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from the those-who-can,-do,-those-who-can't,-teach dept.
In the US: this article presents an analysis how a person's chosen college major corresponds to their IQ. The interesting thing is that the relationship has remained essentially stable over the past 70 years. At the top of the list are math, science and engineering. At the absolute bottom of the list: education.
These data show that US students who choose to major in education, essentially the bulk of people who become teachers, have for at least the last seven decades been selected from students at the lower end of the academic aptitude pool. A 2010 McKinsey report (pdf) by Byron Auguste, Paul Kihn, and Matt Miller noted that top performing school systems, such as those in Singapore, Finland, and South Korea, "recruit 100% of their teacher corps from the top third of the academic cohort."
The article points out that it isn't quite this simple: Top schools place high requirements on all of their students; poor schools generally attract lower quality students in all of their programs. Still, the national averages are clear: overall, the least intelligent students go on to teach. This is an odd priority.
Educational organizations, of course, have a different view. This article claims that teacher quality declined from the 1960s through the 1990s, but has since recovered, with teachers being barely below average (48th percentile) among college graduates.
On a related note, there is a strong international correlation between teacher pay and student outcomes. The (rather obvious) theory is that higher pay attracts better candidates to the teaching profession.
No conclusions - just thought this might spark an interesting discussion...
(Score: 4, Informative) by art guerrilla on Saturday July 02 2016, @04:42AM
what always cracks me up, are the superficial 'analysis' of teaching/teachers by people who haven't set foot in an average school in the last 20-30-40 years...
beyond that, i am certain if i gave a recitation of the working conditions of contract programmers, that might seem pretty cush compared to a teacher's -or anyone's- lot...
but -being a second-hand 'expert' based on the fact my better half is a teacher in a poor section of town- let us re-visit your insightful remarks to discover just where it is you went wrong
"It has always cracked me up when teachers tell us how hard they work, ..."
A. you have a funny (not funny-ha-ha) sense of humor,
B. hear a lot of teachers talk, they don't tell me about how hard they work,
C. what i SEE, is my wife -a more dedicated and teacher-of-the-year type you could not find, AND -paradoxically- SHE IS TYPICAL- works for an hour or so in the morning on lesson plans, grading, bullshit administrative bullshit, BEFORE going to school at 6:30 and then doing grading, etc there before kids arrive; then being a combination parent/confidante/cheerleader/disciplinarian/test proctor/administrative proxy and occasional teacher to 5-6-7 groups of screaming yard apes whose hormones are raging, amped up on sugar water, and sporting a not inconsiderable percentage having strong (if not arguably deserved) case of i-don't-give-a-fuck, and doing that for the next 7-8 hours bombarded by the emotional soap operas, schoolyard politics and dysfunctional family spillover, and then stay after school for another hour or two doing -you guessed it- grading (who the fuck do you think grades ALL the preparatory tests for all The Tests 'everyone' insists is the key to education ?), and VOLUNTARY tutoring for the few motivated kids, AND THEN do another 1-2-3 hours of grading, bullshit administrative bullshit, etc AFTER she gets home...
yeah, i bet you can do it with one hand tied behind your back...
EVERY.
damn.
day.
NEVER takes a sick day off, even when sick...
(and she gets sick hanging around hundreds of germ-buckets every day)
NEVER takes a personal day off for mental health, etc...
AND -because 'her kids' on the various sporting/etc teams ask her- she goes to just about all the home games of all the sports/plays/dances/etc 'her kids' are participating in...
of course -just like you would- she gets paid overtime for that in her cush, unionized bon-bon eating job, right ? ? ?
yeah, in your dreams...
and you would do the same, volunteering your unpaid time, right ? ? ?
(don't lie to us)
"They work nine months out of the year (give or take a little - generally 180 working days, and a handful of "inservice" days)..."
actually, closer to 9 1/2 months, BUT the point is their schedule is a more civilized schedule ALL of us should enjoy, but don't...
the 'crime' is not that the uber-cushy teacher jobs get a sane work schedule (over the course of a year, as far as within the time they work, see above), the crime is that korporations/etc get away with providing shit benefits in general, and time off in particular...
(AND, the kicker is, i am convinced it is entirely to their DETRIMENT; i think a better rested, more relaxed and focused employee is a much better employee over the one flogged for the sake of flogging...)
and they ALSO have various continuous education classes, re-certification classes for updated skills assessment, etc that they take over the summer... my wife used to volunteer for some of the other committees and such where she would go to other seminars, but had to give that up because it was eating up her whole summer...
not to mention, a number of teachers also teach during summer school sessions of various duration...
(having said that, yes, i DO give her a hard time because she DOES enjoy a sane, civilized vacation period... however, the downside in this case is it is a certain time of year all the time; she really can't choose WHEN to have a 'vacation', it is during summer, period...)
"... in an air conditioned building, with all the possible services available (cafeteria, coffee, pizza delivery, whatever). It's not like they ever break a sweat."
you presume ALL teachers work in some ultra-modern, recent-vintage, totally functional, totally equipped, leisure-time, green-leafed campus where everyone lolls around and contemplates life and shit, eating sushi and doing jello shots from hooters delivery grrls, or something ? ? ?
WTF schools do YOU go to ? ? ?
mine works in a typical school which is about 50-60-70 years old, has a 7-8' chainlink/barbwire-topped fence around it (A SCHOOL), has asbestos abatement issues ALL OVER the place (which will NOT be removed, but 'remediated' by being covered up, etc, because it 'costs too much'), the AC -in FLORIDA- works sometimes (with INOPERABLE windows), has ceiling tiles falling down, mold issues, no supplies (oh, UNLESS you are in the separate-but-unequal 'academy', where they get all the shit they want/need), and crappy computers you spend half your time fighting and cobbling together workable solutions to get kids rotated around to working computers, etc, etc, etc...
THAT is the far more prevalent reality of schools, not some made-up, plush, silicon-valley-like-employee-pandering nesting place...
"If they want to make more money, maybe they should have studied harder, instead of partying their way through college?"
you know, this kind of 'thinking' pisses me off, and not just in relation to teachers, but in relation to just about ANY and ALL professions...
so, we are simply re-programmable meatbags to be discarded at the whim of a dysfunctional economic system whenever we can't keep up with whatever arbitrary requirements a korporate borg decides upon *this* day ? ? ?
OR, is that tail-wagging-the-dog 'thinking' which puts the primacy of KORPORATIONS above the wants/needs of PEOPLE ? ? ?
(which seems dissonant with the further writing which appears to proffer proper disrespect for the fictitious legal entities...)
"Then again - it does make some sense that higher wages might attract better qualified teachers."
this would seem an obvious truism for most regular jobs as well as teaching...
"Wait - who am I kidding? The Ruling Class isn't going to offer any meaningful increase in wages. Significant money has to be accumulated in the Ruling Class' hands."
see, this is where i am confused: KORPORATIONS are the major tool of the ruling klass, yet you appear to be giving them deference they do not deserve, as if they are some innocent, neutral party, sadly and horribly mis-used by ruling klass slime... like the gummint, korporations have become distorted, perverted, distant shadows of the useful tools TO SERVE PEOPLE/SOCIETY that they once (mostly) were, but have devolved to economic bludgeons of the ruling klass...
as is also the case with the public school systems:
the reasons public schools have been PURPOSEFULLY fucked over, raped and pillaged, are the ruling klass BOTH oppressing the education of the hoi polloi (the smarter you get, the less you want to fight and die for Empire, *ahem*), AND looting them with bullshit test requirements, whose only beneficiary are the test companies and charter schools owned by the ruling klass, duh...
in short, you could not be more wrong about teachers in general (of course i will not defend the percentage of lame teachers there are, just as surely you don't defend the X% of lame programmers/etc there are); BUT they ARE handcuffed and whipped by a cruel and insane education system designed to not educate, but program for obedience...
they are at the spearpoint of the kafkaesque gummint/society we have had sneak up on us with little cat feet...