Today I’m taking on people who complain about teachers. If you’re a teacher, you know exactly what I mean. I’m talking about the people who complain that teachers are paid too much, don’t work enough hours, or aren’t doing their jobs “right.” A parallel category is the people who like to say things like, “It’s easy, I could do it.”
My husband is a teacher. We have found that the vast majority of people who complain, especially about the salary, are people who have an annual family income greater than ours. Now, I am not complaining. We are very comfortable and content. We live well within our means and we don’t have to struggle to keep up. But it does make me wonder why anyone would think it appropriate to whine about what we have when they clearly have, materially, much more.
I don’t have any compelling logical arguments to make that will change anyone’s opinion. I think the reality is that the majority of teacher-haters probably have no idea what it’s really like to be a teacher. So I’m going to propose that anyone who feels compelled to complain take the following steps:
1. Trade salary and benefits with a teacher. (This was my husband’s idea.)
2. Go teach for a year in one of these locations: the inner city, northeastern U.S.; rural Appalachia; among the Native Americans in Alaska. It might be a good idea to try out all three. Although there are other rough areas to teach, those present some of the most challenging because of poverty and cultural differences.
3. Spend a year teaching in a wealthy suburb. Deal with parents who believe their child deserves special treatment, students who don’t do their homework, and pressure to have the kids perform to a certain level on state testing.
4. Teach at a state college or university for a year. You will probably still have to deal with some of the same parents as in step 3, along with managing the pressures of having to publish original material. Some colleges also expect you to perform some type of community service or service to campus life.
5. Answer these questions and report back: Was it as easy as you thought? How did your salary and benefits compare to what you expected? Would you ever do it again?
I know that some people will be thinking that teaching is a “calling” and as such, should not necessarily be rewarded any more than a missionary or a pastor. But if you’re in a job you really enjoy and are good at doing, isn’t that the same thing? The difference here is that I don’t spend my life complaining that my non-teacher friends make too much money or don’t do their jobs well enough. All I’m asking, really, is for the same respect.
I’m so glad I’m not a teacher.
Also… Florida’s public schools suck. Majorly. We’re churning out uneducated morons. Yay Florida!
*anymore
I’m so glad I’m not a teacher ANYMORE.
Heh, I did want to be a teacher. I let myself get talked out of it before I even went to college. I regret that in some ways, but I doubt I could deal with all the crap. But at least I know that.
Amy,
I know your post is over two years old, and perhaps whatever prompted you to post it in the first place has long since stopped causing you frustration, but I did want to point out the flip side which does not seem to get nearly the same air time.
Yes, there are teacher-haters. I have some within my own family. I spent many hours defending teachers to other parents and relatives. I was a product of public education and loved my schools and my teachers.
When my daughter entered kindergarten, however, up until the end of 2nd grade, I began to have a slow and disturbing awakening to the fact that some of the complaints I had been defending against were actually valid.
I still respect teachers, and especially those that have a gift and a heart for teaching, but I also know that the system, in many areas of the country, is broken. Teachers, for better or worse, are part of that system.
If you do not live in an urban area where there are actual “choices”, school leaders (including teachers) can be very cavalier and condescending when it comes to parents’ concerns. They also can be very snarky about parents (kind of the same attitude you dislike in parents regarding teachers). I read a recent article about parents written by Ron Clark that made me sad and mad at the same time.
I think parents and teachers are both frustrated and are, metaphorically, “kicking the dog” because they feel powerless. Trust me, it gave me no pleasure while my daughter was in PS to find fault with teachers or curriculum. In fact, it made me sick. You risk a lot as a parent being the squeaky wheel in public school. Being outside the system now (I am homeschooling) allows more freedom to be honest. I truly believe honesty is the only way things will change for the better.
As to salary of teachers, I live in Michigan. Michigan teachers are paid well and have excellent benefits. I would gladly change places with a teacher for a year or two if they would be willing to be self-employed like me. I think it would be an eye-opening experience for the both of us.
And this is totally off the topic at hand, but I was reading one of your posts about how your son is very active and has a hard time sitting still in the classroom setting that requires long stretches of doing so. Our school district (and many others that my friends have children in) use the project based learning models and the Daily 5 type classroom management style that is filled with movement, kinetic energy and opportunities for an active child to work out the wiggles. I didn’t much like it (actually, not at all). For kids who require time to get focused and are distracted by the slightest movement, it is not necessarily the best learning environment.
And this kind of brings me to what I am just now starting to discover through reading blogs about the ensuing education wars: Education is different right now from state-to-state, region-to-region, and district-to-district, but we all talk about it as if it is homongenous. It makes it really hard to communicate on any meaningful level. I almost think we should start every education conversation with, “Hi, my name is ______ and my school district uses the x,y,z curriculum and teaching philosophy.” 🙂
Teachers where we live are among the highest paid in the country, and it was still a huge sacrifice to live on a single teacher’s salary. We might be operating on different definitions of “well-paid.”
I think you may have missed my point, actually. I re-read what I wrote, and this was not directed at parents who genuinely have concerns about what’s happening in their local schools. This was mostly regarding people who complain that the job is too easy and pays too much. I honestly doubt that most people would actually be able to trade places with a teacher for an entire school year. I also think a big difference is that my husband, his coworkers, and our teacher friends do not sit around complaining about other people’s jobs and how easy they have it, yet they have to hear constantly about their jobs. I’m sure that being self-employed is not easy, but I didn’t post on Facebook or Twitter anything at all about how lucky self-employed people are–yet a lot of people feel free to write all kinds of horrible things about teachers on public forums.
Amy,
I hear what you are saying. And I wasn’t trying to be confrontational. I have, indeed, heard all of the things said about teachers that you mentioned (for which I have defended them). But I have also heard teachers talk down about parents. And there are lots of teacher blogs (not so much facebook because it is hard to be anonymous there) where that is done in the snarkiest most hateful tone imaginable.
In fact, I have been very taken aback at the level of disdain for parents on many blog sites. And after I read Ron Clark’s article, I went looking for articles, blogs, posts of parents ripping apart teachers, and I could not find them. But I found plenty of them picking apart parents and accusing parents of picking apart teachers. Most of what you read that is negative about teachers is to be found in comments to articles, etc.
Again, I totally respect teachers and I never have begrudged them their salaries. With your husband being a teacher, I am sure you are very sensitve to negative comments about teachers just as I, a parent who saw things that disturbed me in PS, am sensitive to negative comments about parents. My bigger point is that I think this sometimes gets presented as a one-sided issue.