Why do so many teachers leave the profession?

[LittleNipper]

I suspect a lot more teachers will leave if asked to teach that Darwin was wrong, and other crap some states have put into their curriculum.

Actually, I believe you are entirely wrong. My wife is a teach at a Christian school and what she likes is the ability to openly discuss topics from many different points of view without having to apologize. Yes, she speaks of the Bible and God, but the class is open to discuss Darwinism. The students get a much broader point of view and many do get turned on to science because they do not feel that scientists have all the answers and everything is cut and dry. Also, religious literature is just as easy to discuss as is secular. And children are encouraged to look at what the author has written from both a secular and biblical point of view... Public school teachers are constantly fighting a NARROW system (unless the school is very progressive). But the Public school teacher has to separate his/herself from his/her personal religious values and this is very difficult ----- especially when observing the obvious results of religious detatchment on a daily bases among the students who might be helped otherwise.

 

[rdean]

You got serious presidential nominees like Santorum and Romney saying education is for snobs, the school system is trying to indoctrinate children and we need fewer teachers. Then you have so many spoiled and awful children. Imagine trying to teach science to the children of right wingers who believe the earth is only a few thousand years old. Just look at what the right wingers on this board have called teachers and what they have said about them. Why put up with it. Go into some other line of work without the hassle. Like bomb disposal or fireman. After what Republicans have done to teachers, anything is better.

 

[LittleNipper]

long hours? lol how many damn days do they get off? and wtf? whats so hard sitting in a room of rug rats for like 6 hours? its the liberal dream job and you get to teach them to be liberals so when they grow up they can vote for your unions and your pay check, how much more do they want?

Unfortunately they get to deal with the out of control brats they have created by taking away disipline in the school. Now the students run the show. I have a good friend who is a teacher. That is her main complaint...unruly and abusive children (with obnoxious parents).

IIt might be assed that the parents are not that much older than the kids in many cases and that each generation since about 1963 has grown more unruly, abusive, and disrepectful. The kids take the cue from their parents who set the example. I would have been wipped by my dad if I talked back to any teacher. If I had a problem, I was expected to go to my parents and if they felt I had an issue they might request to see the teacher.

 

[boilermaker55]

Family values? You think it is the schools place to teach that when the parents have not values themselves and their children don't respect others and especially teachers.
Look at all your posts and the posts of all the other right wing fanatics and their regards for teachers.
They are so easy to blame for the misguidance that parents and then to blame the shortcomings of parents actually taking the responsibility of parenting.
Another rightwing tool of hatred for their own failures.

Yeah, there isn't much honor in reprogramming children to be liberal fools to begin with.

We need to "reprogram" our education system to teach family values, like hard work and accountability!

 

[LittleNipper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkjbJOSwq3A

You got serious presidential nominees like Santorum and Romney saying education is for snobs, the school system is trying to indoctrinate children and we need fewer teachers. Then you have so many spoiled and awful children. Imagine trying to teach science to the children of right wingers who believe the earth is only a few thousand years old. Just look at what the right wingers on this board have called teachers and what they have said about them. Why put up with it. Go into some other line of work without the hassle. Like bomb disposal or fireman. After what Republicans have done to teachers, anything is better.

I don't wish to burst your bubble; however, when I went to grammar the class size was about 25 students (about 5 rows with 5 students per row). There were no teacher's aids back then. It was not perfect, but the teacher (usually a woman) kept law and order. Ralphie's teacher in (A Christmas Story) was not really far from reality if not the truth. Such was the norm until about the mid to late 1960's. As the older teachers began to retire as education began to go "modern." Kennedy with the Supreme Court ruined education with the SECULARIZATION of everything in public education. Everything from Reading to Music to holiday festivities was undermined. I mean it seems odd to me (at least) that Jesus could not even be mentioned at Christmas (and Christmas became a WINTER HOLIDAY). This is very narrowminded and abusive towards open discussion and logic. It was the start of dumbing down education, to pretend that there is nothing religious in the world worth discussing freely --- and the educators tried to develope an unnatural sterile environment.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

Long hours, low pay and lack of their profession being considered "professional"

Approx 50% leave before they hit 5 years on the job

High Teacher Turnover Rates are a Big Problem for America?s Public Schools - Forbes

Discuss

Can it be because too many non-education responsibilities are being mandated on them?

 

[Londoner]

During the postwar years, the US Government channeled massive tax dollars into education. Teachers had high wages/benefits.

This resulted in the most well educated and most upwardly mobile middle class in history.

Starting in the late sixties, wealthy individuals and corporations began pouring money into the Republican Party in order to capture Washington and lower taxes on the wealthy. With the election of Ronald Reagan, the transformation was complete. Big Business and Special Interests won, and they waged a very successful war on everything that put upward pressure on taxes, including infrastructure and education. To win this war, the GOP invested in an army of Think Tanks and Media assets. They propagandized the admittedly real negatives of public education while grossly under-reporting the strengths.

From the American Enterprise Institute to FOX News, the Conservative Movement was absolutely single minded in attacking education. Slowly but surely they drained the budget for schools. As they did this, there was an amazing transformation at the University level. At places like University of San Diego, foreigners (mostly Asians) replaced Americans as the majority. Also, Americans began to slip behind China, Japan and Germany when it came to science jobs. There was a great technology brain drain away from Americans and toward Asia and India.

The Republicans won the war on the education. They successfully shrunk the budget for education in order to make room for 30 years of tax cuts.

The game is over. Our schools are dying and our workforce lacks skills. Our bridges, roads, hospitals, energy and water plants are also dying - all to give tax cuts to capitalists who increasingly get their labor from Asia and store their profits offshore so they don't have to pay for things like the Pentagon Budget, which protects their overseas supply chains. The great modern industrial infrastructure upon which commerce depends is withering away.

Reagan said that if we withdrew everything government did for the middle class (so that the wealthy would have more profits with which to "invest" and growth economy) that EVERYONE would gain. He said that great jobs and benefits and schools and infrastructure would trickle down to the masses. But, this never happened. Right after he said it, jobs began trickling to China while the American consumer transitioned from high wages to credit cards and debt (to make up for the money that wasn't trickling down).

But to your point. The GOP has waged war on education and the teaching profession in order to lower taxes on accumulated wealth. It's not complicated.

American swallowed poison in 1980 . . . and the victim is almost dead.

 

[LittleNipper]

Family values? You think it is the schools place to teach that when the parents have not values themselves and their children don't respect others and especially teachers.
Look at all your posts and the posts of all the other right wing fanatics and their regards for teachers.
They are so easy to blame for the misguidance that parents and then to blame the shortcomings of parents actually taking the responsibility of parenting.
Another rightwing tool of hatred for their own failures.

Yeah, there isn't much honor in reprogramming children to be liberal fools to begin with.

We need to "reprogram" our education system to teach family values, like hard work and accountability!

ACTUALLY, I feel that we are in the present predicament because the public educational system FAILED to hold true to the values of the communities they served. As a result the students leave school thinking secularism is normal. there are no absolutes and marriage is whatever one feels like doing. Each generation moves further and further to the left of logic. And what would not be tolerated from a student in 1955 is considered "typical" today.
I do not blame the education institutions --- I blame the government and the Supreme Court for their failure to see that government has no business educating anyone. The public school system was the brainchild of the Community and a joint venture of civic, business and church leadership.

 

[LittleNipper]

During the postwar years, the US Government channeled massive tax dollars into education. Teachers had high wages/benefits.

This resulted in the most well educated and most upwardly mobile middle class in history.

Starting in the late sixties, wealthy individuals and corporations began pouring money into the Republican Party in order to lower taxes on the wealthy and impose austerity on the non-wealthy. With the election of Ronald Reagan, the transformation was complete. Big Business and Special Interests waged a war on everything that put upward pressure on taxes, including infrastructure and education. To fight this war, the GOP invested in an army of Think Tanks and Media assets. They propagandized the admittedly real negatives of public education while grossly under-reporting the strengths.

From the American Enterprise Institute to FOX News, the Conservative Movement was absolutely single minded in attacking education. Slowly but surely they drained the budget for schools. As they did this, there was an amazing transformation at the University level. At places like University of San Diego, foreigners (mostly Asians) replaced Americans as the majority. Also, Americans began to slip behind China, Japan and Germany when it came to science jobs. There was a great technology brain drain.

The Republicans won the war on the education. They successfully shrunk the budgets for education in order to make room for 30 years of tax cuts.

The game is over. Our schools are dying and our workforce lacks skills. Our bridges, roads, hospitals, energy and water plants are also dying - all to give tax cuts to capitalists who increasingly get their labor from Asia and store their profits offshore so they don't have to pay for things like the Pentagon Budget, which protects their overseas supply chains. The great modern industrial infrastructure upon which commerce depends is withering away.

Reagan said that if we withdrew everything government did for the middle class (so that the wealthy would have more profits with which to "invest" and growth economy) that EVERYONE would gain. There would be great jobs and benefits and schools and infrastructure. But, this never happened. Right after he said it, jobs began trickling to China while the American consumer transitioned from high wages to credit cards and debt (to make up for the money that wasn't trickling down).

But to your point. The GOP has waged war on education and the teaching profession in order to lower taxes on accumulated wealth. It's not complicated.

American swallowed poison in 1980 . . . and the victim is almost dead.

In the 1950's and early 60's teachers could not even collect Social Security because it was not deducted from their wages. Most of the male teachers I knew took on summer jobs to continue to bring home a salery. So I don't know what you are talking about. The mayor's son went to public school, as did the pastor's kids, and the postmasters children, and the farm workers children. We all went to the same school and were taught the same things. It was when secularism became the mode of education that the wealthy took their kids and enrolled them in private schools. Do YOU think that the justices of the Supreme Court, and the political elite of Washington send their children to public schools? Not any more they don't! Of course all the average families were then stuck with what progressively became a more mundane sterile education. I mean China doesn't pay their teachers anything and their schools are certainly not "modern." But what they do have is a goal for every student. We threw away all our goals when education in the United States became a please everyone and don't offend anyone institution. Even in China they teach governmental SPIRIT. We had school spirit and that was a mixture of community/civic pride and religious respect.

 

[Londoner]

Even the China they teach governmental SPIRIT. We had school spirit and that was a mixture of community/civic pride and religious respect.

I have a theory that involves this issue.

In the 60s the left waged war against God & Tradition. They successfully drained America's institutional framework of positive content - that is, institutions like the school and family were no longer allowed to be for something. They became increasingly value-neutral, unwilling to assign special status to traditional arrangements or Christianity, e.g., "The War on Christmas".

It is my contention that this movement gave birth to the neoliberal capitalist which owns the right. This capitalist doesn't give a shit about America. He gets his labor from Communist China. He claims to believe in God and Nation in order to get the poor to vote for the politicians which protect his special interests.

Milton Friedman - the GOD of Conservative economists (if there is such a thing) - believes only in the market, which he places above God and Nation. If a capitalist can make higher returns by exchanging American jobs for Asian sweatshop labor, than the logic of Capital demands it. Placing ANY value above profit is precisely the kind of extra-market value that saps efficiency and clogs the productive engine. Today's capitalist feels no allegiance to this country. Walmart gets over 50% of its products made in China. The willingness of American capitalists to get in bed with freedom-hating nations has decimated American Labor. But here is where it gets scary. Walmart feeds money into Movement Conservatism, which preaches God and Flag to the poor for the purpose of keeping its politicians in office. The capitalist uses Religion as a tool of electoral populism.

What if the Left is responsible for this? What if Man needs the myth of God and Nation to preserve his country? Soldiers don't die for secularism or the periodic table. They die because they believe their nation is sacred... chosen by God... superior ... worth dying for. The Left destroyed these necessary myths - myths that became real in so far as they gave Life meaning. And now they complain about the fact that the capitalist doesn't care about anything but money.

How ironic.

(FYI: this theory bothers both the Left and the Right. The Left cannot imagine that its greatest social movement unwittingly made capitalism even more barbaric. The Right, on the other hand, cannot accept that their greatest hero, John Galt, is not a God Loving Patriot. They've never truly studied Ayn Rand)

 

[francoHFW]

Thanks to the GOP and silly dupes:

Too many gd kids per class. Schools falling apart.
Teaching warmed over pablum, too much interference, teaching for tests.
Society of the nonrich has gone to hell- see sig pp3, not to mention the poor, poor inner cities. Great job, dumbazz haters!

 

[editec]

At least as -12 goes, teaching is bloody hard work.

Not everybody is suited to it.

The salaries aren't too bad, but being a teacher isn't something most people are really very good at.

People who go into k-12 teaching because they love the subject matter are often unhappy with the job.

Less than half what teachers do is teach.

Much of what they do is dealing with people, keep dicipline and do a load of rather mindless paperwork so they can justify the grades they give.

 

[KnobbyWalsh]

Actually, teachers work way longer Than that. Typically the get to work a hour before school starts, then does 6-8 hours on class...then they have to grade papers. If they spend 6 min per paper × 30 students = 3 hours more

You're talking about just that equals 11 hours just on the example above. Not including if they tutor after schhol, coach, or meet with parents

So yeah, long hours

You spoke the truth, but few here will believe it except those of us who have done it or know people who do it. I'm afraid you're wasting your time with the truth with this bunch of haters.

You wouldn;t know "truth" if it bit you in the ass...

 

[KnobbyWalsh]

At least as -12 goes, teaching is bloody hard work.

Not everybody is suited to it.

The salaries aren't too bad, but being a teacher isn't something most people are really very good at.

People who go into k-12 teaching because they love the subject matter are often unhappy with the job.

Less than half what teachers do is teach.

Much of what they do is dealing with people, keep dicipline and do a load of rather mindless paperwork so they can justify the grades they give.

Ed, one thing I learned early on in teaching is that EVERYONE'S an expert on education. So all these sarcastic, dismissive and highly inaccurate "observations" here play like the proverbial broken record. Why don't all these experts step up to the plate?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Long hours, low pay and lack of their profession being considered "professional"

Approx 50% leave before they hit 5 years on the job

High Teacher Turnover Rates are a Big Problem for America?s Public Schools - Forbes

Discuss

Long hours?

Summers off, all those holidays etc. Most people would love that schedule.

 

[Mac1958]

.

I've talked to many, many ex-teachers who said they left because the children were simply uncontrollable and clearly getting worse.

One of my brothers retired from his job and decided to teach for a few years. That lasted two years, he said it was so bad it was scary. Kids (and I'm talking seven, eight years old) swearing at him, fighting in the class, not showing up for days at a time, parents defending their horrible children no matter what they did, parents not giving a shit, parents threatening to take action against him for their kids' bad grades, on and on. The kids' "self esteem" is now a far higher priority than their performance.

Just another example of a culture in decay.

.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

They aren 't leaving voluntarily. They leave when they are arrested for molesting the students.

........or get fired for telling their students to stomp on Jesus! Their lessons are becoming more and more bizarre, let them all quit!


They should replace all the teachers with Computers instead. The money saved would be substantial and it would be an end to liberals having access to our children - no more marxist indoctrination -etc.

How would that work?
I believe they should make the lessons available to parents so they can review what their children are being taught, what they are studying about next, the test results, etc. It could all be done by computer - with field trips - lectures all online. Imagine how much money would be saved. They could sell off all the buildings, equipment, school buses, lay off all the professors and teachers across the USA and do online school instead. They should create a think tank to consider the idea. We have to stop the indoctrination of our children by progressive liberals and the school system is the first place I'd begin. Fire all of them, make the online education available to parents to approve or disapprove ( we are the tax payers and those decisions belong to us ) and put the education system back into the hands of the parents where it belongs. - Jeri

 

[KnobbyWalsh]

.

I've talked to many, many ex-teachers who said they left because the children were simply uncontrollable and clearly getting worse.

One of my brothers retired from his job and decided to teach for a few years. That lasted two years, he said it was so bad it was scary. Kids (and I'm talking seven, eight years old) swearing at him, fighting in the class, not showing up for days at a time, parents defending their horrible children no matter what they did, parents not giving a shit, parents threatening to take action against him for their kids' bad grades, on and on.

Just another example of a culture in decay.

.

I saw a 10 year old kick a principal in the nuts once, and the principal of course had to stand (more like bend) there and take it. Our female teachers I teach with at the prison have the joy of some asshole pulling out their schlong on them and start long-stroking. Yea, we get the guys who not only fell through the cracks - they invented the crack. Toughest job I ever had but the most rewarding.

 

[KnobbyWalsh]

They aren 't leaving voluntarily. They leave when they are arrested for molesting the students.

........or get fired for telling their students to stomp on Jesus! Their lessons are becoming more and more bizarre, let them all quit!


They should replace all the teachers with Computers instead. The money saved would be substantial and it would be an end to liberals having access to our children - no more marxist indoctrination -etc.

How would that work?
I believe they should make the lessons available to parents so they can review what their children are being taught, what they are studying about next, the test results, etc. It could all be done by computer - with field trips - lectures all online. Imagine how much money would be saved. They could sell off all the buildings, equipment, school buses, lay off all the professors and teachers across the USA and do online school instead. They should create a think tank to consider the idea. We have to stop the indoctrination of our children by progressive liberals and the school system is the first place I'd begin. Fire all of them, make the online education available to parents to approve or disapprove ( we are the tax payers and those decisions belong to us ) and put the education system back into the hands of the parents where it belongs. - Jeri

I forgot where you said you teach at?

 

[Skull Pilot]

"where you teach at?"

No wonder you ended up teaching convicts.