Are teachers overpaid?!

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-04-11 02:25am

Hell it was a policy at the school I went to (which was private admittedly) to never have classes above 30 people.

I am contemplating doing a teaching degree, but am still unsure of what to do with my life...

The_Nice_Guy · Post by **The_Nice_Guy** » 2003-04-11 08:26am

I think a great deal of the problem is that of parents spoiling their kids.

Even in an asian culture like mine, where parents are supposedly stricter than in western ones, growing affluence has led to ill-disciplined kids being basically uncontrollable by teachers, which in turn fucks up the learning process.

When I was in primary school(grade 1 to 6), every teacher had the right to punish a child physically with a variety of methods. Discipline was never a problem. Of course, the danger was that of teachers abusing their power, but such cases were very rare.

Later on, the ministry in charge restricted the right to only the principal and the discipline headmaster. Coupled with the spoiling of kids that I mentioned earlier, the end result was the learning process is slowly being short circuited by the discipline problem.

As for classroom sizes, it all depends. Here, at the grade 1-10 levels, classroom sizes were about 42(absolute limit). After grade 10, a variety of exams, tests(weeding out processes) would have narrowed and grouped the students in terms of ability. More often than not, those who had done better(cream of the crop) also have less discipline problems, and larger lecture class sizes could be used. Tutorial classes were still subject to the limit, which was about 30 people.

In my pre-university school(junior college, age 17-18), lecture class sizes were easily up to 200. We did not seem to suffer for the large class size, because everybody was paying attention.

In one of the maths modules I took in the university, there were 300 people in the lecture hall. Again, there were no problems.

The Nice Guy

Kelly Antilles · Post by **Kelly Antilles** » 2003-04-11 08:52am

The_Nice_Guy wrote:I think a great deal of the problem is that of parents spoiling their kids.

That's an understatement. Every parent wants their kids to have what they didn't. They don't want to become their parents and that means little to no discipline. They don't realize it until it's too late that it's wrong. By then, the kid is smart enough to defend him/herself and knows to cry "child abuse!" If parents would actually take a hand in raising their children, teach them morals, teach them discipline, things wouldn't be as bad as they are. As it is, this current generation is lazier than my own. THAT is saying quite a bit.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-04-11 11:59am

The solution is simple: splitting classes into "regular" and "behaviourally challenged" streams. Sooner or later, the parents of spoiled brats are going to want to get their kids into the "regular" classes. And if they don't, then their kids get to wail and whine and fuck around and waste their lives all they want, as they hurtle toward their future careers of illiteracy as either gas-station attendants or network news anchors.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-04-11 12:13pm

Darth Wong wrote:The solution is simple: splitting classes into "regular" and "behaviourally challenged" streams. Sooner or later, the parents of spoiled brats are going to want to get their kids into the "regular" classes. And if they don't, then their kids get to wail and whine and fuck around and waste their lives all they want, as they hurtle toward their future careers of illiteracy as either gas-station attendants or network news anchors.

They already do that in the UK at secondary school level. Well the split is supposely based on ability but just looking in on the lower sets will tell you all you need to know about what sort of people end up in them as a rule. You do get the occasional problem child in the top set but in my experience they get drummed out and sent back downwards. Even the troublemakers in top set are normally quite mild by comparison anyway.

It works. For the decent kids anyway. Trouble makers end up flipping burgers or as a statistic in the dole queues. Their problem and their fault.

I think that's a common thing among UK schools. Certainly was among schools in my hometown.

The_Nice_Guy · Post by **The_Nice_Guy** » 2003-04-11 12:39pm

Darth Wong wrote:The solution is simple: splitting classes into "regular" and "behaviourally challenged" streams. Sooner or later, the parents of spoiled brats are going to want to get their kids into the "regular" classes. And if they don't, then their kids get to wail and whine and fuck around and waste their lives all they want, as they hurtle toward their future careers of illiteracy as either gas-station attendants or network news anchors.

That'll be the meritocratic streaming system that's already in place in my country. More often than not, the kids who can't behave end up with poorer grades.

Just use exams to weed them out.

The Nice Guy

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-04-11 12:43pm

Next of Kin wrote:
phongn wrote:Popping in, I've been in clases with as few as twenty and as many as eighty in high school - it really does depend on the teacher more than on the class size. (That class with 80-odd people actually worked very well due to the way it was structured).
Which subject did you have 80-odd people in?

TV Production. It was structured very differently than most classrooms and in fact resembled more of the real world. You started off in some low position (e.g. package production or graphics gruntwork) with another student with more experience supervising you. The supervisors were in charge of your grades (they also had their own work) depending on your performance.

Those who were higher up (e.g. the supervisors or those on special project teams) generally were graded by the teacher himself on the performance. Attendance was taken by roving teams looking for people each morning.

I was generally in a high-level grunt-work position, so I reported to one of my friends until the end of senior year, where I was placed on a special team and reported to the teacher. I also did a lot of the errands for my teacher (ensuring that my grades remained high)

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-04-11 12:43pm

Darth Wong wrote:The solution is simple: splitting classes into "regular" and "behaviourally challenged" streams. Sooner or later, the parents of spoiled brats are going to want to get their kids into the "regular" classes. And if they don't, then their kids get to wail and whine and fuck around and waste their lives all they want, as they hurtle toward their future careers of illiteracy as either gas-station attendants or network news anchors.

The local county has magnet programs to seperate the intelligent ones from the normal stream. Said magnet programs also get a lot more funding

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-04-11 12:44pm

Zaia wrote:Instrumental music, among others. I had a class of 108 last year.

My middle school had classes like those, but my high school's band was atrocious.

Kelly Antilles · Post by **Kelly Antilles** » 2003-04-11 12:46pm

The_Nice_Guy wrote: Just use exams to weed them out.

That's all well and good.... if the teachers weren't TEACHING the test word for word.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-04-11 01:01pm

Kelly Antilles wrote:
The_Nice_Guy wrote: Just use exams to weed them out.
That's all well and good.... if the teachers weren't TEACHING the test word for word.

The cult of the standardized test is the worst education policy mistake since "progressive" education, and there have been a lot of fucking mistakes since then and now. It makes "zero tolerance" lunacy look like an epiphany from the gods of teaching themselves.

The_Nice_Guy · Post by **The_Nice_Guy** » 2003-04-11 01:05pm

Kelly Antilles wrote:That's all well and good.... if the teachers weren't TEACHING the test word for word.

*Blinks*

You mean they teach the kids the test answers first, then make them do the test?!?

WHATTHEFUCK!!!

The Nice Guy

Ignorant twit · Post by **Ignorant twit** » 2003-04-11 04:07pm

It's real simple. You have a bad school, it tends to attract the worst teachers to it, funding is tied to test scores so what happens if you get the kids to do better on the test? You get more money to spend, possibly even a "merit" raise.

Being outside of Detroit I've seen all manner of crap. From teachers helping the kids through 10 "examples" on each section of the test to schools encouraging the soon to be dropouts to sleep in on test days and so on.

The biggest hurdle I see to equitable teacher pay and good classroom performance are these damn powerful teachers' unions. Not only can you not fire a teacher who is a complete ass, in many cases you can't even cut their pay. In my district the contract stipulates pay on two criteria (barring extra commitments like coaching):
1. Seniority.
2. Education (BA/BS, MS/MA, PhD).

Let's be honest a good math or science teacher can make more money somewhere else, if you want to get these people into the classroom you need to offer them some deal (be it cash, vacation, or whatever) that is more attractive than being a chemist for say Pzifer. With the assbackward unions you can't do that. You have to pay the dime-a-dozen english teachers the same amount as the math and science. All the people at the low end of market value pull the compensation rate down, and the people at the high end hold the worthless rabble up.

So we end up with some good teachers (particularly those in the hard subjects) who are badly underpaid, some bad teachers who are badly overpaid, and some teachers who simply are fairly paid.

Next of Kin · Post by **Next of Kin** » 2003-04-11 04:39pm

Zaia wrote: Instrumental music, among others. I had a class of 108 last year.

That's more of a mob than a class! How long does it take you to sit down and complete your marking and evaluation for such a class?

Luke Starkiller · Post by **Luke Starkiller** » 2003-04-11 09:40pm

Zaia wrote: Instrumental music, among others. I had a class of 108 last year.

Assuming those are higher year students that actually want to be there as opposed to the ones that take it to satisfy their parents or the 'arts' requirment that would be a class I would have loved to have had.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2003-04-11 09:50pm

RedImperator wrote:
Kelly Antilles wrote:
The_Nice_Guy wrote: Just use exams to weed them out.
That's all well and good.... if the teachers weren't TEACHING the test word for word.
The cult of the standardized test is the worst education policy mistake since "progressive" education, and there have been a lot of fucking mistakes since then and now. It makes "zero tolerance" lunacy look like an epiphany from the gods of teaching themselves.

It's really bad since it's pretty conclusively shown that parental income is that largest factor in how well students do on standardized testing. SAT average scores go up 30 points for each $10,000 of income. The MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System was found to have NO significant factors in its score beyond income...not race, ethnicity, class size, school spending amounts, or even English proficiency. I don't understand it entirely (though I have a few ideas), but I feel it's definitely a problem with standarized tests.