Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Interesting article: Teaching as Self-Sacrifice

Teaching as Self-Sacrifice
My mother was a teacher, and I know how hard it can be. But this article made me think about how treating teaching as an act of charity isn't good for the students, either.

The NYT recently hosted a debate on whether teachers are *overpaid*. You need to consider

(1) the value of tenure, pension benefits, and health benefits for both current and retired teachers
(2) summers off
(3) the fact that education is one of the easier majors.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...re-than-they-would-in-the-private-sector
Are Teachers Overpaid?
New York Times
JANUARY 2, 2013, 3:38 PM

Average teacher pay in our school district is ~$75K per year, as it is in all the neighboring districts. Except for Saratoga/Los Gatos, where average teacher pay is $93K. And Mountain View, where it is $103K. Sure, that's only an average, so for each teacher in Mountain View making $123K, there is some poor stiff getting by on $83K.

Check California teacher and superintendent salaries here.

That is NOT underpaid by ANY standard, not even for people who work 50 weeks a year.

Agreed. If I understand correctly, teachers can receive their compensation in increments which are paid throughout the full year so they do not lack a paycheck in the summer. They may also receive lifetime post-retirement health insurance benefits? And in some areas they may "retire" from one district with full benefits and continue to receive those retirement benefits while working full time in another district? Sweet!

Just checked my child's public school. It's also about $100K per year. Can't believe the salary is better than many university professors, considering the poor quality of education my child is receiving.

Um. not here!
We should pay our teachers more and reward those who re good. Here it is a crap shoot. Good, bad, whatever -Low pay cross the board.
Ugh.

From the "study" linked in the NYT opinion page referenced above:


Yes, because then we'd have to look at college debt in the mix, and that would be inconvenient to our partisan mission.


I think we've covered the "achievement is a confluence of a number of factors, of which cognitive ability is just one" topic in this forum pretty thoroughly, so, moving on.


Yes, and private school teachers are generally required to have less credentials ($$).

Flawed analysis = flawed conclusions.

Yeah, I gotta say, unless a TON has changed in 20 years (and I concede that in some ways it has), teachers aren't getting rich.

Starting salaries around here are just out of the 20's. Yes, really.

In the metro districts, it's a little higher than that... but I know a lot of teachers, and many of them are not even self-supporting on what they make.

While this discussion of whether teachers are overpaid or underpaid is interesting, I think we've had it before. The article is not really about that question, but about whether we are potentially doing harm to kids by sanctifying the work that teachers do.

Practically my entire family on my husband's side are teachers. The teachers in my family are rich. I am not even kidding - motor yachts and all! Really nice lives. But mostly because they ran/run businesses (particularly summer type businesses) during all of their time off. One had a bike shop. The other has a pool installation and supply business. They retired at 50 get their benefits and run their businesses. We do have ones who are not rich in the family - just middle class. Some seem to be struggling a little depending on how many kids they have and where they live. The ones who do not do a business during in addition to teaching are often criticized by the ones the do behind there backs. And then there is one family who was kind of struggling, no additional business but once he bacme a principal they seem to be very well now. Not weighing in on either side here but just adding how it looks in my family. Definitely not a bad gig from my view here! But I will add none of them ever taught in the inner city - all are in very nice districts.

From the posts contributed thus far, some may say that selling points of the career include...
- Potential for summers off to raise children
- Possible lower college selectivity for entrance to program
- Possible lower college debt due to shorter program than some other professions
- Potential for competitive salary and benefits package depending upon location, grade level & subject taught
- Potential for pay raises as further educational credentials are earned
- Potential for financial security through lifelong post-retirement benefits including healthcare

As compared and contrasted with this list of tangible personal rewards to those successful in the profession, "selfless nobility" is often associated with efforts which do not provide tangible personal rewards but solely an internal sense of having made a difference. For example, volunteerism. Teaching may not be easy, but neither are most jobs/careers, a growing number of which may require employees to be on call and leave family/friends at a moment's notice to work 24/7/365.

Some may therefore agree with the article and also the comment (at the link, following the article) which states words to the effect that having a charity mindset may also be condescending toward the pupils and therefore denigrate them.

This is not to disparage educators or those who seek to go into the teaching profession. It is merely taking a realistic look at the tangible personal benefits which are offered, in general.

True, but compensation is a part of that, because if you're compensated well, then it isn't sacrifice.

"Prestige" will come to the US teacher corps when US teachers earn it, maybe through high scores on tests like the GRE and Miller Analogies, and definitely when most teachers are knowledgeable about the subjects they teach. Right now, this just isn't the case, yet very few people seem to want to address this problem. Teaching is a respected profession in other countries, primarily because of high entry requirements. Prestige is earned.

I agree that there are way too many kids in most public school classes and that this makes things very hard for teachers. But lots of people have hard jobs. I don't hear firefighters complaining that they'd do better if someone just paid them more. !!!

I agree that NCLB is a disaster, but let's be honest: most of the adults here started (finished?) school before it came along, and a lot of us faced the same educational deficiencies that our children face. NCLB just made an existing problem worse.

Etc.

Honestly, it's hard for me to understand how people here can complain so bitterly about local teachers/teaching practices, yet not acknowledge that the overall low quality the teacher corps is a serious part of that problem. Yes, there are amazing and intelligent teachers, but they're rare compared to the ones who don't see through the ultimate bad homework questions, and we all know it. And a lot of the good ones quit, leaving us with math teachers who have degrees in "x studies" where x =/= anything technical.

Per the original article... I've known many people in many professions who see their work as acts of self-sacrifice whether they are doing it for the children, their fellow workers, society, the stockholders, or whatnot. Seemingly insular positions are often surprisingly universal.

Common teacher complaints are common employee complaints.

Well said.

Agreed! This may ultimately be what lends a sense of purpose and meaning to one's work, keeping individuals striving and stretching as life-long learners with a growth mindset.

Val: I can't say tarring them all with the same brush is fair at all. Yes, my DD has had a couple of lousy teachers, and a couple of mediocre ones. She's also had a couple of really awesome ones.

Unfortunately, even the awesome ones are constantly being undermined by bad policies.

What Dude said.

Remember, I was speaking about teachers as a group. I also said that there are very talented, knowledgeable people teaching. But the problem is that they're a minority.

The most recent average GRE score for education majors going into teaching is 150 for verbal (44th percentile) and 149 for math (37th percentile). These scores are at the bottom for all test takers. This story is the same, regardless of the year the data was published. Average scores for future teachers are always at the bottom. Booklet with scores by major Percentile values for scores

I can't find averages for Miller Analogies, but it's easy to look up required scores for individual programs. Miller Analogies is seen as a decent-ish proxy for an IQ test. A score of 400 is average, and the SD is 25.

The Uni of SC's department of Special Ed. requires a minimum score of 388 for entry into its M.Ed. program (I found other parts of the education department with the same requirements). This means they're probably taking people with IQs in the 90s. Here's what they require at Tennessee State:


These requirements are TYPICAL.

So, sure, there are some bright and knowledgeable teachers out there. But the test scores and admissions requirements tell an important story: as a whole, the US teacher corps is not super-intelligent or super-knowledgeable. I honestly don't understand why people don't seem to be disturbed by this fact, and it bothers me that bringing it up garners unpleasant accusations about bashing. Nobody likes to talk about this problem but it's real and it's serious, and I doubt we'll make any meaningful progress with our schools in this country until we do.

It's been common knowledge for years that education majors, as a whole, are not the sharpest tools in the shed.

Don't worry, though, since we've solved the problem by making college effectively mandatory if you want to join the workforce.

Wow, depressing. What's funny is that I've been getting frustrated thinking they (my son's teachers) are being purposely obtuse to annoy me and because they have their own agenda... Now I am realizing they are probably not pretending to be unintelligent and not knowledgeable they actually really are that insipid. I'm not sure by which I am more bothered. What else is funny - many around here don't seem to notice it. I hear people rave about this district. How talented the teachers are, how "fabulous" they are. I've been very unimpressed. I kept thinking it was me - I'm missing something. It seems not.

What Val said too. DW is a high school language arts teacher who incredibly intelligent and motivated but I have seen her have to deal with being downstream of crappy teachers too.

Most forum participants, while intelligent, would not have known about gifted or 2e unless these issues manifested themselves in our families. Similarly teachers (and even doctors) who may be experts in their fields may be unaware of gifted or 2e.

Ultimately raising awareness through advocacy may be more effective than negatively labeling those who are unaware (which may be seen as smacking the oobleck with a spoon).
Most children's educational needs may be well served; gifted kids and 2e kids are a very small minority.

Indigo, I agree with what you say: they might not know.

But getting to the point in the OP's link to that blog post about professionalism among teachers --- part of being a professional is knowing stuff about your field. Ergo, those in the education who want to be seen as professionals have a duty to know that a small segment of students will move much faster than the usual pace (just as a small segment moves much more slowly).

Agreed. Teachers may be inadequately prepared by a system which considers gifted studies optional and/or advanced degree material. That said, I'll play devil's advocate with this: "a small segment of students will move much faster than the usual pace" seems to be the sticking point for teachers/schools/districts which have "solved" the "problem" of gifted by setting the maximum pace in the classroom. (Voila! This small segment is no longer moving much faster than the usual pace).

How would teachers learn about appropriate curriculum and pacing for gifted learners?
- through college/university programs at the bachelor degree level so that every teacher encounters basic training in gifted
- through well-prepared parent advocacy efforts, especially where gifted studies may only be taught as an optional course... or a masters level course for those wishing to specialize.

If parents were to provide input for a curriculum... ideally, what would college/university teach every new educator? What would you include in a semester-long course in gifted studies required for a bachelor's degree in education?
- Common characteristics of gifted children?
- Common variations of observable gifted attributes based on ethic/cultural differences?
- Common variations of observable gifted attributes based on SES differences?
- Common variations of observable gifted attributes based on personality type and/or learning style?
- Common myths?
- Common IQ tests and a brief understanding of their scores?
- Common Achievement tests and a brief understanding of their scores?
- Common problems caused by lack of challenge?
- Common grievances of parents of gifted children?
- Common means of facilitating advanced academics within a school?
- Emerging news from Neuroscience illuminating brain differences?
- Needs-based education plans?
- Levels of gifted?
- Interrelation with 2e and Wrightslaw?
- Resources for further exploration and reference on gifted issues throughout their career?
- Conduct research on a parent forum and write a paper including case studies and solutions?
- What resources or books would you recommend for the course, hoping students may keep them to refer to often throughout their teaching career?

The blend of expertise, open-mindedness, and creativity likely to be impressed on new teachers through a course in gifted studies may help restore the sense of teaching as an art, rather than an act of charity.

You could make the same (bolded) statement about just about any group in the US. Also, I don't think the GRE measures on education majors apply very well beyond elementary school, because in junior high and high school you start running into teachers who majored in the subject they're teaching (or something very much like it), and then tacked on the teaching credentials. You also encounter people teaching vocational classes, home ec, and PE.

Given the basic levels of instruction involved, I don't expect a K-3 teacher to have much more than a high school education. There's no calculus involved in understanding place value.

I think we agree that the people teaching foundational skills can make mistakes when they misrepresent concepts which force students to unlearn at higher academic levels, but this is where academia is supposed to be partnering with educators to make sure the curriculum lines up. And to me, that's the real problem... academia is almost completely absent from the scene, having been pushed out by Big Publishing.

I think the post resented being the profession being marganilized. Tv commercials show teachers as being like mothers on steroids. I can think of one headache commercial in particular. They don't want to be called mothers, they want to be called employed workers.
The link inside the blog pointed out another problem teachers have. They have to take underachieving students from a culture that doesn't value education and work on getting their "buy in" to even be willing to be educated. Imagine that, condescending yourself to accept an education! How low will you go?! And who are the teachers told to focus on? The one that doesn't want the education.

The high school teachers still score at the 49th percentile for math (and the elementary crowd averages the 33rd, which implies that a lot of their right answers are guesses). I 'd like to see a lot more for people who are supposed to know algebra 2 well enough to teach it to above-average kids.

You made a good point about home ec. and vocational ed. teachers, so I checked. In my son's large high school, there are 13 math teachers and 5 teachers in practical arts, which includes both home ec. and voc. ed. There are 7 PE teachers, so PE + Voc. Ed. + Home Ec. < Math. And there are 11 science teachers. I remember the same distributions at the high schools I attended, and suspect this distribution is generally true.

If a sizable number of the secondary ed. teachers had majored in a technical subject, their scores would at least be above the mean. What I suspect (no evidence, just anecdotal observations) is that the high school teachers are somewhat more knowledgeable, and the math average is being pulled down by the 6-8 teachers.



I disagree. I think they need to understand what's coming in order to lay a proper foundation. Their lack of understanding is one of the major reasons for all of our problems. For example, they get easily taken in by fad curricula like Everyday Math. Etc.


While I agree that Big Publishing has done a lot of damage, I can't accept that Pearson is to blame for lack of teacher knowledge. This gets back to the "we're professionals!" argument that teachers make. A professional doesn't blame someone else for her knowledge deficiencies and let it go. Professionals take initiative to solve a problem --- this is a fundamental characteristic defining them. In this case, this might mean something as simple as sitting down and listening to Khan Academy videos or reading websites like Math is Fun or PurpleMath, etc. Or taking a summer training course/workshop for teachers.

Agreed

I think that Dr Wu makes that exact point and that his take is that the quality of educators needs to be improved which is why the Core Core materials include fundamental teacher training and that Academia has to shoulder some of the blame for ignoring Maths education generally speaking.

Val, tell me it ain't so, are you confounding percentages with percentiles? Or is this a deep statistical thingy from the raw score of 22 of 40 correct that corresponds to the 33rd percentile? Not discounting your arguments, just being a petard.

Nope, they're percentiles.

Sent you a PM, Zen Scanner.

Answered

You said your source was sorted by field. This means that the secondary school teachers who pursued graduate studies in education would show up in your stats under that column. The ones who majored in math would be counted under another column. My Algebra II teacher didn't have a master's in education. His was in math.


Well, we're constantly adding to our knowledge and revising what we thought we knew, so maybe we should just stop teaching until we know everything that can be known, sometime after the year infinity.

Or, given the numbers of teachers needed to teach math in K-graduate school, if we limit the pool of teachers to those who can grok calculus, then we'll run out of people who can do things like engineering and research. No time for developing new energy sources or mapping genomes, because 2nd graders need to understand how to borrow and carry.

Or, maybe we can be a little more reasonable in how we allocate resources.

Whether teachers are easily taken in by fad curricula is not the point, because they're not the decision makers. They're not always even made by educators.

Come on...don't get snarky. I'm trying very hard to have an honest discussion here.

In private schools, a subset of the teachers serve on curriculum committees. For example, my son's kindergarten teacher was the primary decision maker concerning curricular materials at his school. They used Everyday Mathematics. I wrote to her about its deficiencies (including its treatment of place value), and she admitted to me that she didn't understand my letter, and then said, "But we're going to stick with it." It's the same at the private school my other kids attend. And public school boards often get members who are or were teachers. Around here, when they run for election, they tout their classroom experience as an important qualification.

I agree that high school (not middle school) teachers know more about their subjects (noted in other messages). But there are two points here:

1. The foundation is laid in the lower grades, and that's not happening properly right now. There's abundant evidence showing that teachers lack mathematical knowledge. They can't teach it properly if they don't understand it.

2. The writer in the OP's link used the word "profession" several times. As I've noted, a professional is a person who solves his or her own problems whenever possible. Learning about fractions on the web is an easily available option that doesn't seem to be happening.

A large majority on this board would probably agree that math education is a huge problem in American schools. The textbooks are a big part of the problem. But so are the teachers. There's abundant evidence showing that they lack knowledge as a group (e.g. Liping Ma, Prof. Wu from UCB, this paper, many others ). We can't fix this problem until we admit that it exists.

Sorry for the snark, but you did say elementary school teachers need to know calculus. Since there were only 7 kids in my high school who took it out of a graduating class of 1000 (and I ended up dropping it), I'd say this would be limiting the talent pool quite a bit. I'd also like to think we bring more value to society in our current roles as doctors and systems engineers.

I may have oversimplified things when I said curriculum is not generally chosen by educators... maybe "out-of-touch ex-educators" would have encapsulated the idea better. School boards are generally made up of people who went from the classroom to administrative positions, which are more political in nature, setting them up for the political job of sitting on a school board. So you're generally talking about curriculum choices made by people who haven't been in a classroom in years. You're also talking about 5-9 individuals making decisions on behalf of thousands of teachers. So again, let's not tar all with the same brush. Every time curriculum changes, I hear an torrent of complaints from professional teachers... some criticism good, and some because many people hate change.

I agree with the paper you referenced, but it doesn't say anything about teachers having to know calculus. I also don't understand how you can hold teachers individually responsible for not understanding things that, as the paper points out, were poorly taught to the teachers to begin with, in the same system they are now contributing to.

In fact, you can see the seeds of this nonsense of Everyday Math here, because the paper correctly points out that adults frequently graduate college and move on to teaching professions able to perform mathematical procedures in their sleep, but with very little understanding of why the procedures work. So they attend an Everyday Math seminar, have an overdue epiphany they call "number sense," and think that's something they should have gotten as 8yos. And they have a good point... it's just that EM is well-suited to teaching that to adults, not to 8yos.

Okay, that was a misunderstanding because I added that bit about calculus to my reply to you. No, I don't think that K-3 teachers should know calculus. What I was trying to say was that they should have more than a high school education and that they should understand math several levels above what they're teaching. Algebra 1 and geometry would be reasonable, given that the elementary curriculum draws on both subjects. But IMO, they should know these subjects WELL, and they should also understand the foundations of what they're teaching. It's not rocket science, and I agree that this is where their own educations are playing a role in the problem. Somehow, we have to break the cycle.

Bostonian has said that our schools should hire math specialists to teach math. I agree. If teaching through grade 6, they'd have to show proficiency way above that level (precalc? Differential calculus?). If they don't know what's coming, they can't teach what kids need to know to succeed at the higher levels. I think that extra training about fundamental ideas in elementary school mathematics and how to teach it is also very important.


I think a person who wants to be called a professional should be able to 1) recognize that not understanding a subject at the level being taught (e.g. MoN's post) is not okay, and 2) take steps to learn the material (e.g. Khan Academy, Math Is Fun, Summer Workshops). Again, it's not rocket science.

I'm not trying to say that lack of knowledge isn't the only problem with our teacher corps. You made a good point about political motivations on the school boards. There's also Richard Feynman's analysis of textbook selection, which is still true 50 years later.


I agree there.

I think we've found common ground, then, and the question is, how do we break the cycle?

1) If a contributing factor is teacher quality, then we need to improve the educational culture such that better-quality candidates are attracted to the job.

2) If a contributing factor is general math understanding, then we need an overhaul of how we teach math to everyone.

3) If a contributing factor is curriculum, then we need to get academia engaged in sorting out the bad ideas from the good, and pushing the good ones into the classrooms.

I don't see any of those things being fixed anytime soon, due to politics, money, and general inertia.


The more I've been watching what happens to my DD at school, the more I've been convinced that she should have a math teacher, an English teacher, a social studies teacher, etc. Why do we wait until 6-7th grade for this?

If done, it would mean we'd only need about 20% of elementary school teachers to really understand math. That should be workable with the current talent pool.


Maybe I'm just exposing my jaded worldview here, but in my mind "professional" just means "gets paid." Whether the person is any good at it is a whole other issue.