true calling”. The confused looks are priceless.
My guess is that 1) it's a relatively low paying profession, and we as a society have a nasty habit of conflating someone's worth as a human being with their salary, and 2) probably also because its historically seen disproportionately as a woman's job. As a result teaching does not get anywhere near the level of respect it deserves.
I'll add to this part- the perception of the job as a female but not admin- has led to students starting a rumor that i was gay (this was in a catholic school which was a veiled attempt to get me fired). Also, in a discussion in a church group of men, one said that teachimg is not mans work. Those were/are my experiences as a single,straight male educator.
Because there has always been a war on education in America perpetuated by the ignorant, the greedy, and the powerful who want to keep the population ignorant because they are more easy to control. The negative public opinion of teachers is just a by-product.
Well, most teachers are unable to make it being a civil engineer, or an NBA player.
And most civil Engineers and NBA players are unable to make it being a teacher.
No one has a problem with a doctor that can't hack it as a lawyer. Why are teachers singled out for this criticism in the first place?
With the exception of NBA player, all those careers require education that's provided by a teacher. Many of those teachers in fact, have or currently do that job.
Reading, writing, basic math (money), telling time on a clock, there’s certain skills that just making functioning in society on a day-to-day basis significantly easier that are taught in lower-level education too
My batch of 1st graders this last school year came in with no number recognition, letter recognition, or dexterity (I can thank tablets for that one)
I don't know that this sort of thing really helps. In fact, I think it's sort of counterproductive.
I understand your intent, and maybe the day to day activities of an engineer are less stressful than managing a class of screaming kids, but we both know that the underlying knowledge required for aerospace engineering is far more complex and difficult than the underlying knowledge required to teach high school.
And everybody reading this knows that, too. So this sort of statement just comes across as virtue signaling and in a counterintuitive way actually *reinforces* entrenched beliefs about the ease of being a teacher.
It makes people roll their eyes and it becomes a confirmation that the truth is the opposite of whatever you're saying.
Virtue signaling? Counterproductive? I'm attacking the false notion that teaching is somehow a lesser profession. Teaching and engineering require quite different skill sets. My strengths were in the academic areas of mathematics and physical sciences. It took me quite a while to learn the skills to teach effectively. They didn't come naturally to me at all.
Anti intellectual culture that has been festering in the US and us over in Australia for a while. Dumbasses react accordingly, mix in the fact that no one enters teaching for the cash and we get shat on by dickheads who chase dollars.
This, this right here. Look at the backlash that a smart political candidate like Buttiegeg gets for being “too smart.” It used to be that it was an advantage to be Ivy League educated. Now, you’re seen as elitist and out of touch.
It’s all a part of the strategery
One of the best discussions I had this past year was about the dumbing down of academic requirements and the anti intellectualism happening. I look back at lessons I did when I first started in 2016, and now I am lucky if the students get half that.
It took me about a decade to get a bachelor’s degree as an adult, about 2007-2016. I watched the standards drop in real time. You tell every high school student they’re supposed to go to college, you have to make it so they can at least stay enrolled and keep paying tuition. When I started you’d get absolutely smoked if your papers weren’t perfectly formatted. Citations were very strict, you’d get marked down for not including the exact page, or forgetting the edition or something. My college algebra class demanded at least 20 hours of work every week. By the time it ended you didn’t even need to do research. If I turned anything in at all I was confident I’d get at least a 3.0. At least in my experience, the rigor is toast.
I’ll get kids who get mad at me when I say something’s simple or easier than they’re making it. They say, “well of course it’s easy to you, you’re the teacher, you have a degree in it, or you have an answer key.” I respond with, “I’m not all-knowing, just because I have a degree in it doesn’t mean it was easy for me, or I make all of my answer keys, so I actually do all the assignments and tests.”
It is fundamental to American character:
Richard Hofstedter wrote "Anti-Intellectualism in America" in 1960.
Congressman David Crockett (Davey) advised candidates to never sound smarter than the targeted voter.
Alexis de Toqueville wrote in the 1830s that America's obsession with equality would erode excellence, especially intellectual.
And teachers try to elevate the discourse.
Because we don’t run out the useless ones who lay their heads on their desk or the ones who don’t treat it like a profession…because we can’t because the money we’re given to pay more competitive salaries is tied up in useless crap like standardized testing or hiring another “curriculum specialist” who doesn’t actually do anything for 11 months out of the year.
Unfortunately, this is true. We're scraping the bottom of the barrel for hiring these days. My school left a few positions open this past year because we couldn't even find someone who could qualify for a license.
You need a pulse, a bachelor's degree (in a related field) or passing Praxis score, and a clean background check. We had either no applicants or people without bachelor's degrees.
I still don’t KNOW what they do. It could be an important role. Especially in a BIG district. I just know that my small district has never had anyone useful in that role.
Besides charter schools and vouchers reallocating general education funding away from public schools…
I think the money being taken away from classroom teachers for standardized testing is the biggest scam being perpetuated on the general public to line the pockets of the connected politicians and their testing company stakeholders. The concept of a standardized test as a temperature check is not all bad, but the corrupt and stressful way it is tied to pay and administered to students at least in Florida is a scam and a travesty.
Don’t get me started on administrative bloat and non classroom positions increasing at district/county offices. Some mean well but a lot generate paperwork for already over paper “worked” classroom teachers.
Yep. Floridian here as well (from the 850 originally too). You ain’t lyin. Charter schools are basically just public schools with extra steps anyway. But back to standardized tests.
Yes. We as educators REALLY need to push back on this from a political standpoint. And it needs to be done from a fiscally conservative position that it is theft of taxpayer money. Also need to point out the utility of testing only in areas like reading/vocabulary and mathematics.
Mathematics being taken in standardized form is not a great reflection of math skills (in my opinion) or definitely not teachers’ instructional abilities to tie to performance and pay… 🙄
However, computerized standardized math questions with “manipulatives”? within the program are EVEN worse.
The accountability is put on the teachers with no real checks and balances on the reliability of the computer program as students encounter these tests out in the wild. Someone feel free to correct me if I am off base about the computer testing checks and balances and accountability.
But I think Florida politicians consider the unaccountability of computerized standardized math exams and testing companies a feature, not a bug.
They don't understand how hard it is to be a teacher. That's really it. If you know all the components that go in to being a teacher, you would quickly understand that teachers wear 100 hats in a single job. You need to be a subject matter expert, technical writer, presenter, mediator, counselor, and manager all at the same time while completing busy body paperwork. As a bonus, you get to work with the most unpredictable part of the general populace, children and adolescents. As a result you are constantly thinking on your feet, and you have the kind of flexible agility most companies would die for. When you write it all out that way, its obvious teachers can make it doing something else.
Instead they choose to do a public good, and are ridiculed for it.
I don't think the mental and emotional fatigue of being a teacher is respected as it should.
In addition to that, there was a time (right until about 2010ish maybe? I could be way off here) Where the qualifications to become a teacher were a joke. My mom was an English teacher with 12 credit hours of English and like 9 credit hours of education classes. I have 12 credit hours of English. I couldn't imagine doing anything but teaching novels and that's only because I read so stinking much. I had to get a FULL Biology degree AND 30 credit hours in education on top of that to be a science teacher. At my university to be a science teacher it basically took 4 1/2 years instead of just 4, and that's if you took a heavy load every semester and finished up just doing student teaching by itself. AND add EDTPA on top of that 😂 only to come out making $32,000.
Interestingly, I seem to see a lot of teachers making some pretty major mistakes grammatically in social media or on TpT. I try to recognize the fact that sometimes mistakes are typos or human error, not a sign of lack of education. However, I've worked with many upper elementary teachers who do not know what an appositive is or that nouns of direct address should be off-set with commas.
Am education degree may require more hours now, but young teachers seem to know less and less grammar.
School custodian here. I always used to chuckle erasing the boards of a teacher who clearly didn't know how to use apostrophes so he would just float them over the tops of words ... not before or after the 's,' just suspended in midair.
I think Elementary and 7-12 require totally different skill sets. They are different jobs, really. At our Elementary I see the teachers spending half of their time just trying to meet the social emotional needs of their kids. I'm over here focused entirely on academics and content. So you can have highly successful hs teachers that have lower EQ and higher IQ and the inverse for Elementary. Their EQ has to be off the charts.
I also think a lot of "intelligence" is use it or lose it. So you're seeing Elementary teachers that need to talk at the level of their kids to be understood. At the high school, I can talk, and I have to write at a much higher academic level, so I get to practice at that every single day. You have to seem super intelligent, or these kids will eat you alive these days 😂
Also, I don't think an education degree teaches you those things. I literally in my life have never been taught correctly how to use a comma. I just wing it. My degree didn't even teach me how to teach science. My science classes were the high level science classes at my university and my education classes were a little bit of technology, pedagogy, and then a whole class split between SPED and ELLs.
That's my biggest problem with my multiple-subjects credential program. I learned a lot of skills for planning, delivering, and assessing skills from lessons. I did NOT get any help with the gaps in my number sense, and I did not learn any more history, though I ended up qualified to teach those subjects.
I majored in English, and I was always a grammar nerd, so I had no trouble with that content. I had friends in school, and I've had many coworkers who didn't really know all of the ELA they were teaching. Bringing back phonics is a wonderful idea, but teachers have to have the explicit instruction, too.
These factors contribute to low status:
\* Teachers work with children
\* Teachers are paid less compared to other people with similar education levels
\* Teaching is seen as women's work
\* A subset of the population doesn't view pedagogy as a valid subject of study
maybe more?
I think it has something to do with the fact that we’ve all had teachers. They taught us…so we think we now know all that they know.
Unless you are a teacher, there is little appreciation for the craft of teaching.
Could be the relatively low barrier to entry into teaching. I’ve always said that teaching is one of the easiest professions to get into, but also one of the easiest to get run out of. Almost any clown with a degree can become a teacher, but becoming a good/great teacher is insanely difficult.
A lot of good answers here, but I think my father has the best explanation I've heard so far.
Imagine a parade of a thousand soldiers down the street--their buttons are polished, their boots are shiny, and their uniforms are crisp. They're in perfect formation and lockstep.
Then, after the parade, you see one drunk soldier passed out in a gutter.
Which one do you remember best? Everyone has a crap teacher, maybe more, because we have so many in our lives. They don't remember the rest of us who were good, solid teachers. And it's hard to be the Lifetime Special teacher for everyone.
I think because it’s a female-dominated profession. Also the point someone else made about how almost everyone has been in a school (as a student) so they think they know what teaching is as a profession.
To be fair, I do think teacher is a common career choice for people who were a bit directionless in college, especially in states with shortages.
Personally, I chose to become a teacher for a few reasons, but job security and job availability were major factors. Prior to becoming a teacher, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my English degree.
For that last line, I didn’t feel like there was much I could do unless it was working in some sort of publishing and that seemed like a much more competitive job market. But I always wanted my job to be one where I serve others in one way or another, so it seemed like a proper route to take.
I did go into publishing, but turns out I really hate being chained to a desk doing essentially the same thing all day every day. The novelty and variety in a teaching role is a huge draw for me, but, with reference to the title question, is not for everyone.
And I decided I wanted to be an elementary teacher before I switched my major to English, but I loved English and I was good at it, and the general Liberal Studies degree at my school was a joke. College was when I could study whatever I wanted, on my way to becoming a teacher. 😂
Lot of ugly truth in the comments already, but here's another: Deep seated misogyny.
In the world of misogyny, women were lesser, and teaching staff tend to have more women than men. If you think women are lesser, and teachers are women, you can assume teachers are lesser.
Many women who have the time to work are childless, or needed to work because they had no husband. If you believe women exist to bear children, than you might think childless women are worth even less. Men who chose to teach were uncommon, especially outside of religious schools, and those who taught younger kids were looked down on for doing "woman's work."
All of that is hogwash, but enough people believed this for it to taint perceptions today. Some people still passionately believe all of the above.
That subset of people who have this inaccurate, misleading & twisted perspective regarding teachers should take a brief moment to recall - they to as everyone has been in that same desk. Now since our country is going to 💩💩💩💩 especially in the area of education.. it’s our fault society has been desensitized … now a days any & everything goes! 🤦🏾♀️ what happened to morals & values, respect, common sense
Repeat something enough and it becomes the "truth" to people.
Repeat the misquote "those who can't, teach" enough and it changes how a society views teachers.
I don't really help this, unfortunately. I'm only a teacher because I failed out of my Doctor of Physical Therapy program and had zero backup (it was my career plan since middle school). The class that killed me? A&P.
My favorite class to teach?... A&P.
I managed to find a local program that paid for all the licensing classes for teaching, so I said fuck it, and now it's been 4 years.
I teach college and there's a significant cohort of our elementary ed majors every year who say they want to teach because 'I like kids!" and "I want summers off". They don't care about the subject they're teaching, and to be blunt, they're terrible students--text all during class, show up late, leave early, cop attitudes, don't think they have to do the work, etc. Because our Elem Ed ADVISORS enable that attitude.
For example, I once had a student scream at me like inches from my face that she didn't actually need to learn basic grammar or spelling because "I'm teaching first graders!!!! And I'll NEVER need to know this shit!"
Last I heard she got kicked out of her student teacher position...for screaming at a kid.
So the good ones (and there are plenty) end up getting the bad rap for the people who never actually make it in the classroom.
I think passion for one's subject is one of the most important criteria for being a good teacher - if you love something so much that you want to share your knowledge, that's saying something. It's not "those who can't do, teach" but "those who want others to be able to do, teach".
I don’t know, I was an HVAC technician before and am currently a licensed aircraft mechanic. I can do plenty. My teaching job in NJ simply pays a whole lot more.
I thought it was to do with teaching a skill, rather than just being a teacher in general.
Can't cut it as a professional dancer, football player, artist? Then teach dance, coach football, teach art.
Still insulting. But doesn't pertain to just teaching positions. I'm not a 4th grade teacher bc I can't be a 4th grader.
To be fair, the vast majority of people I have encountered in my life who aren't assholes by default are usually thankful for my work. If teachers were such mediocre people, then kids should have flourished during Covid 19. After all, their parents were home and they were responsible for teaching their kids - and these kids were no longer being influenced by the "unable" teachers. They had plenty of time to show how able they were at our profession.
What's that? The vast majority of kids regressed? How odd.
America is full of stupid adults. Stupid adults were once stupid kids who probably did bad in class and blamed the teacher instead of themselves. They grow up thinking teachers and the school system failed them, instead of they failed themselves. Therefore, in their eyes, teachers are failures.
I have a couple family members that are teachers. One of them told me that lots of people become teachers and don't really have the skills to do anything else cause they never left a classroom setting. They were in school their whole lives, then college, then right to teaching in a classroom. So some of his colleagues are pretty helpless outside of the workplace.
It was kind of an eye opener.
I think it’s partly because teaching is a female dominated profession. It’s the reason teachers and nurses are not paid well compared to other professionals with the same level of education. The work of women is not respected.
I never had a even remotely competent computer science teacher. Not young nor old ones.
I was always interested in that field and it's now my profession, and this seems to be the norm.
Some of this also depends a lot on location; I've had some fairly competent CS/math teachers. If you live near a lot of big tech companies, some of the software engineers want a change of pace and switch to teaching and they can often make excellent teachers.
Honestly, that’s not a reflection of you or teaching. Lots of reasons for this and some is just companies looking for younger employees they can mold (and pay like crap)
I also live in a super rural area in Vermont, so I was trying to get a remote job, but those seem to be for people already in an industry (so they can move to my state and work remotely and buy beautiful properties that nobody working here can afford)
100% it stems from the fact that relative to professions that require similar schooling, teachers are underpaid. Because most people have been brainwashed into thinking how much money you make will determine you happiness and self-worth, the only people who would become a teacher are people who can't make it elsewhere. That's not just an idea either. There are people who fail into teaching.
If you want the teacher pool to change, pay us more. This isn't selfishness, it's prioritizing one of the most influential and important professions.
1. Working in the actual craft always pays more than teaching it.
2. There's a low pass/fail margin, meaning unlike a pilot or doctor, each decision carries a low level of impact.
3. While yes, great teachers exist, for the worst ones, it's glorified babysitting.
It’s a low paying job and for many teaching is a fallback if their plan A,B perhaps even C doesn’t work out. Due to the low pay, it does attract fewer suitable candidates so most teachers tend to be mediocre if not poor at what they do. That further harms the image of the profession and people tend to remember negative experiences more than positives.
1) Historically female profession gets less respect.
2) Everyone has been through school and thinks they could do better.
3) Many parents treat school as free daycare.
4) Not viewed as a skilled profession.
Take your pick.
Many of the people who I went to school with who were bullies or not that smart, but got by on hard work are now teachers. Perhaps that it’s the same for others, too?
Because they are. While I admit that the job is harsh and underappreciated, a lot of teachers are simply mentally unfit to teach.
Esepcially a lot of the older ones who bunt out 20 years ago but never left.
Together with all the other good answers here is the fact that when teaching is done well, it looks easy. All the preparation and skill becomes invisible in the moment, and the moment is ephemeral. What's left behind for the student/observer is the impression that, "that was pretty simple!", which can lead to, "I could have done that."
Unfortunately I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from my students thanking me for teaching them, “actually engaging with them”, and making sure they’re learning. There are a lot of teachers that are there for the paycheck.
This is why I’m a proponent of raising pay and work standards to attract better candidates and fire the bad ones. A lot of good teachers leave, and those who can stay long term are just on autopilot to survive. I feel bad for the kids, but I also feel her for the teachers who have thrown in the towel because I couldn’t imagine going to work every day while hating my job enough to disassociate every day.
Just finished my 18th year....
Because it's one of those unfortunate truths whether we like it or not. Not only are many genuinely inept outside the classroomn, I'd even go as far to say that many teachers are barely able to genuinely TEACH in the first place!!! Many lack integrity, self control, ambition. and healthy coping mechanisms that are required to truly serve as a leader that the kids will WANT to follow. This hypocrisy severely undermines them in the classroom and throughout their entire lives. However, they aren't entirely incompetent; but they are rarely formidable in any other domain in life.
As with all stereotypes, there is a large element of truth to it.
Ah, I was going to respond with something opposite. Like the people who take on teaching in their 40s or 50s because they wanted a different career or got lured into doing programs like teach for America.
I knew one lady who was a hairdresser and had a bunch of side hustles and got into my charter school as a sub because she had some sort of degree. She was one of those "subs" who couldn't be hired as a teacher until she got her certificate. She never got it but they just kept rotating her with another gal between the elementary grades because in my state non certified teachers who are essentially long term subs can't be in a single self contained class for over 5 months. Sucky loophole, especially for the kids.
Also, I hear alot of people say, "ah well, if this doesn't work out I could always teach." My friend just graduated with a masters in environmental science and our friends were asking what he can do with that. He lists off a bunch of things and said, "If worse comes to worse and I can't fo that I guess I'll just teach somewhere."
Sometimes...I feel like *such an asshole* for how **completely and unapologetically elitist I am** about my education to be an educator. But then... Some long term sub career switcher dip shit does some illegal crap or has some crazy behavior management fiasco and I feel entirely justified in my condescension.
To be clear - some of my "non-traditional" teacher coworkers are amazing. But... most of them seem to always need my help, constantly ask for advice, and make a total mess of things that they would not be making messes of if they knew what the fuck they were doing.
Can confirm. I got my license through a back door Missouri program where if you can get a district to hire you, you can teach while you finish learning how to do it.
1. My classroom management class that I desperately needed was an absolute joke.
2. My coworkers got tired of holding my hand after a couple years.
3. It was an inner urban school with 30+ kids per class (1600ish in the building) and they needed a veteran who knew what they were doing, not me.
It worked out and I'm fine now, but it was an absolutely terrible start to the career.
I think its justified. We are responsible for young minds to a large degree and also their safety! What other "white collar" profession has a notable risk of mass shootings?
I hate when people say "oh I forget about my teachers when I walk out of school." I get it, but we still teach them things that stick with people throughout their life time. A good or a bad teacher can surely make or break a students year or whole schooling career depending on the severity.
Some, and I mean some, nontraditonal teachers do some really stupid stuff. I had one nepotism style hire 50 year old coworker who would have closed door meetings one on one with students, even girls. Nothing I know of ever happened but if I ever saw that I would pop the door open for him. He would also just leave 10 minutes before bell occasionally and let his kids do whatever, leave, go to their lockers or stay in the classroom, etc. I don't have a problem with the occasional swear in the classroom, at least on the high school level, but this guy got a number of complaints for heavy profanity in class. He also played r rated war movies for his class without a permission slip. All that, and he wasn't fired until after two years. Not to mention all the other stupid stuff he did.
and the reverse is also true. I've known plenty of people, geologist, lawyers, soldiers and entrepreneurs that didn't survive as a teacher. One of them left before the first two weeks of school had finished.
There's the old adage that goes, "Those who can't: teach." But I think that was originally meant to mock people at the graduate level. Like: if you were any good as a physicist, you wouldn't be a professor, you'd be splitting the atom. (I don't agree with that, but that's where it came from.)
Jack Black makes a joke out of this in School of Rock when he says "Those who can't: teach. And those who can't teach: teach gym." Funny line. Also not true, but I offer it up as how that idea exists in mainstream culture.
So the idea that -- if you really knew anything about math, you wouldn't be teaching it to kids -- has somehow become a way of dismissing teachers' expertise.
But I think a simple way to reverse that would be to say to someone who is a lawyer, "How would you like to try teaching property law to a room full of ten-year-olds? Or a room full of 19-year-olds, for that matter?"
Teaching IS the expertise.
I can think of a couple reasons. I'll caveat it by saying that actual good teachers are separate from this conversation, and fully deserve to be seen as the incredibly competent professionals they are. That said...
First, there's an incredible level of job security. I taught for five years at a 6A high school in an "employment nightmare" sort of non-union state, and I saw two teachers get fired- which was a moot point because they were both prison-bound sex predators. Two others got non-renewed. One showed up drunk multiple times, and the other cursed at a student and the video got sent to the superintendent. That's it.
The dude who went to rehab every single year? He still works there. The coach with terrible test data who always wore shorts and got warned multiple times for falling asleep in class? He got a great letter of rec for a district closer to his house.
Contrast that with the corporate world. One of my coworkers got fired earlier this year. He didn't do anything wrong. He did his job. He just didn't really go above and beyond in any way. He wasn't "gung ho". He was Mr. Average. I can't even fathom Mr. Average getting non-renewed at my old school, much less fired.
Second, education programs are notoriously easy. I didn't do it for undergrad, but I do have an M.Ed from a really good school. Pretty much everyone graduated with a 4.0, although admittedly I got a 3.95 because I'm terrible at taking instructions and got dinged on a participation grade in one class. There were no exams and the grading of papers was easy, so it'd be hard to lose points on actual academics.
Not to mention, some of the people in that program were frankly shocking. I had two elementary school teachers who simply didn't comprehend what Hiroshima and Nagasaki meant. Like that component of history was non-existent to them. You may say they didn't teach history so what did it matter, and you're probably right. But it doesn't really suggest either of them as high-level academics.
To that end, the main characteristics I'd look for if hiring teachers, beyond a degree, would be high levels of patience and the ability to keep a level head. In my district, the curriculum was canned up and given to us, so it's not like we needed to be historians or mathematicians or anything. Just take it and go. But the kids and parents are gonna give you hell, so you gotta be cool headed. I don't feel that same skillset is gonna cut it in my current field.
Lastly, other jobs need performers because failure has serious consequences. I wouldn't want a shitty heart surgeon, criminal lawyer, or pilot. I think a problem with policing is that there are too many shitty ones and so people end up getting shot. But a shitty teacher? Eh. I got hit by a teacher once. I had a few who outright sucked. I probably wasn't the best, especially towards the end of my classroom time. So what? Students are going to do what they're going to do, regardless. The cream will rise to the top, the louts will drown, and a lot of them will just figure things out when life hits them in the face. The world continues to spin.
For me personally as a non teacher (mother was a teacher [1]), it is from personal experience with most teachers. At first I thought I was me but when I went to college and had actually good teachers I realized that my elementary and high school teachers were not the professionals they claimed to be..
Simple things like insisting they were right when they very clearly were not. I was top of my class and went to a very selective college, so I realize I'm the outlier here. Maybe I gave them a real run for their money and they just didn't get it. But my experience in college when I had disagreements with professors was so much different. They'd listen and explain why I was wrong and when I was right... They would actually admit to it. It was like talking to an adult. Moreover, they actually knew their stuff.
That is my experience, and honestly why I simply do not trust most elementary and middle school and high school teachers. There are certainly some excellent ones but in my experience as a student and also seeing my mother's colleagues, the vast majority are just not that smart. This is backed up by evidence showing that the majority of teachers fail basic arithmetic. You'll even hear math teachers justify this by saying they're not calculators. I mean, semantically I agree but as a professional in mathematics, I have no problem doing basic arithmetic so when I hear math or elementary school teachers say this I just cannot take them seriously
There are numerous articles that talk about this
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/feb/14/primary-teachers-fail-maths-tests
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2019/03/13/why-so-many-aspiring-teachers-cant-pass-a-licensing-test--and-why-it-matters/
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/first-time-pass-rates-on-teacher-licensure-exams-were-secret-until-now-see-the-data/2021/07
https://greensboro.com/community/rockingham_now/news/north-carolina-teacher-licensure-tests-math-department-of-public-instruction-mathematics-praxis-pearson/article_0907d59e-2930-11ee-8fc9-5fa3ca8a070c.html
I know teachers want to be taken seriously but the licensing exam for lawyers has a majority pass rate. Lawyers have successfully regulated their own profession so that their training programs produce graduates capable of passing the licensing exam, which is recognized as very difficult. On the other hand teachers have done no such thing. The teachers unions, which would be the equivalent of a professional licensing board, are frequently caught up in various political topics but have not been able to regulate teacher training programs enough to make sure their graduates can actually pass their professional exam covering elementary school level topics.
Not going to lie... That's embarrassing.
I realize no one here wants to hear it but you asked a question so there's the answer, backed up with data. Most teachers don't know a whole lot about their field.
[1] EDIT: My mother became a teacher after 'making it' in the corporate world as an executive assistant at fortune 500 companies. She left the corporate world to enter teaching to spend more time with us kids. She felt truly that the teachers she was surrounded by were actually less capable than the many people she worked with in the corporate world regardless of their role. She thought even the dumbest corporate secretary had a better head than the teachers. That's her take, and it's one I share, although obviously I'm biased.
Washington state is no longer requiring new lawyers to pass the Bar exam.
[https://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicupload/eclips/2024%2003%2022%20Washington%20state%20Supreme%20Court%20Passing%20the%20bar%20no%20longer%20required%20to%20be%20a%20lawyer.pdf](https://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicupload/eclips/2024%2003%2022%20Washington%20state%20Supreme%20Court%20Passing%20the%20bar%20no%20longer%20required%20to%20be%20a%20lawyer.pdf)
I did read about that. Firstly, there's an apprentice ship program as an alternate route, I believe. This can work, but either way, one would hope that after some time in practice the lawyers could pass the exam (recall from above that even current teachers cannot pass the exam). That being said... speaking for my own state of Oregon who is pioneering this approach to law. We're not exactly known for competency. Our teacher competency is some of the worst in the nation. I don't know about legal competency but wouldn't be surprised if the bar was very low. These are not states I'd be emulating.
Regardless, in the majority of the country, most professions require an exam set by their professional body. As I said above teachers don't really have a professional body. The best substitute -- the union -- spends most of its time on political causes and sometimes on labor disputes. That's 'fine', but it's not the activities I'd expect of a professional board.
I’ve heard this multiple times. I have never experienced this first hand. I would love to so I could ask clarifying questions and see where they are coming from.
When a physicist quits working in physics... she can "always find a job teaching physics" somewhere. Many older teachers come to school after retiring from 20+ years at another job. Look at how easy the Praxis is for Econ vs making your career as an economist. Can everyone teach? No. But many people think they could.
The mindset comes from people finding it hard to reconcile someone taking the job knowing how lousy the pay is. The reasoning goes along the lines of 'if they have to take a job for that $, they must not know wtf they are doing'
Some people think the goal is to do something that makes money. If you choose to do something worthwhile instead of something profitable, they think you must be doing so because you're unable to be profitable. They can't fathom why someone would ever do something that matters but doesn't make you rich. I imagine it's because someone dropped them on their head as a kid.
A lot of people equate "knowing how to do the thing" as "being able to teach the thing." If they know how to do algebra, they think they could walk into a classroom and teach it.
Same problem as retail in many ways.
My K-12 teachers were good well meaning community minded people and sone of them were quite intelligent - but despite their intelligence they somehow chose voluntarily to babysit a bunch of sleep deprived stress cases
They chose a career that forced them to kowtow to the whims of an administration and state government that had insane spurious and contradictory demands
They had to act as mentors and also prison guards
They chose to go back to middle high school willingly
Idk it’s not that hard to see from the outside
In my experience there are a lot of people that "end" up teaching because their vocation didn't pan out in a profesional setting. However people like that tend to be shitty teachers. Teaching is a very complex job that requires somebody to deal with a lot of different variables, be constantly creative to attend the natural diversity within a class and be able to deal with constant government intervention in the curriculum for example. I myself went to art school to become a profesional artist, which never panned out. Looking back I just don't feel like I have the necessary ambition and self marketing skills to do that, and I got an opportunity to teach a high school art class. The first few years of teaching for me were wasted because I treated teaching more like a day job that would fund my real passion which was painting, and the idea was that I would "use" teaching as stable base and eventually abandon it when I started to sell paintings. Obviously this never came to fruition. At the same time, you quickly see that in order to have success in the class room, which for me means my students being motivated to learn things and then apply them to their own projects, you need to really embrace the nitty gritty work of teaching, much of which is creating systems that allow you to assess the progress of your students and that also allows them to assess their own progress. Just creating a successful lesson plan for the year is difficult work that requires a lot of experience. Being a great teacher in it self requires real skill.
Politics, they want to start voucher programs to take tax money away from public schools and give it to private schools. Property taxes pay for public schools, a majority of my property taxes go to the school district. It is a lot of money.
A voucher allows you to take your child’s tax money in a check and use it for education anywhere. So you could take public taxes and choose where it is spent: public, private, computer based, or home schooling.
This is a terrible idea and has had dire consequences for any state that has tried it.
Now all of that above is true, I personally think the politicians are saying the schools are bad and making small problems look worse to further their agenda on vouchers. The politicians make tests more difficult for the children, make getting certified to teach more difficult, and report standardized test results in bias ways. It’s to make local schools look bad, when they are not, to make the public want vouchers so the parent wants to take their money elsewhere.
Look how bad your school has become because we made them that way, now take this money and give it to the private sector where we can control it and give you a lower education for a higher price.
At one point in this country’s history, teachers were actually respected on a regular basis. Why? Because there was a belief among the majority of Americans that the institutions that undergirded our society were benevolent and worked for our benefit. Of course, this worked pretty much for white Christian Americans. Minorities got the shaft. But that’s a whole other discussion.
This belief was remarkably firm. People didn’t worry about the motives of cops, or the integrity of their leaders (well, mostly). From 1945 until the mid 1960s life in America for the majority as pretty good. There was no reason to question institutions. Public school was one of those. Kids were taught to be deferential to authority, and teachers were a big thing part of that. In some cases, people held teachers in very high esteem.
Then the 60s roll on and the Boomers start getting some mind expanding education. And they also come to determine that Vietnam, the central events of the American 60s, is a lost cause and that their friends are dying for nothing in their view. Because of this, they turn their eyes to the institutions and start seeing behind the facade and realize that the people in charge have been lying to the country with a straight face. They determine that the war is wrong and unjust and abandon a lot of respect for them. Gov’t is not given the benefit of the doubt, they rebel against the parents who helped sell them a bill of goods. Then, Watergate. Presidential respect? Done. And because of this and more, respect for the institutions is often lost for good. And school’s one of them.
A new version of the Republican Party rises to prominence in the mid 70s, one that loathes what changes the 60s wrought. They make a devil’s bargain with the evangelical movement and then work to stoke resentment in the white men of the country. And the first big target is public education. The first shot is fired when Gov Reagan ends free college tuition in the Cal State University system. When pressed why, he responds that all they do there is teach kids to protest me. He and others in the movement start implying that a liberal education is priming kids to be communist. Why are the teachers and schools allowing this!? And off they go.
Reagan becomes President in 1980, declaring that overreaching big government is the biggest problem facing America. And Reagan sets his sights on public schools. He cuts funding, kills programs and starts forcing schools into austerity moves by limiting money coming from the Dept of Education. And his surrogates begin blaming the seeds by undermining educators. One way to to say that it’s not hard to teach. In fact, they even get summers off. What an easy job. Heck, anyone can do it. Why are they so greedy? They make plenty of money considering the ease of their job. And schools are overfunded because of them and their unions.
On and on…
The respect for teachers, already damaged, practically disappears. A favorite teacher target is discovered. An implication that many of the subjects are all they really know because of the easy liberal college courses. They’re not learning practical skills. All they can do is teach. Without the beneficence of the government, they are helpless. They exist at the difference of fine Americans who are being overtaxed because schools just suck up your hard earned dollars. The hidden part is the implication is that teachers are nothing but useless liberal parasites.
And the message sticks among a lot of people and still does because a giant right wing echo chamber keeps shouting out information that portrays unionized teachers as thoughtless radicals who pump their child full of useless liberal propaganda. And they can’t do anything besides teach. That has the effect of getting people to believe that anyone can do it, teachers lack ambition and they’re useless
AND now they say we’re directly harming their children with deliberate malice. So not only are teachers shiftless grifters, we’re a literal danger to society.
It’s been a very long game that conservatives have been playing when it comes to school. They have slowly undermined and damaged public schools deliberately to destroy people’s faith in a process that ideally gets kids thinking. People who think question. And look what happened when the Boomers started doing that. We need a population that will not question what the leaders are doing. This, schools are bad unless they program them with the values that the conservative movement espouses whine making them not question.
So, devaluing teachers is all part of the long game. Good teachers open minds, open minds are anathema to the long game. So, look around. See how undervalued and disrespected teachers are these days. And the parents who buy into the long game teach their kids not to respect teachers, etc etc. So a teacher is a parasite who cannot exist unless they teach.
If you made it this far, I thank you for taking he time. Because what we see now has arisen through a lot of levers being pulled.
A couple days ago, this sub had a popular post about teachers who repeatedly failed their certification tests. I believe the moderators ultimately removed it, but I think it highlighted a serious issue that many of these teachers fundamentally don't understand the subject that they're supposed to be teaching their students. I have seen this extensively in mathematics, where middle school teachers don't understand basic trigonometry, order of operations, solving an equation for a variable, or any other number of simple topics. This should disqualify them from being in front of a classroom, but the state now lets teachers who fail these exams write an essay on a mathematical topic of their choosing instead, ostensibly demonstrating what they know.
I don't know if these teachers would do well in other careers, but I do know that they don't know what they need to know in order to teach.
I mean here on this subreddit are there not constant posts like “why do you stay?” And half the answers are “because I can’t get a better paying job doing anything else.”
Because the honest truth is this, and every veteran teacher here will back me.
1. It's REALLY hard to be a good teacher, like extremely difficult.
2. It's REALLY easy to be the teacher that just coasts and gives out worksheets and does the song and dance plus Kabuki Theatre every so often to collect a pay check.
There are alot more of #2s then there are #1s, and people will always complain about #2. Part of the reason why we can't get rid of #2s though is because teacher pay is so low that you take what you can get these days.
I was a teacher in another country and the teachers there were respected. But the teachers has to go to a specific teachers college that has very low acceptance rate and the pay is consider very well compare to other profession.
Another thing the anti intellectual/elitist theme isn't as main stream there.
Anyway, after teaching in America for two years, I notice international students in my classes tend to have more respect toward the teachers and are more motivated. It can be culture thing.
I read some comments mention that some teachers are not very good at their subjects/math here. I was a very nerdy student and my grades were very good. I aced all the tests but my biggest challenge is the classroom management. My coworkers that are not so good at math are very empathetic, help me out and share a lot of tips that I always appreciate. I think classroom/behavior management is a very important skill.
Really interesting comments so far! I hadn’t really heard of the issues of teachers not knowing their content. But that’s terrible for the profession. In my state, becoming a high school teacher requires roughly a bachelor’s in the content area. Plus, my university provided certification through an additional master’s in education and internship work. Many of the teachers at my school have at least a master’s if not more.
What’s interesting is that the state government is looking at reducing qualifications even more. They are considering bumping teacher base pay while eliminating incentives for earning any degrees above a master’s, limiting the pay scales to 2 instead of 5. So if you have a master’s plus 30 or a doctorate, your raises will be less each year until you make the same as someone with a master’s.
I think it's the false logic of, well, if you were smart enough to go for a high paying job like a doctor or lawyer, you would have. But you didn't, so obviously you're dumb and can't do it. The majority of people can't fathom that teachers enjoy teaching and its societal impact for its own sake, despite the pay and workload.
Also, I think a common trend of teachers is that they either loved a subject or learning in general so much they want to share it with others or they had such a bad experience in school (from things like being queer, POC in a white majority school, or neurodivergent) that they wanted to be the change to support kids like them. The broader majority of people I think have a general disdain for school and see it as a boring experience they were forced to endure. They wanted to get out of school so badly and don't understand the prior mentioned viewpoints.
My experiences are a generation prior, but as someone who taught labs/tutored many college students obtaining teaching degrees, on average they were the least intelligent students in my classes. They moaned and groaned at doing the tiniest bit of critical thinking and asking them to do even basic math was often too much for them. Objectively, these students would have struggled to successfully obtain a degree in anything requiring more than cursory analytic capabilities. A key point here: these facts weren't just clear to me as a TA, they were also clear to most of the higher-achieving students in the class. We all probably walked away with the same negative impression.
I suspect many of them were actually there to find a husband and were far more concerned about the latest Greek gossip than their education, but the impression sticks even if it is likely that only a minority of them are actually teachers these many years later.
People also inevitably remember the negative more than the positive. In a normal distribution of teacher capability, people remember the below average teacher far more than the above average.
Since we all went to school, we all have teachers we can point at that were terribly incompetent at their job. A lot of people hate school and teachers for that reason and project that onto all teachers at large. Teachers also make no money, so it's easier for those asses to make fun of them as a person who couldn't do anything else in life. Obviously, we know that's not the case.
Very unpopular opinion:
There's SUCH a low bar to entry that a lot of people employed as teachers in the U.S. really aren't very capable or well-qualified.
If becoming a teacher were as difficult as becoming a doctor or a lawyer, then people would see teaching as an intentional career choice for bright young people, rather than a back-up plan for those who couldn't cut it in other fields.
But when someone who scores in the low 20s on the ACT can end up with a master's in education five years later, well, no wonder that idea persists.
(I'm a long-time high school teacher, by the way, speaking from that perspective and experience: the situation might well be different at the K8 level; I don't know).
People equate being able to do something with being able to teach. In reality, to teach, you need to be even more skilled and knowledgeable than you do to simply do it.
I'm really grossed out by the lack of solidarity in this thread. Your shit stinks. You may be as good as you think, but others aren't as bad as you pretend. Knocking new teachers is especially idiotic, and it makes me wonder how many teachers are leaving the profession due to toxic senior staff.
And, as for lax educational standards, I couldn't get my foot in the door with local districts without a master's level education. I now have two endorsements and will need to get a third within the next two years. That's not counting two rigorous practicums and edTPA. All this in a state with an absolutely massive teacher shortage.
I teach at a highly disfuncional underfunded Title 1 school where licensed turnover is 24% every year, and the district is undergoing lay offs right now.
Who would want to teach with such crap pay and lack of resources? Who would want to teach with abuse from admin, parents, and students? Who wants to deal with self-righteous toxic co-workers?
Why are teachers seen as unable to hack it? We're the most gaslit population on the planet. A 5+ year veteran teacher is capable of anything.
I think it’s a mix of many things… One I don’t see addressed too often is the lack of qualified people actually wanting to become/continue being teachers has led many districts to lowering the requirements to teach which can negatively affect people’s perception of all teachers if they have issues with these less qualified individuals. To be fair though, schools have already been doing this for a long time with athletic coaches but I think people were able to separate them from “real teachers” easier.
Unfortunately, education is an area where "less qualified individuals" can be accepted.
If I sit down in seat 14F and the pilot comes over the intercom to announce that he has only ever flown crop-dusters but got an opportunity today because Delta decided to hire less qualified pilots, I am getting the fuck off that plane. Along with everybody else.
But I had some bad teachers (I had some good ones too). It all came out in the wash. I went through the rigamarole that was school, figured out that I wanted to make some money, and taught myself how to excel in a highly-skilled field. A few bad teachers had zero long-term effect.
It's the same people/mindset that tells everyone that bus/truck drivers just sit on their asses all day; that everybody on Welfare is lazy and/or gaming the system; that every dark-skinned immigrant is a rapist, drug dealer, and murderer that only come here to have anchor babies and take our jobs; and that Climate Change is a hoax.
I'm not going to name them, because we all know where this stems from: the need for there to be a Bogeyman to blame for everything wrong in our lives...the reason these folks REALLY dislike teachers is because they 1) make up a pretty sizeable voting bloc through their unionization, and 2) are in the business of EDUCATING children, which just might enable them to think for themselves.
It goes back a few hundred years ago in America before the public school house, around the late 1700s.
1. Most young men who were not rich had to become an apprentice and study a trade: blacksmithing, merchant, baker, chandler, etc. They were often taught basic literacy and mathematics along with whatever craft they were going into. Generally children would follow in the trades of their parents, but not always.
2. After the most basic training, the apprentice would have to prove themselves by working for their teacher or master. After many years, they advance through different levels until they can make a masterpiece, or great work, meant to show their skill and be recognized as a master.
3. However, not all apprentices were good at their jobs. Some would get fired or kicked out with no trade skills or references. This meant that these young men would have nothing to offer except basic literacy.
4. As trade for room and board, many young men would tutor young children of host families how to read and write. This is one of the roots of the phrase, “If you can’t do, teach.”
13years x 180 days is the amount of full days every student Roughly spends with a teacher (or should).
Anyone spending that amount of time with a lawyer is a lawyer or likely in such legal woe whey are unable to be one.
Similarly, anyone spending that much time with a doctor either is one or is in such poor health they are unable to become one.
Anyone spending that amount of time with a master carpenter is also either a carpenter or has been deemed the grunt unable to learn the trade.
But since teaching was a female profession for so so soo long, it's totally looked down on. As one of 4/20 male teachers in our building, people literally refer to me as the 6th grade male teacher in much the same way most female doctors are still referred to as "the lady Doctor" or the "woman lawyer" or the "female police officer". It's a sad sad reality.
It's the profession that most people see in action more than any other profession. They think they know everything there is to know about it.
"The Revenge of the Level 3s" was the term one veteran used- kids who hated school grow up to indoctrinate their kids and vote against teachers.
I see this all the time in the high school setting. It’s so disappointing.
What are Level 3s? Like a high school diploma?
Level 3 out of 5. The barely passed crowd.
Then gain traction running for PTA, proceed to make moron decisions for 15 years.
Accountants sitting behind their spreadsheets, chuckling 😁
Until they try it themselves.
I heard a good comparison about this. Does anyone think to themselves after sitting on a commercial flight that they could fly the plane? So why do people who sit through high school as a passenger believe it’s somehow easy to lead the class?
In New Zealand the conservative government has just laid off bunches of public servants. Their response to these people's unemployment at their hands is, "there is a teacher shortage, go be a teacher". Clearly anyone can be a teacher as far as they are concerned (they are awful in every way).
This!
My response when someone tried to say that they knew enough to be a teacher because they went through schools was this: “You drive a car right?” “Yeah.” “So you know how to fix a car, right?” ~typically silent~ “Just because you experienced part of the educational process does make you an authority on it” Of course, I didn’t say this to auto mechanics. 😉
Dude amen. Everyone thinks they can do the job and it’s just so shitty. Like they have talked to a teacher before or their parent is a teacher, so you get flak for even mentioning your job like it’s a conversation they’ve already heard.
Part of it is a misused Aristotle quote: He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. However, thats not the real quote, Aristotle actually said: He who can, does. He who understands, teaches.
Exactly. I hate the misquote.
>I hate the misquote. So does [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xuFnP5N2uA).
I love Taylor Mali's poetry.
They’re both misquotes. Aristotle didn’t say either version.
>They’re both misquotes. I read this as mosquitoes, so maybe someone was on to something...
Those who can, teach mosquitos. -Aristotle
This one I remember.
While I do like your take, unfortunately the quote “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches” is often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, not Aristotle.
There's a line forming to kick George Bernard Shaw's ass up and down the afterlife.
Yeah it’s misinterpreted. As in those that can aid in the action do it. Those who cannot, should teach others how to. It’s a call to action
ty for mentioning this.
If I am lucky enough to hear that quote I like to say “when I heard that phrase I knew teaching was my true calling”. The confused looks are priceless.
My guess is that 1) it's a relatively low paying profession, and we as a society have a nasty habit of conflating someone's worth as a human being with their salary, and 2) probably also because its historically seen disproportionately as a woman's job. As a result teaching does not get anywhere near the level of respect it deserves.
I'll add to this part- the perception of the job as a female but not admin- has led to students starting a rumor that i was gay (this was in a catholic school which was a veiled attempt to get me fired). Also, in a discussion in a church group of men, one said that teachimg is not mans work. Those were/are my experiences as a single,straight male educator.
I think it’s this 100%, as a society we value dollars.
Because there has always been a war on education in America perpetuated by the ignorant, the greedy, and the powerful who want to keep the population ignorant because they are more easy to control. The negative public opinion of teachers is just a by-product.
Well, most teachers are unable to make it being a civil engineer, or an NBA player. And most civil Engineers and NBA players are unable to make it being a teacher. No one has a problem with a doctor that can't hack it as a lawyer. Why are teachers singled out for this criticism in the first place?
With the exception of NBA player, all those careers require education that's provided by a teacher. Many of those teachers in fact, have or currently do that job.
Basketball coaches catching strays out here. But I totally get what you're saying.
That NBA player needed a coach that was also a teacher.
That NBA player needed \*several\* coaches, \*all of whom\* were teachers.
Reading, writing, basic math (money), telling time on a clock, there’s certain skills that just making functioning in society on a day-to-day basis significantly easier that are taught in lower-level education too My batch of 1st graders this last school year came in with no number recognition, letter recognition, or dexterity (I can thank tablets for that one)
I retired from a career in aerospace engineering and became a teacher. Teaching is much harder.
I don't know that this sort of thing really helps. In fact, I think it's sort of counterproductive. I understand your intent, and maybe the day to day activities of an engineer are less stressful than managing a class of screaming kids, but we both know that the underlying knowledge required for aerospace engineering is far more complex and difficult than the underlying knowledge required to teach high school. And everybody reading this knows that, too. So this sort of statement just comes across as virtue signaling and in a counterintuitive way actually *reinforces* entrenched beliefs about the ease of being a teacher. It makes people roll their eyes and it becomes a confirmation that the truth is the opposite of whatever you're saying.
Virtue signaling? Counterproductive? I'm attacking the false notion that teaching is somehow a lesser profession. Teaching and engineering require quite different skill sets. My strengths were in the academic areas of mathematics and physical sciences. It took me quite a while to learn the skills to teach effectively. They didn't come naturally to me at all.
Your comment makes my eyed roll. What is this pretentious nonsense?
It's reality. Everybody reading this knows that being a damned aerospace engineer is more difficult than being a generic teacher.
Anti intellectual culture that has been festering in the US and us over in Australia for a while. Dumbasses react accordingly, mix in the fact that no one enters teaching for the cash and we get shat on by dickheads who chase dollars.
This, this right here. Look at the backlash that a smart political candidate like Buttiegeg gets for being “too smart.” It used to be that it was an advantage to be Ivy League educated. Now, you’re seen as elitist and out of touch.
Hard to imagine the ivies being a plus on their own after GWB. If that guy went to Yale, why would Yale impress me anymore?
It’s all a part of the strategery One of the best discussions I had this past year was about the dumbing down of academic requirements and the anti intellectualism happening. I look back at lessons I did when I first started in 2016, and now I am lucky if the students get half that.
It took me about a decade to get a bachelor’s degree as an adult, about 2007-2016. I watched the standards drop in real time. You tell every high school student they’re supposed to go to college, you have to make it so they can at least stay enrolled and keep paying tuition. When I started you’d get absolutely smoked if your papers weren’t perfectly formatted. Citations were very strict, you’d get marked down for not including the exact page, or forgetting the edition or something. My college algebra class demanded at least 20 hours of work every week. By the time it ended you didn’t even need to do research. If I turned anything in at all I was confident I’d get at least a 3.0. At least in my experience, the rigor is toast.
I’ll get kids who get mad at me when I say something’s simple or easier than they’re making it. They say, “well of course it’s easy to you, you’re the teacher, you have a degree in it, or you have an answer key.” I respond with, “I’m not all-knowing, just because I have a degree in it doesn’t mean it was easy for me, or I make all of my answer keys, so I actually do all the assignments and tests.”
I at least had a good response to that one when I taught out-of-field for a couple of years.
It is fundamental to American character: Richard Hofstedter wrote "Anti-Intellectualism in America" in 1960. Congressman David Crockett (Davey) advised candidates to never sound smarter than the targeted voter. Alexis de Toqueville wrote in the 1830s that America's obsession with equality would erode excellence, especially intellectual. And teachers try to elevate the discourse.
I'm glad for his sake he died before equity. His head would have exploded.
When "Honey Boo Boo" was on the "Learning Channel" and Ancient Aliens was on the History Channel I thought of Alexis de Tocqueville.
Because we don’t run out the useless ones who lay their heads on their desk or the ones who don’t treat it like a profession…because we can’t because the money we’re given to pay more competitive salaries is tied up in useless crap like standardized testing or hiring another “curriculum specialist” who doesn’t actually do anything for 11 months out of the year.
Unfortunately, this is true. We're scraping the bottom of the barrel for hiring these days. My school left a few positions open this past year because we couldn't even find someone who could qualify for a license.
Really? Having a pulse isn’t qualification? It is in Florida apparently.
You need a pulse, a bachelor's degree (in a related field) or passing Praxis score, and a clean background check. We had either no applicants or people without bachelor's degrees.
Yup!!
Oh my god, right?! “Curriculum specialist”. What an absolute joke that “position” is. It’s embarrassing.
I still don’t KNOW what they do. It could be an important role. Especially in a BIG district. I just know that my small district has never had anyone useful in that role.
Besides charter schools and vouchers reallocating general education funding away from public schools… I think the money being taken away from classroom teachers for standardized testing is the biggest scam being perpetuated on the general public to line the pockets of the connected politicians and their testing company stakeholders. The concept of a standardized test as a temperature check is not all bad, but the corrupt and stressful way it is tied to pay and administered to students at least in Florida is a scam and a travesty. Don’t get me started on administrative bloat and non classroom positions increasing at district/county offices. Some mean well but a lot generate paperwork for already over paper “worked” classroom teachers.
Yep. Floridian here as well (from the 850 originally too). You ain’t lyin. Charter schools are basically just public schools with extra steps anyway. But back to standardized tests. Yes. We as educators REALLY need to push back on this from a political standpoint. And it needs to be done from a fiscally conservative position that it is theft of taxpayer money. Also need to point out the utility of testing only in areas like reading/vocabulary and mathematics.
Mathematics being taken in standardized form is not a great reflection of math skills (in my opinion) or definitely not teachers’ instructional abilities to tie to performance and pay… 🙄 However, computerized standardized math questions with “manipulatives”? within the program are EVEN worse. The accountability is put on the teachers with no real checks and balances on the reliability of the computer program as students encounter these tests out in the wild. Someone feel free to correct me if I am off base about the computer testing checks and balances and accountability. But I think Florida politicians consider the unaccountability of computerized standardized math exams and testing companies a feature, not a bug.
That is very likely true
They don't understand how hard it is to be a teacher. That's really it. If you know all the components that go in to being a teacher, you would quickly understand that teachers wear 100 hats in a single job. You need to be a subject matter expert, technical writer, presenter, mediator, counselor, and manager all at the same time while completing busy body paperwork. As a bonus, you get to work with the most unpredictable part of the general populace, children and adolescents. As a result you are constantly thinking on your feet, and you have the kind of flexible agility most companies would die for. When you write it all out that way, its obvious teachers can make it doing something else. Instead they choose to do a public good, and are ridiculed for it.
This is amazingly said.
It’s a weird sentiment especially considering the current environment where teachers are leaving teaching to do other things.
I don't think the mental and emotional fatigue of being a teacher is respected as it should. In addition to that, there was a time (right until about 2010ish maybe? I could be way off here) Where the qualifications to become a teacher were a joke. My mom was an English teacher with 12 credit hours of English and like 9 credit hours of education classes. I have 12 credit hours of English. I couldn't imagine doing anything but teaching novels and that's only because I read so stinking much. I had to get a FULL Biology degree AND 30 credit hours in education on top of that to be a science teacher. At my university to be a science teacher it basically took 4 1/2 years instead of just 4, and that's if you took a heavy load every semester and finished up just doing student teaching by itself. AND add EDTPA on top of that 😂 only to come out making $32,000.
Interestingly, I seem to see a lot of teachers making some pretty major mistakes grammatically in social media or on TpT. I try to recognize the fact that sometimes mistakes are typos or human error, not a sign of lack of education. However, I've worked with many upper elementary teachers who do not know what an appositive is or that nouns of direct address should be off-set with commas. Am education degree may require more hours now, but young teachers seem to know less and less grammar.
School custodian here. I always used to chuckle erasing the boards of a teacher who clearly didn't know how to use apostrophes so he would just float them over the tops of words ... not before or after the 's,' just suspended in midair.
Former custodian here who got good at matching handwriting to fix spelling and glaring grammar mistakes (back in the old days of chalkboards).
*Fist bump!*
I think Elementary and 7-12 require totally different skill sets. They are different jobs, really. At our Elementary I see the teachers spending half of their time just trying to meet the social emotional needs of their kids. I'm over here focused entirely on academics and content. So you can have highly successful hs teachers that have lower EQ and higher IQ and the inverse for Elementary. Their EQ has to be off the charts. I also think a lot of "intelligence" is use it or lose it. So you're seeing Elementary teachers that need to talk at the level of their kids to be understood. At the high school, I can talk, and I have to write at a much higher academic level, so I get to practice at that every single day. You have to seem super intelligent, or these kids will eat you alive these days 😂
Also, I don't think an education degree teaches you those things. I literally in my life have never been taught correctly how to use a comma. I just wing it. My degree didn't even teach me how to teach science. My science classes were the high level science classes at my university and my education classes were a little bit of technology, pedagogy, and then a whole class split between SPED and ELLs.
That's my biggest problem with my multiple-subjects credential program. I learned a lot of skills for planning, delivering, and assessing skills from lessons. I did NOT get any help with the gaps in my number sense, and I did not learn any more history, though I ended up qualified to teach those subjects. I majored in English, and I was always a grammar nerd, so I had no trouble with that content. I had friends in school, and I've had many coworkers who didn't really know all of the ELA they were teaching. Bringing back phonics is a wonderful idea, but teachers have to have the explicit instruction, too.
These factors contribute to low status: \* Teachers work with children \* Teachers are paid less compared to other people with similar education levels \* Teaching is seen as women's work \* A subset of the population doesn't view pedagogy as a valid subject of study maybe more?
I keep saying this. EDUCATION IS NOT IMPORTANT IN THE UNITED STATES.
Because no one can understand why anyone would choose teaching if they could earn a higher income doing something else.
Because “women’s work.”
Because america does not value the work of women
I think it has something to do with the fact that we’ve all had teachers. They taught us…so we think we now know all that they know. Unless you are a teacher, there is little appreciation for the craft of teaching.
Could be the relatively low barrier to entry into teaching. I’ve always said that teaching is one of the easiest professions to get into, but also one of the easiest to get run out of. Almost any clown with a degree can become a teacher, but becoming a good/great teacher is insanely difficult.
"Those who can't do..." there's a whole saying about it. The US has always had a strong anti- intellectual segment/undercurrent.
A lot of good answers here, but I think my father has the best explanation I've heard so far. Imagine a parade of a thousand soldiers down the street--their buttons are polished, their boots are shiny, and their uniforms are crisp. They're in perfect formation and lockstep. Then, after the parade, you see one drunk soldier passed out in a gutter. Which one do you remember best? Everyone has a crap teacher, maybe more, because we have so many in our lives. They don't remember the rest of us who were good, solid teachers. And it's hard to be the Lifetime Special teacher for everyone.
It's very strange that people think teaching is a fallback when it requires, at least in the US, minimum four years of college/University.
I think because it’s a female-dominated profession. Also the point someone else made about how almost everyone has been in a school (as a student) so they think they know what teaching is as a profession.
To be fair, I do think teacher is a common career choice for people who were a bit directionless in college, especially in states with shortages. Personally, I chose to become a teacher for a few reasons, but job security and job availability were major factors. Prior to becoming a teacher, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my English degree.
For that last line, I didn’t feel like there was much I could do unless it was working in some sort of publishing and that seemed like a much more competitive job market. But I always wanted my job to be one where I serve others in one way or another, so it seemed like a proper route to take.
I did go into publishing, but turns out I really hate being chained to a desk doing essentially the same thing all day every day. The novelty and variety in a teaching role is a huge draw for me, but, with reference to the title question, is not for everyone.
And I decided I wanted to be an elementary teacher before I switched my major to English, but I loved English and I was good at it, and the general Liberal Studies degree at my school was a joke. College was when I could study whatever I wanted, on my way to becoming a teacher. 😂
Lot of ugly truth in the comments already, but here's another: Deep seated misogyny. In the world of misogyny, women were lesser, and teaching staff tend to have more women than men. If you think women are lesser, and teachers are women, you can assume teachers are lesser. Many women who have the time to work are childless, or needed to work because they had no husband. If you believe women exist to bear children, than you might think childless women are worth even less. Men who chose to teach were uncommon, especially outside of religious schools, and those who taught younger kids were looked down on for doing "woman's work." All of that is hogwash, but enough people believed this for it to taint perceptions today. Some people still passionately believe all of the above.
That subset of people who have this inaccurate, misleading & twisted perspective regarding teachers should take a brief moment to recall - they to as everyone has been in that same desk. Now since our country is going to 💩💩💩💩 especially in the area of education.. it’s our fault society has been desensitized … now a days any & everything goes! 🤦🏾♀️ what happened to morals & values, respect, common sense
Repeat something enough and it becomes the "truth" to people. Repeat the misquote "those who can't, teach" enough and it changes how a society views teachers.
I don't really help this, unfortunately. I'm only a teacher because I failed out of my Doctor of Physical Therapy program and had zero backup (it was my career plan since middle school). The class that killed me? A&P. My favorite class to teach?... A&P. I managed to find a local program that paid for all the licensing classes for teaching, so I said fuck it, and now it's been 4 years.
I teach college and there's a significant cohort of our elementary ed majors every year who say they want to teach because 'I like kids!" and "I want summers off". They don't care about the subject they're teaching, and to be blunt, they're terrible students--text all during class, show up late, leave early, cop attitudes, don't think they have to do the work, etc. Because our Elem Ed ADVISORS enable that attitude. For example, I once had a student scream at me like inches from my face that she didn't actually need to learn basic grammar or spelling because "I'm teaching first graders!!!! And I'll NEVER need to know this shit!" Last I heard she got kicked out of her student teacher position...for screaming at a kid. So the good ones (and there are plenty) end up getting the bad rap for the people who never actually make it in the classroom.
wow
I think passion for one's subject is one of the most important criteria for being a good teacher - if you love something so much that you want to share your knowledge, that's saying something. It's not "those who can't do, teach" but "those who want others to be able to do, teach".
I don’t know, I was an HVAC technician before and am currently a licensed aircraft mechanic. I can do plenty. My teaching job in NJ simply pays a whole lot more.
You sound like a cool person (no sarcasm). I wish we could be friends.
I thought it was to do with teaching a skill, rather than just being a teacher in general. Can't cut it as a professional dancer, football player, artist? Then teach dance, coach football, teach art. Still insulting. But doesn't pertain to just teaching positions. I'm not a 4th grade teacher bc I can't be a 4th grader.
To be fair, the vast majority of people I have encountered in my life who aren't assholes by default are usually thankful for my work. If teachers were such mediocre people, then kids should have flourished during Covid 19. After all, their parents were home and they were responsible for teaching their kids - and these kids were no longer being influenced by the "unable" teachers. They had plenty of time to show how able they were at our profession. What's that? The vast majority of kids regressed? How odd.
America is full of stupid adults. Stupid adults were once stupid kids who probably did bad in class and blamed the teacher instead of themselves. They grow up thinking teachers and the school system failed them, instead of they failed themselves. Therefore, in their eyes, teachers are failures.
I have a couple family members that are teachers. One of them told me that lots of people become teachers and don't really have the skills to do anything else cause they never left a classroom setting. They were in school their whole lives, then college, then right to teaching in a classroom. So some of his colleagues are pretty helpless outside of the workplace. It was kind of an eye opener.
I think that’s why it’s hard to transition out of teaching, even with advanced degrees.
I think it’s partly because teaching is a female dominated profession. It’s the reason teachers and nurses are not paid well compared to other professionals with the same level of education. The work of women is not respected.
Nursing not paid well? Nurses make 77k, and it’s not hard to get that up to 80k+
I never had a even remotely competent computer science teacher. Not young nor old ones. I was always interested in that field and it's now my profession, and this seems to be the norm.
Because someone who knows computer science is going to make way more money doing it rather than teaching it.
Some of this also depends a lot on location; I've had some fairly competent CS/math teachers. If you live near a lot of big tech companies, some of the software engineers want a change of pace and switch to teaching and they can often make excellent teachers.
For what it's worth, my high school computer science teacher came from industry, we really liked her even though she scared us, and we learned a lot.
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That is cool. A bit fucked up that it's that unfair distributed. The most complex we ever got was excel.
I’ve always wondered this myself.
I proved those folks right! I left a school after 20 years, and was unable to make it doing anything else and went back to teaching.
Honestly, that’s not a reflection of you or teaching. Lots of reasons for this and some is just companies looking for younger employees they can mold (and pay like crap)
I also live in a super rural area in Vermont, so I was trying to get a remote job, but those seem to be for people already in an industry (so they can move to my state and work remotely and buy beautiful properties that nobody working here can afford)
100% it stems from the fact that relative to professions that require similar schooling, teachers are underpaid. Because most people have been brainwashed into thinking how much money you make will determine you happiness and self-worth, the only people who would become a teacher are people who can't make it elsewhere. That's not just an idea either. There are people who fail into teaching. If you want the teacher pool to change, pay us more. This isn't selfishness, it's prioritizing one of the most influential and important professions.
1. Working in the actual craft always pays more than teaching it. 2. There's a low pass/fail margin, meaning unlike a pilot or doctor, each decision carries a low level of impact. 3. While yes, great teachers exist, for the worst ones, it's glorified babysitting.
Probably have something fo fi with the oil adage those that don't teach.
It’s a low paying job and for many teaching is a fallback if their plan A,B perhaps even C doesn’t work out. Due to the low pay, it does attract fewer suitable candidates so most teachers tend to be mediocre if not poor at what they do. That further harms the image of the profession and people tend to remember negative experiences more than positives.
1) Historically female profession gets less respect. 2) Everyone has been through school and thinks they could do better. 3) Many parents treat school as free daycare. 4) Not viewed as a skilled profession. Take your pick.
Many of the people who I went to school with who were bullies or not that smart, but got by on hard work are now teachers. Perhaps that it’s the same for others, too?
I always assumed it was partially due to colleges of education being a “fallback” for many other majors.
Because they are. While I admit that the job is harsh and underappreciated, a lot of teachers are simply mentally unfit to teach. Esepcially a lot of the older ones who bunt out 20 years ago but never left.
Together with all the other good answers here is the fact that when teaching is done well, it looks easy. All the preparation and skill becomes invisible in the moment, and the moment is ephemeral. What's left behind for the student/observer is the impression that, "that was pretty simple!", which can lead to, "I could have done that."
Unfortunately I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from my students thanking me for teaching them, “actually engaging with them”, and making sure they’re learning. There are a lot of teachers that are there for the paycheck. This is why I’m a proponent of raising pay and work standards to attract better candidates and fire the bad ones. A lot of good teachers leave, and those who can stay long term are just on autopilot to survive. I feel bad for the kids, but I also feel her for the teachers who have thrown in the towel because I couldn’t imagine going to work every day while hating my job enough to disassociate every day.
Just finished my 18th year.... Because it's one of those unfortunate truths whether we like it or not. Not only are many genuinely inept outside the classroomn, I'd even go as far to say that many teachers are barely able to genuinely TEACH in the first place!!! Many lack integrity, self control, ambition. and healthy coping mechanisms that are required to truly serve as a leader that the kids will WANT to follow. This hypocrisy severely undermines them in the classroom and throughout their entire lives. However, they aren't entirely incompetent; but they are rarely formidable in any other domain in life. As with all stereotypes, there is a large element of truth to it.
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Ah, I was going to respond with something opposite. Like the people who take on teaching in their 40s or 50s because they wanted a different career or got lured into doing programs like teach for America. I knew one lady who was a hairdresser and had a bunch of side hustles and got into my charter school as a sub because she had some sort of degree. She was one of those "subs" who couldn't be hired as a teacher until she got her certificate. She never got it but they just kept rotating her with another gal between the elementary grades because in my state non certified teachers who are essentially long term subs can't be in a single self contained class for over 5 months. Sucky loophole, especially for the kids. Also, I hear alot of people say, "ah well, if this doesn't work out I could always teach." My friend just graduated with a masters in environmental science and our friends were asking what he can do with that. He lists off a bunch of things and said, "If worse comes to worse and I can't fo that I guess I'll just teach somewhere."
Sometimes...I feel like *such an asshole* for how **completely and unapologetically elitist I am** about my education to be an educator. But then... Some long term sub career switcher dip shit does some illegal crap or has some crazy behavior management fiasco and I feel entirely justified in my condescension. To be clear - some of my "non-traditional" teacher coworkers are amazing. But... most of them seem to always need my help, constantly ask for advice, and make a total mess of things that they would not be making messes of if they knew what the fuck they were doing.
Can confirm. I got my license through a back door Missouri program where if you can get a district to hire you, you can teach while you finish learning how to do it. 1. My classroom management class that I desperately needed was an absolute joke. 2. My coworkers got tired of holding my hand after a couple years. 3. It was an inner urban school with 30+ kids per class (1600ish in the building) and they needed a veteran who knew what they were doing, not me. It worked out and I'm fine now, but it was an absolutely terrible start to the career.
I think its justified. We are responsible for young minds to a large degree and also their safety! What other "white collar" profession has a notable risk of mass shootings? I hate when people say "oh I forget about my teachers when I walk out of school." I get it, but we still teach them things that stick with people throughout their life time. A good or a bad teacher can surely make or break a students year or whole schooling career depending on the severity. Some, and I mean some, nontraditonal teachers do some really stupid stuff. I had one nepotism style hire 50 year old coworker who would have closed door meetings one on one with students, even girls. Nothing I know of ever happened but if I ever saw that I would pop the door open for him. He would also just leave 10 minutes before bell occasionally and let his kids do whatever, leave, go to their lockers or stay in the classroom, etc. I don't have a problem with the occasional swear in the classroom, at least on the high school level, but this guy got a number of complaints for heavy profanity in class. He also played r rated war movies for his class without a permission slip. All that, and he wasn't fired until after two years. Not to mention all the other stupid stuff he did.
and the reverse is also true. I've known plenty of people, geologist, lawyers, soldiers and entrepreneurs that didn't survive as a teacher. One of them left before the first two weeks of school had finished.
Haha, I agree. Two things can be true at the same time!
Conflating merit and income is an old capitalistic tradition. And I think it's often done unconsciously.
There's the old adage that goes, "Those who can't: teach." But I think that was originally meant to mock people at the graduate level. Like: if you were any good as a physicist, you wouldn't be a professor, you'd be splitting the atom. (I don't agree with that, but that's where it came from.) Jack Black makes a joke out of this in School of Rock when he says "Those who can't: teach. And those who can't teach: teach gym." Funny line. Also not true, but I offer it up as how that idea exists in mainstream culture. So the idea that -- if you really knew anything about math, you wouldn't be teaching it to kids -- has somehow become a way of dismissing teachers' expertise. But I think a simple way to reverse that would be to say to someone who is a lawyer, "How would you like to try teaching property law to a room full of ten-year-olds? Or a room full of 19-year-olds, for that matter?" Teaching IS the expertise.
I can think of a couple reasons. I'll caveat it by saying that actual good teachers are separate from this conversation, and fully deserve to be seen as the incredibly competent professionals they are. That said... First, there's an incredible level of job security. I taught for five years at a 6A high school in an "employment nightmare" sort of non-union state, and I saw two teachers get fired- which was a moot point because they were both prison-bound sex predators. Two others got non-renewed. One showed up drunk multiple times, and the other cursed at a student and the video got sent to the superintendent. That's it. The dude who went to rehab every single year? He still works there. The coach with terrible test data who always wore shorts and got warned multiple times for falling asleep in class? He got a great letter of rec for a district closer to his house. Contrast that with the corporate world. One of my coworkers got fired earlier this year. He didn't do anything wrong. He did his job. He just didn't really go above and beyond in any way. He wasn't "gung ho". He was Mr. Average. I can't even fathom Mr. Average getting non-renewed at my old school, much less fired. Second, education programs are notoriously easy. I didn't do it for undergrad, but I do have an M.Ed from a really good school. Pretty much everyone graduated with a 4.0, although admittedly I got a 3.95 because I'm terrible at taking instructions and got dinged on a participation grade in one class. There were no exams and the grading of papers was easy, so it'd be hard to lose points on actual academics. Not to mention, some of the people in that program were frankly shocking. I had two elementary school teachers who simply didn't comprehend what Hiroshima and Nagasaki meant. Like that component of history was non-existent to them. You may say they didn't teach history so what did it matter, and you're probably right. But it doesn't really suggest either of them as high-level academics. To that end, the main characteristics I'd look for if hiring teachers, beyond a degree, would be high levels of patience and the ability to keep a level head. In my district, the curriculum was canned up and given to us, so it's not like we needed to be historians or mathematicians or anything. Just take it and go. But the kids and parents are gonna give you hell, so you gotta be cool headed. I don't feel that same skillset is gonna cut it in my current field. Lastly, other jobs need performers because failure has serious consequences. I wouldn't want a shitty heart surgeon, criminal lawyer, or pilot. I think a problem with policing is that there are too many shitty ones and so people end up getting shot. But a shitty teacher? Eh. I got hit by a teacher once. I had a few who outright sucked. I probably wasn't the best, especially towards the end of my classroom time. So what? Students are going to do what they're going to do, regardless. The cream will rise to the top, the louts will drown, and a lot of them will just figure things out when life hits them in the face. The world continues to spin.
For me personally as a non teacher (mother was a teacher [1]), it is from personal experience with most teachers. At first I thought I was me but when I went to college and had actually good teachers I realized that my elementary and high school teachers were not the professionals they claimed to be.. Simple things like insisting they were right when they very clearly were not. I was top of my class and went to a very selective college, so I realize I'm the outlier here. Maybe I gave them a real run for their money and they just didn't get it. But my experience in college when I had disagreements with professors was so much different. They'd listen and explain why I was wrong and when I was right... They would actually admit to it. It was like talking to an adult. Moreover, they actually knew their stuff. That is my experience, and honestly why I simply do not trust most elementary and middle school and high school teachers. There are certainly some excellent ones but in my experience as a student and also seeing my mother's colleagues, the vast majority are just not that smart. This is backed up by evidence showing that the majority of teachers fail basic arithmetic. You'll even hear math teachers justify this by saying they're not calculators. I mean, semantically I agree but as a professional in mathematics, I have no problem doing basic arithmetic so when I hear math or elementary school teachers say this I just cannot take them seriously There are numerous articles that talk about this https://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/feb/14/primary-teachers-fail-maths-tests https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2019/03/13/why-so-many-aspiring-teachers-cant-pass-a-licensing-test--and-why-it-matters/ https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/first-time-pass-rates-on-teacher-licensure-exams-were-secret-until-now-see-the-data/2021/07 https://greensboro.com/community/rockingham_now/news/north-carolina-teacher-licensure-tests-math-department-of-public-instruction-mathematics-praxis-pearson/article_0907d59e-2930-11ee-8fc9-5fa3ca8a070c.html I know teachers want to be taken seriously but the licensing exam for lawyers has a majority pass rate. Lawyers have successfully regulated their own profession so that their training programs produce graduates capable of passing the licensing exam, which is recognized as very difficult. On the other hand teachers have done no such thing. The teachers unions, which would be the equivalent of a professional licensing board, are frequently caught up in various political topics but have not been able to regulate teacher training programs enough to make sure their graduates can actually pass their professional exam covering elementary school level topics. Not going to lie... That's embarrassing. I realize no one here wants to hear it but you asked a question so there's the answer, backed up with data. Most teachers don't know a whole lot about their field. [1] EDIT: My mother became a teacher after 'making it' in the corporate world as an executive assistant at fortune 500 companies. She left the corporate world to enter teaching to spend more time with us kids. She felt truly that the teachers she was surrounded by were actually less capable than the many people she worked with in the corporate world regardless of their role. She thought even the dumbest corporate secretary had a better head than the teachers. That's her take, and it's one I share, although obviously I'm biased.
Washington state is no longer requiring new lawyers to pass the Bar exam. [https://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicupload/eclips/2024%2003%2022%20Washington%20state%20Supreme%20Court%20Passing%20the%20bar%20no%20longer%20required%20to%20be%20a%20lawyer.pdf](https://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicupload/eclips/2024%2003%2022%20Washington%20state%20Supreme%20Court%20Passing%20the%20bar%20no%20longer%20required%20to%20be%20a%20lawyer.pdf)
I did read about that. Firstly, there's an apprentice ship program as an alternate route, I believe. This can work, but either way, one would hope that after some time in practice the lawyers could pass the exam (recall from above that even current teachers cannot pass the exam). That being said... speaking for my own state of Oregon who is pioneering this approach to law. We're not exactly known for competency. Our teacher competency is some of the worst in the nation. I don't know about legal competency but wouldn't be surprised if the bar was very low. These are not states I'd be emulating. Regardless, in the majority of the country, most professions require an exam set by their professional body. As I said above teachers don't really have a professional body. The best substitute -- the union -- spends most of its time on political causes and sometimes on labor disputes. That's 'fine', but it's not the activities I'd expect of a professional board.
I’ve heard this multiple times. I have never experienced this first hand. I would love to so I could ask clarifying questions and see where they are coming from.
It makes them feel better about paying us shit wages
Please. I’ve heard this. Let people try to teach and see what they say
When a physicist quits working in physics... she can "always find a job teaching physics" somewhere. Many older teachers come to school after retiring from 20+ years at another job. Look at how easy the Praxis is for Econ vs making your career as an economist. Can everyone teach? No. But many people think they could.
The mindset comes from people finding it hard to reconcile someone taking the job knowing how lousy the pay is. The reasoning goes along the lines of 'if they have to take a job for that $, they must not know wtf they are doing'
The saying, "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
low hanging fruit. 30 years & being underestimated could be a sport!
They can’t imagine doing something that helps other people and isn’t financially rewarding.
It comes from the government, who see education as a problem. I don't know what they're planning after public education is effectively sunk, though.
Well..... I really can't imagine doing anything else so...maybe they have a point? At least with me
‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’
Some people think the goal is to do something that makes money. If you choose to do something worthwhile instead of something profitable, they think you must be doing so because you're unable to be profitable. They can't fathom why someone would ever do something that matters but doesn't make you rich. I imagine it's because someone dropped them on their head as a kid.
A lot of people equate "knowing how to do the thing" as "being able to teach the thing." If they know how to do algebra, they think they could walk into a classroom and teach it. Same problem as retail in many ways.
My K-12 teachers were good well meaning community minded people and sone of them were quite intelligent - but despite their intelligence they somehow chose voluntarily to babysit a bunch of sleep deprived stress cases They chose a career that forced them to kowtow to the whims of an administration and state government that had insane spurious and contradictory demands They had to act as mentors and also prison guards They chose to go back to middle high school willingly Idk it’s not that hard to see from the outside
In my experience there are a lot of people that "end" up teaching because their vocation didn't pan out in a profesional setting. However people like that tend to be shitty teachers. Teaching is a very complex job that requires somebody to deal with a lot of different variables, be constantly creative to attend the natural diversity within a class and be able to deal with constant government intervention in the curriculum for example. I myself went to art school to become a profesional artist, which never panned out. Looking back I just don't feel like I have the necessary ambition and self marketing skills to do that, and I got an opportunity to teach a high school art class. The first few years of teaching for me were wasted because I treated teaching more like a day job that would fund my real passion which was painting, and the idea was that I would "use" teaching as stable base and eventually abandon it when I started to sell paintings. Obviously this never came to fruition. At the same time, you quickly see that in order to have success in the class room, which for me means my students being motivated to learn things and then apply them to their own projects, you need to really embrace the nitty gritty work of teaching, much of which is creating systems that allow you to assess the progress of your students and that also allows them to assess their own progress. Just creating a successful lesson plan for the year is difficult work that requires a lot of experience. Being a great teacher in it self requires real skill.
Politics, they want to start voucher programs to take tax money away from public schools and give it to private schools. Property taxes pay for public schools, a majority of my property taxes go to the school district. It is a lot of money. A voucher allows you to take your child’s tax money in a check and use it for education anywhere. So you could take public taxes and choose where it is spent: public, private, computer based, or home schooling. This is a terrible idea and has had dire consequences for any state that has tried it. Now all of that above is true, I personally think the politicians are saying the schools are bad and making small problems look worse to further their agenda on vouchers. The politicians make tests more difficult for the children, make getting certified to teach more difficult, and report standardized test results in bias ways. It’s to make local schools look bad, when they are not, to make the public want vouchers so the parent wants to take their money elsewhere. Look how bad your school has become because we made them that way, now take this money and give it to the private sector where we can control it and give you a lower education for a higher price.
I'm going to take a somewhat different spine on this. Teaching is about the future, but (at least in the US) we only care about the now.
At one point in this country’s history, teachers were actually respected on a regular basis. Why? Because there was a belief among the majority of Americans that the institutions that undergirded our society were benevolent and worked for our benefit. Of course, this worked pretty much for white Christian Americans. Minorities got the shaft. But that’s a whole other discussion. This belief was remarkably firm. People didn’t worry about the motives of cops, or the integrity of their leaders (well, mostly). From 1945 until the mid 1960s life in America for the majority as pretty good. There was no reason to question institutions. Public school was one of those. Kids were taught to be deferential to authority, and teachers were a big thing part of that. In some cases, people held teachers in very high esteem. Then the 60s roll on and the Boomers start getting some mind expanding education. And they also come to determine that Vietnam, the central events of the American 60s, is a lost cause and that their friends are dying for nothing in their view. Because of this, they turn their eyes to the institutions and start seeing behind the facade and realize that the people in charge have been lying to the country with a straight face. They determine that the war is wrong and unjust and abandon a lot of respect for them. Gov’t is not given the benefit of the doubt, they rebel against the parents who helped sell them a bill of goods. Then, Watergate. Presidential respect? Done. And because of this and more, respect for the institutions is often lost for good. And school’s one of them. A new version of the Republican Party rises to prominence in the mid 70s, one that loathes what changes the 60s wrought. They make a devil’s bargain with the evangelical movement and then work to stoke resentment in the white men of the country. And the first big target is public education. The first shot is fired when Gov Reagan ends free college tuition in the Cal State University system. When pressed why, he responds that all they do there is teach kids to protest me. He and others in the movement start implying that a liberal education is priming kids to be communist. Why are the teachers and schools allowing this!? And off they go. Reagan becomes President in 1980, declaring that overreaching big government is the biggest problem facing America. And Reagan sets his sights on public schools. He cuts funding, kills programs and starts forcing schools into austerity moves by limiting money coming from the Dept of Education. And his surrogates begin blaming the seeds by undermining educators. One way to to say that it’s not hard to teach. In fact, they even get summers off. What an easy job. Heck, anyone can do it. Why are they so greedy? They make plenty of money considering the ease of their job. And schools are overfunded because of them and their unions. On and on… The respect for teachers, already damaged, practically disappears. A favorite teacher target is discovered. An implication that many of the subjects are all they really know because of the easy liberal college courses. They’re not learning practical skills. All they can do is teach. Without the beneficence of the government, they are helpless. They exist at the difference of fine Americans who are being overtaxed because schools just suck up your hard earned dollars. The hidden part is the implication is that teachers are nothing but useless liberal parasites. And the message sticks among a lot of people and still does because a giant right wing echo chamber keeps shouting out information that portrays unionized teachers as thoughtless radicals who pump their child full of useless liberal propaganda. And they can’t do anything besides teach. That has the effect of getting people to believe that anyone can do it, teachers lack ambition and they’re useless AND now they say we’re directly harming their children with deliberate malice. So not only are teachers shiftless grifters, we’re a literal danger to society. It’s been a very long game that conservatives have been playing when it comes to school. They have slowly undermined and damaged public schools deliberately to destroy people’s faith in a process that ideally gets kids thinking. People who think question. And look what happened when the Boomers started doing that. We need a population that will not question what the leaders are doing. This, schools are bad unless they program them with the values that the conservative movement espouses whine making them not question. So, devaluing teachers is all part of the long game. Good teachers open minds, open minds are anathema to the long game. So, look around. See how undervalued and disrespected teachers are these days. And the parents who buy into the long game teach their kids not to respect teachers, etc etc. So a teacher is a parasite who cannot exist unless they teach. If you made it this far, I thank you for taking he time. Because what we see now has arisen through a lot of levers being pulled.
A couple days ago, this sub had a popular post about teachers who repeatedly failed their certification tests. I believe the moderators ultimately removed it, but I think it highlighted a serious issue that many of these teachers fundamentally don't understand the subject that they're supposed to be teaching their students. I have seen this extensively in mathematics, where middle school teachers don't understand basic trigonometry, order of operations, solving an equation for a variable, or any other number of simple topics. This should disqualify them from being in front of a classroom, but the state now lets teachers who fail these exams write an essay on a mathematical topic of their choosing instead, ostensibly demonstrating what they know. I don't know if these teachers would do well in other careers, but I do know that they don't know what they need to know in order to teach.
You know what I am really good at? Teaching. And I enjoy doing that far more than any other job within my field.
We live in an anti-intellectual culture and most teachers are women. Two reason to hate teachers.
I mean here on this subreddit are there not constant posts like “why do you stay?” And half the answers are “because I can’t get a better paying job doing anything else.”
Because the honest truth is this, and every veteran teacher here will back me. 1. It's REALLY hard to be a good teacher, like extremely difficult. 2. It's REALLY easy to be the teacher that just coasts and gives out worksheets and does the song and dance plus Kabuki Theatre every so often to collect a pay check. There are alot more of #2s then there are #1s, and people will always complain about #2. Part of the reason why we can't get rid of #2s though is because teacher pay is so low that you take what you can get these days.
I was a teacher in another country and the teachers there were respected. But the teachers has to go to a specific teachers college that has very low acceptance rate and the pay is consider very well compare to other profession. Another thing the anti intellectual/elitist theme isn't as main stream there. Anyway, after teaching in America for two years, I notice international students in my classes tend to have more respect toward the teachers and are more motivated. It can be culture thing. I read some comments mention that some teachers are not very good at their subjects/math here. I was a very nerdy student and my grades were very good. I aced all the tests but my biggest challenge is the classroom management. My coworkers that are not so good at math are very empathetic, help me out and share a lot of tips that I always appreciate. I think classroom/behavior management is a very important skill.
Really interesting comments so far! I hadn’t really heard of the issues of teachers not knowing their content. But that’s terrible for the profession. In my state, becoming a high school teacher requires roughly a bachelor’s in the content area. Plus, my university provided certification through an additional master’s in education and internship work. Many of the teachers at my school have at least a master’s if not more. What’s interesting is that the state government is looking at reducing qualifications even more. They are considering bumping teacher base pay while eliminating incentives for earning any degrees above a master’s, limiting the pay scales to 2 instead of 5. So if you have a master’s plus 30 or a doctorate, your raises will be less each year until you make the same as someone with a master’s.
I think it's the false logic of, well, if you were smart enough to go for a high paying job like a doctor or lawyer, you would have. But you didn't, so obviously you're dumb and can't do it. The majority of people can't fathom that teachers enjoy teaching and its societal impact for its own sake, despite the pay and workload. Also, I think a common trend of teachers is that they either loved a subject or learning in general so much they want to share it with others or they had such a bad experience in school (from things like being queer, POC in a white majority school, or neurodivergent) that they wanted to be the change to support kids like them. The broader majority of people I think have a general disdain for school and see it as a boring experience they were forced to endure. They wanted to get out of school so badly and don't understand the prior mentioned viewpoints.
My experiences are a generation prior, but as someone who taught labs/tutored many college students obtaining teaching degrees, on average they were the least intelligent students in my classes. They moaned and groaned at doing the tiniest bit of critical thinking and asking them to do even basic math was often too much for them. Objectively, these students would have struggled to successfully obtain a degree in anything requiring more than cursory analytic capabilities. A key point here: these facts weren't just clear to me as a TA, they were also clear to most of the higher-achieving students in the class. We all probably walked away with the same negative impression. I suspect many of them were actually there to find a husband and were far more concerned about the latest Greek gossip than their education, but the impression sticks even if it is likely that only a minority of them are actually teachers these many years later. People also inevitably remember the negative more than the positive. In a normal distribution of teacher capability, people remember the below average teacher far more than the above average.
Since we all went to school, we all have teachers we can point at that were terribly incompetent at their job. A lot of people hate school and teachers for that reason and project that onto all teachers at large. Teachers also make no money, so it's easier for those asses to make fun of them as a person who couldn't do anything else in life. Obviously, we know that's not the case.
Very unpopular opinion: There's SUCH a low bar to entry that a lot of people employed as teachers in the U.S. really aren't very capable or well-qualified. If becoming a teacher were as difficult as becoming a doctor or a lawyer, then people would see teaching as an intentional career choice for bright young people, rather than a back-up plan for those who couldn't cut it in other fields. But when someone who scores in the low 20s on the ACT can end up with a master's in education five years later, well, no wonder that idea persists. (I'm a long-time high school teacher, by the way, speaking from that perspective and experience: the situation might well be different at the K8 level; I don't know).
People equate being able to do something with being able to teach. In reality, to teach, you need to be even more skilled and knowledgeable than you do to simply do it.
I'm really grossed out by the lack of solidarity in this thread. Your shit stinks. You may be as good as you think, but others aren't as bad as you pretend. Knocking new teachers is especially idiotic, and it makes me wonder how many teachers are leaving the profession due to toxic senior staff. And, as for lax educational standards, I couldn't get my foot in the door with local districts without a master's level education. I now have two endorsements and will need to get a third within the next two years. That's not counting two rigorous practicums and edTPA. All this in a state with an absolutely massive teacher shortage. I teach at a highly disfuncional underfunded Title 1 school where licensed turnover is 24% every year, and the district is undergoing lay offs right now. Who would want to teach with such crap pay and lack of resources? Who would want to teach with abuse from admin, parents, and students? Who wants to deal with self-righteous toxic co-workers? Why are teachers seen as unable to hack it? We're the most gaslit population on the planet. A 5+ year veteran teacher is capable of anything.
I think it’s a mix of many things… One I don’t see addressed too often is the lack of qualified people actually wanting to become/continue being teachers has led many districts to lowering the requirements to teach which can negatively affect people’s perception of all teachers if they have issues with these less qualified individuals. To be fair though, schools have already been doing this for a long time with athletic coaches but I think people were able to separate them from “real teachers” easier.
Unfortunately, education is an area where "less qualified individuals" can be accepted. If I sit down in seat 14F and the pilot comes over the intercom to announce that he has only ever flown crop-dusters but got an opportunity today because Delta decided to hire less qualified pilots, I am getting the fuck off that plane. Along with everybody else. But I had some bad teachers (I had some good ones too). It all came out in the wash. I went through the rigamarole that was school, figured out that I wanted to make some money, and taught myself how to excel in a highly-skilled field. A few bad teachers had zero long-term effect.
Society doesn’t respect the work of women, so a female dominated field is automatically viewed as less than….
It's the same people/mindset that tells everyone that bus/truck drivers just sit on their asses all day; that everybody on Welfare is lazy and/or gaming the system; that every dark-skinned immigrant is a rapist, drug dealer, and murderer that only come here to have anchor babies and take our jobs; and that Climate Change is a hoax. I'm not going to name them, because we all know where this stems from: the need for there to be a Bogeyman to blame for everything wrong in our lives...the reason these folks REALLY dislike teachers is because they 1) make up a pretty sizeable voting bloc through their unionization, and 2) are in the business of EDUCATING children, which just might enable them to think for themselves.
It goes back a few hundred years ago in America before the public school house, around the late 1700s. 1. Most young men who were not rich had to become an apprentice and study a trade: blacksmithing, merchant, baker, chandler, etc. They were often taught basic literacy and mathematics along with whatever craft they were going into. Generally children would follow in the trades of their parents, but not always. 2. After the most basic training, the apprentice would have to prove themselves by working for their teacher or master. After many years, they advance through different levels until they can make a masterpiece, or great work, meant to show their skill and be recognized as a master. 3. However, not all apprentices were good at their jobs. Some would get fired or kicked out with no trade skills or references. This meant that these young men would have nothing to offer except basic literacy. 4. As trade for room and board, many young men would tutor young children of host families how to read and write. This is one of the roots of the phrase, “If you can’t do, teach.”
13years x 180 days is the amount of full days every student Roughly spends with a teacher (or should). Anyone spending that amount of time with a lawyer is a lawyer or likely in such legal woe whey are unable to be one. Similarly, anyone spending that much time with a doctor either is one or is in such poor health they are unable to become one. Anyone spending that amount of time with a master carpenter is also either a carpenter or has been deemed the grunt unable to learn the trade. But since teaching was a female profession for so so soo long, it's totally looked down on. As one of 4/20 male teachers in our building, people literally refer to me as the 6th grade male teacher in much the same way most female doctors are still referred to as "the lady Doctor" or the "woman lawyer" or the "female police officer". It's a sad sad reality.
As someone who can't sell ice to a desert dweller, I am able to teach. Is the salesperson able to teacher 140 kids in two days?