Four ways to fight soaring teacher burnout (puke alert)

The Hill ^ | June 17, 2022 | Adam Baenes

[robowombat]

Oh the horror. when school teachers become the enemies of normality?

[rrrod]

I worry more about over worked bartenders.

[ridesthemiles]

They can cry me a river.

[dangus]

” More money is a consistent predictor of lower attrition, “

I can’t identify who it is I know, but I know someone whose school is one of the top-paid districts in the nation, and has an attrition rate of 20% per year for the last three years. Mostly because the administration piles on absurd burdens that help no-one, tolerates horrendously obscene behavior, and dehumanizes and ridicules the teachers who are most qualified (e.g., having PhDs in their field)

[DeplorablePaul]

I made a proposal 25 years ago. Privatize all schools with a voucher system. Make public schools 100% special ed. Education would be in a lot better shape if we did. Mainstreaming was poison to educational achievement.

[butlerweave]

Why do you need a teacher if the classroom is empty

[Billthedrill]

Turning your children into neurotic communist perverts is dang hard work.

[Olog-hai]

Didn’t know we had a problem with soaring teachers.

[algore]

I considered teaching when I was younger.

But today? Oh Hell No.

(Unless it was extreme maths I suppose.)

[BlueLancer]

Man, I hope that those teachers are soaring at a low altitude when they flame out because it’s a long way to the ground ...

[ProtectOurFreedom]

My sister has been teaching math for about 45 years. The biggest problems are not even mentioned:
1. Administrative overhead is up probably 20X in those 45 years. Every extra dollar of educational funding goes to hire people to fill out government forms, produce data, and create reports.
2. Teachers are incredibly micro-managed. They no longer have autonomy in their classrooms to do what they think is best and right. People who have never taught a day in their lives are hired as “coaches” to show teachers how to do it right.
3. Teachers and everybody else in the school cannot discipline the kids.
4. The culture says bad results are the result of the teacher, not the raw materials delivered to the teacher. Our culture is so rotten that the work ethic is gone.
5. Much of the above flows from the Department of Education that wastes $10 billion every year doing absolutely nothing but making the local school district’s job a lot harder. The DOE is the entity drives the insatiable demand for data and reports.

[elpadre]

After college I taught math and science for eight years and then left for a bettering paying job in private industry. I did love teaching high school kids and as I also coached three sports, I did work long hours. I usually was not assigned a class the last period so that I could prepare for my coaching gig.

So I do remember about classroom teachers. They were required to teach something like 185 days a year. In the beginning they attended summer school to earn their masters degree. After that the summers were off. They also had fall break, spring break, Christmas break, Easter break and every state and national holiday. Plus the teacher’s workday is over at 3PM unless there is a meeting.

I cannot understand how teachers can get so stressed.

[Leaning Right]

I was an urban public high school teacher for decades. And I must tell you something. The stress mentioned in the article is real.

I’ll be presenting a lesson to a class, and some kid will yell out, “You’re stupid!” Meanwhile two or three kids are on their cell phones, chatting away.

In the old days (pre-2000 or so) this would not have been tolerated. I’d call security, and the disrupters would be hauled away. But now I’m the one at fault. Why wasn’t my lesson more interesting? And did I call home first to confer with the parents? (By the way, calling home was usually a waste of time. 95% of the time you’d get an answering machine, with no return call.)

Don’t get me wrong. Even in my worst classes the huge majority of the kids were okay. They just wanted to graduate while learning something along the way.

And that’s where the stress came in. I was honor-bound to serve those good kids. So I couldn’t just be a babysitter when the thugs tried to disrupt things.

In a way, it was like trying to paint a picture while some guy is constantly trying to knock the brush out of your hand. It ain’t easy.

[SuperLuminal]

They are all stinking communists...
Let them burn!

[packagingguy]

$41,770 is for 9 months of work, equivalent to $55,693.33 per year. Median HOUSEHOLD income in the US is about $68,000, and most people get only two weeks of vacation.

So if two teachers are married they earn about $111,400 or so which is 1.6x the median household income, accounting for hours worked.

[Labyrinthos]

Imagine the stress if teachers worked full-time jobs. There are 260 work days in most years. $50,000 for a part-time job equates to $71,823 for a full-time job.

[cherry]

.more money....

more time off

more time off

more money so they can enjoy the more time off....

[Bernard]

The whole article treats schools as if they exist in a vacuum, when they are a reflection of society. My daughter is stepping out of the public school system after several years of 4rd grade and kindergarten in the local school that includes most of the section 8 housing in the small town she works in.

40% turnover in students during the year, maybe 1/3 of the parents showing up for conferences or ever meeting the teacher during the year, young kids with a knife or a gun in the backpack, and all of the horror stories everybody is used to. About 20% of the faculty in that school is leaving this year.

And, of course, most of the teachers I have met who work with my daughter in those conditions vote for democrats, and often express wonder about "how could this happen?"

Mistakes have been made, but nobody made them.

[hanamizu]

As a retired teacher who still subs at the school I used to teach at, perhaps I can shed some light. Over the course of my career my salary climbed as my class sizes halved. Total staff at my school easily tripled while the number of students shrank.

But in talking to the current staff, here are some teacher gripes.

Discipline has pretty much gone out the window. When I started, each teacher had a paddle and was expected to use it if warranted. Fights nearly always resulted in swats. Same with extreme disrespect. Then the board decided that the paddles had to go and only the principal could paddle. OK, fine. But as time went on, the principals paddled fewer and fewer. The current principal is extremely reluctant, saying he doesn’t want a lawsuit.

Smaller punishments such as sentences a la Bart Simpson were also eliminated. After-school detention and in-school detention are used, but cost the district money to have a sub babysit a kid in a room all day. Now the discipline is often a ‘reflection room’, not a hall of mirrors, but where the kid sits and writes a letter saying he’s sorry.

Punishments for kids with I.E.P.s are difficult and time-consuming to implement. Legal guidelines have to be followed.

Then there is what we are expected to teach and how we are expected to teach it. Most teachers I work with despise common-core but are required to follow its guidelines since end-of-year tests are based on it or some variation of it.

It’s important to understand, most teachers, except for the newest, received better educations than what they are allowed to provide their students and they know it. The first-grade teacher is expected to introduce fractions to her class for a month when many or most haven’t figured out addition. The same is true of other subjects, exposure to many things, but mastery of none.

I could, but won’t, go on with the stupid ‘politics’ that goes on in some schools. The endless, really stupid after-school meetings, angry parents who are sure their kid is the brightest child alive so he can’t be getting a D. Extra duties like working the concession stand at ball games.

Many disparage the teaching profession, and I really do understand why. But to do the job right means a man or woman has to somehow convince twenty or thirty kids to allow him or her to lead them to learning things most have no interest in learning. It really isn’t an easy job.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks so much for your support to this point... I personally apprecaite it...
FReepers, it's far beyond time to wrap up this FReep-a-thon.  Lets do it today.  Please chip in.

President Donald J. Trump and the Free Republic of the United States of America
President Donald J. Trump's address to the United Nations on 09/19/2017.
President Donald J. Trump's accomplishments during his term in office.

Ramirez political cartoon:  Couldn't Find Pence,... LARGE VERSION 06/17/2022: LINK
Garrison political cartoon:  Obama's Propane Tanks LARGE VERSION 06/2022: LINK

FReepers, 78.979% of the Second Quarter FReep-a-thon goal has been met.  Click above and pencil in your donation now.  Please folks, lets end this FReepathon.  Thank you!
...this is a general all-purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

Just $17.00 dollars to 79%.