Insanity

What does a teacher do?

• Educator: teaches our kids reading, writing, arithmetic, history, sociology, sciences, arts. They also teach socialization skills.
• Babysitter: these kids are out of their parents hair and not roaming the streets being hooligans while at school.
• Role model: many kids don't know what they want to do with their lives until that one teacher sparks a response and gets them interested in doing something.
• Mentor: many kids have strained relationships with their parents. Oftentimes, a good teacher can serve the role as mentor, confidante, and parental figure.
• Lawyer and Law enforcement officer: kids often have behavioral and other socialization skills when they arrive at school. Teachers must educate these kids as to right and wrong, moral implications, and, often, the actual law.
• Health inspector: teachers are often the first to notice things like malnutrition, child abuse, mental and physical abnormalities, and other problems that children may have or develop. And, with little specific education in all of these areas, they are still required by law to report them to the school and possibly to the proper authorities.
• Public speaker: teachers must spend an hour per class, for 4 to 6 classes per day and for 20 to 50 students per class speaking to the public, dealing with the disruptions from those children with bad manners or behavioral issues, and conversing on a wide range of topics. Just as a comment-- the number one biggest fear in America is public speaking. It ranks higher than death and severe illness as a fear/phobia.

And, of course, the most important aspect of all of these responsibilities is the fact that our teachers are creating the leaders (business and political) of the future. They mold the future adult workforce in general. And the people who will have control of you when you no longer are able to take care of yourself due to illness, old age, or mental frailty.

 

I am probably forgetting some of the other tasks that many teachers wind up performing for the community. In addition to these varied tasks, the  teacher generally has to work 5-7 hours actually on the school site or in the classroom and typically spends at least 3-4 hours each night outside of the classroom in preparation, grading, and other activities to challenge and excite the children. The average teacher I know sees between 120 and 200 students per day in 4 to six classes (Junior High and High School).

 

A lot of people then argue that a teacher "gets 2 months off every year" as compensation for all of this. However, those people tend not to realize that teachers also don't get paid for that time off. Most people don't understand how valuable those 2-4 weeks of paid vacation are in the overall workforce. Teachers get sick time, which they are generally encourage not to use, and are only paid 10 months out of any year. Or, they can opt to get paid all 12 months, but at the same salary (so each individual paycheck is significantly less, but they get paychecks during those two months they are without work).

 

All of these comments are to set up this link:

 

NEA Average Teacher Salary Comparison

 

It has taken my mom 30 years and continuing education to reach the full end of the pay scale, and she is still beat on this chart by quite a few jobs that, frankly, do less in a day than she is forced to deal with as a teacher. I am not saying that these other jobs are less important and should be paid less than the average starting teacher salary. I'm saying that what a teacher does is, in my estimation, the most important job in the world. They take care of, educate, socialize, and (de facto) raise our children for us from the age of 5 to 18. Yet they get paid less than many jobs that we all can't help but consider fairly low-pay.

 

Think about this for a minute: the average salary in the NBA is around $4.2 million a year (the most recent official stats I could find, for 2001-2002 year ). That same amount of money could pay 140 teacher salaries at the average of around $30,000 a year per this NEA article. Which is more important-- a guy able to dunk a basketball or 140 teachers educating and raising our children?

 

It is insanity that we pay our teachers such a low starting wage and make it so difficult for them to get pay increases. It is no wonder that so many teachers leave the profession after 3-5 years, as the volume of work, lack of pay, and severe lack of respect from the children and parents takes its toll.

 

We need to do whatever it takes to lure the best and brightest to the teaching profession. One of the primary ways we can do this is to pour the money that deserves to be there into the profession. We should thank our teachers properly for all of the jobs they do for us on a daily basis.