What do you think about teachers and their complaints??

Question

Teachers have a good pension, retirement plan etc. They receive benefits that many of us in the free market do not. Working 9 mos. out of the year for an above median wage doesn't seem outrageous to me. Get a second job if it isn't doing the trick for you.

I speak from my personal experience with friends - some of whom are teachers in the public schools.

Answer 1

I think that teacher complaints are legitimate.  The pay is decent but not anwhere near what people with similar or less education get.    Retirement isn't bad but every teacher I know has to have another supplemental retirement plan.  Teachers also spend the 2-3 months in the summer going to school to keep their certification or working on masters.   Teachers have to take insane amounts of their job home with them everyday and take time away from "their time" to finish their job and plan for the next day.  

It is also one of the few jobs where your "clients" mom and dad will show up at your place of business to curse at you for doing your job even though it is the parents and the child's fault that he/she is doing poorly in your class

IMO teachers are under-apprecciated and underpaid

Answer 2

Yeah, we shouldn't complain so much.

I mean, I teach in a language school, so it's obviously not going to be quite the same as teaching in a public schoool... but I can say I do have it hard.  There's so much to consider (all that curriculum; marking and grading; dealing with special cases; keeping up with modern research into psychology, philosophy, educational practises, and subject specific research - in my case linguistics and second language acquisition; other forms of professional development; on top of dealing with customers - which you do have even in a government system nowadays), so much to do... so many 50, 55 and occasional 60 hour weeks.  It's tough.

But you're right... just for a different reason: pretty much every person below the richest 5% also has to do 50-55 hours every week!  

Everyone's got hard.  

No-one should be complaining.

Answer 3

Speaking from your "experience with friends" is not exactly speaking from experience.  There are advantages to teaching for sure.  The holidays are great, I do have a teacher retirement through my state, I have made investments on my own in the form of a 403B.  I am on duty from the second week in August until the last week in May which is slightly over 9 months.  Many teachers do have second jobs and/or work during the summer.

Now, I would like for you to spend a week or better yet a month in my classroom.  Planning, grading, teaching, supervising, disciplining, motivating, encouraging, and rewarding 120 students.  I arrive at school at 7:45 and do not leave until 5:30.  I often take my work home in the evenings and on weekends.  Everywhere I go, my students and my job are always on my mind.  For example, this holiday weekend I drove 2 hours to visit and explore a canyon.  While there I collected samples for my classroom, looked for books in the gift shop, took photos of geologic formations.  I venture to say that those in the "free market" leave their job at the office when they go home at 5:00 and don't think of it again until 8:00 the next morning.

I am not complaining, just explaining.  I would not choose to do anything else.  Teaching is my calling.  I have been in the classroom for 30 years and plan to stay at least another 8 years before I retire.

I encourage you to find a way to experience first hand the day of a teacher before speaking with such "authority".