Low Pay for Teachers is an Example of ‘Biblical Principles’

How incredibly stupid, and wrong.

Around here, and most places I suspect, you can hardly find any qualified teachers in tech, science and math.  They exist, but few with that training and background are willing to take the lower pay.  I’ve considered it myself, and I’d truly enjoy it, and I’ve been told I’d be good, but I can do a lot better financially in manufacturing as an engineer.

So you’re left with the ones who are truly dedicated to teaching despite the pay (so far so good), and those who aren’t competent enough in tech/sci/math to work in industry.

And from what I’ve seen of Hemant’s presentations, he’s one of the good ones, who truly understands and does it because he cares.

I think that’s called exploitation.  It’s not the worst kind or degree of exploitation, but cutting their pay in the assumption that the good ones will stay is foolhardy.  I’ve never heard of anyone saying offering less money will net you those with the best skills.

However, I’d love to apply that to politicians.  Really, any pay cut they recommend should include cutting their own pay at the same proportion.

PPS In case it wasn’t clear, I DO think teachers should be paid more and politicians should be paid less. IMO

“To go in and raise someone’s child for eight hours a day, or many people’s children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn’t want to do it, OK?”

I believe that quote continues: “I mean, have you seen what they get paid?”
But seriously, there are going to be problems in applying a 2000-3000 year old text to modern life, but this isn’t even that kind of problem: the Bible says nothing about how much teachers should or shouldn’t be paid, not even the most obscure or tendentious way.  McGill is just making shit up.

Shorter vision – “We ain’t need none education.  If God means us to understand, he just gonna tell it to us from the mountain.”  

Hey, I’ll stand behind that statement about politicians. Let’s pay them about the same as court clerks. Why should members of the Congress be paid that much more?

How about the same for preachers, CEOs, journalists, principles, lobbyists, and superintendents. Would they not want them to be truly called? How do we know that Rick Warren, Pat Robertson, Tom Friedman, Dick Gephart, and Bill Gates are truly called?

In Ancient Hebrew, the word for “camel” is very similar to the word for “rope”.  Hence the confusing reference to a great big beast of burden, well known in those parts. 

“Let me just clear something up for you, Senator Shadrack –- you are confusing your teachers with your babysitters, and they are two very different things.”

Yes, but they both help you raise your kids. Anyone who spends more time with my children than I do is helping raise my children. Elementary students spend up to 8 hours a day with their teachers, frequently leaving home before 7, and arriving home after 6 (if their parents work). Then, they may have extra-curricular activities that take them away from their parents even more. Yes. The teachers *are* raising these children. Even the courts have said that schools (so not just the teachers, but schools) stand in loco parentis.

That just means they need a raise, though. Why would you pay someone who is raising your children for you such a piddling amount? We want the best for such an important task. Too bad the people in this country who are standing in loco parentis are paid so little, be they babysitters, nannies, daycare providers, or teachers.

I disagree. Teachers can in no way, shape, or form replace good parents, regardless of the time they spend with them each day. When teachers are asked to “raise” kids, it  piles on additional responsibilities of mentor and sometimes even psychologist.

Sure, teachers can have an insane impact on a student’s life and well-being – especially a teacher that cares deeply on top of being pedagogically sound. But the bad teachers don’t “scar” you for life in the same way that having abusive or neglectful parents do; they’re simply forgotten a few years down the line.

I’m a prospective HS English teacher, and while I haven’t been hired yet, I spend my time now honing my craft – reading journals, books about teaching, volunteering in the classroom, talking to other teachers. When I get a job, I want to be really fantastic at teaching. When I become a mom, I want to be a really fantastic parent. But not really both at the same time.

Bad teaching =/= abuse. 

Not the same thing, and I hardly think that teachers have as much ability to physically abuse, neglect, or emotionally abuse a child as much as a parent or priest (of course it happens, and I would say that emotional abuse would probably be most rampant in a classroom, but you can’t argue with the fact that priests and parents have the potential for a LOT more alone time, and thus potential for a lot more abuse, than teachers).

It is NOT in the job description of any teacher to “educate students in life”. You don’t spend time in university learning and discussing how to be a parent to your students; you learn and discuss content and pedagogy (although I’m sure that the emphasis on moral development would be greater in a K-5 classrooms). 

Of COURSE I’ll be delivering ideas about ethics, morality, politics, interpersonal relations, gender, race, sexuality…on and on. But I’ll be doing that through whatever medium I’m teaching – literature, communication, or writing. 

The insistence that teachers are life coaches, mentors, and parental stand-ins puts extra pressure on teachers to submit to non-educational standards. There are wildly differing opinions as to how teachers should address “life” or “life skills”, and many of them come dangerously close to educational models that see students as vessels to be filled – that teachers should “fill” the students with positive ideas about citizenship and morality, when there is no strong consensus on how to do that.

My future students are going to get challenged every day in the classroom. They will have to leave their preconceptions at the door; they will have to contend with moral grey areas, difficult emotional issues, and debates that don’t have a clear “right and wrong”. But they are going to fight through these issues through the construct of writing and literature; their moral development is secondary to their ability to read, write, communicate, and think critically, and you can’t expect me to make that a priority. 

My hope is that being an effective teacher will force them to think critically about the world around them, thus ensuring their moral development, but having a moral or ethical end-goal is NOWHERE in a teacher’s job description.