People usually go into teaching because they had a great teacher who inspired them; they care about kids or believe that it’s a way to make a difference.
No one in their right mind will argue that teachers are underpaid.
Sadly, the politics, internal and external, the system, often working without even minimal resources or adequate textbooks combined with the grind of producing daily lesson plans that engage their students year after year takes a toll on their idealism and enthusiasm.
Teachers differ in their skills, strengths and creativity — as do people in every field.
Further, what if the cost was personally affordable, so that teachers didn’t have to find funds or get approval?
That’s the idea behind TeachersPayTeachers, a virtual marketplace where educators can buy and sell lesson plans just like an app store and similarly priced.
What kind of tunes do you think Iago, the villain in William Shakespeare’s “Othello,” would listen to if he had an iPhone?
That is the kind of question that Laura Randazzo, an exuberant English teacher, often dreams up to challenge her students at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, Calif. (…) “For a buck, a teacher has a really good tool that she can use with any work of literature,” Ms. Randazzo said in a phone interview last week. “Kids love it because it’s fun. But it’s also rigorous because they have to support their characterizations with evidence.”
The site’s been around since 2006 and is highly successful.
To date, Teacher Synergy, the company behind the site, has paid about $175 million to its teacher-authors, says Adam Freed, the company’s chief executive. The site takes a 15 percent commission on most sales.
Read the article; then share it with every teacher, or their relatives, you know; tweet it and share it as widely as possible.
Whether they sell or buy they’ll win.
And if your effort saves just one teacher from burnout or makes their life a bit easier then, you’ll deserve a pat on the back — whether you know it or not.
Remember the old line “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; those who can’t teach, teach teachers.”
It’s not true. Most people who go into teaching do it because they have a true passion—at least when they start.
But passion is hard to sustain when all you hear is that
you are too easy/hard;
you give too much/not enough homework;
you too often receive little-to-no respect from parents, kids, administrators and even your colleagues;
more time is spent on politics than lesson plans;
you spend more time teaching basic manners than educating; and
your de facto hourly pay rate is around minimum wage in spite of a 9 month work year.
Some manage it and they are the ones who truly leave their mark.
Most of us remember the teacher(s) who really touched us, who opened our eyes and helped us see the world differently.
And we remember the worst we had, but the majority fall in-between and become a blur.
some of the best come to teaching from other successful careers.
One of the highest profile of these is Tom Bloch, who left H&R Block (the family business founded by his father) after 18 years, five as President, and a salary of nearly a million a year to teach math at an inner-city middle school in Kansas City, because he wanted to make a difference—and he has.
Listen to this interview and then read his story in Stand for the Best. Share it; maybe it will inspire others to apply their passion to teaching, but if nothing else, perhaps it will encourage them reconsider their own attitude towards teachers.
CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts.
Last week I wrote about what is involved to be a good teacher. What I described takes a lot out of me. It means that for every hour that I am in lecture, there are several hours outside of lecture associated with the class. Every now and then, someone in the state legislature points fingers at the college faculty saying that we are overpaid because we don’t teach 40 hours per week. A full load is considered only 5 classes per semester. Depending upon the institution, some of that requirement is met by mentoring graduate students, and some is met by research in lieu of lectures. But, that doesn’t look like much. It doesn’t look like much, that is, until you look what some of us put into what we do.
For us, this isn’t just a job. It is what we do. I feel responsible for my students. I have dozens of students who sign up for the class expecting to learn something. I feel that I am letting them down unless I give my all. So, that is what I do. And, that is what makes me successful.
Teaching is leading students. You lead them to learning. You can’t force the knowledge and understanding into them. You have to lead them to where they can learn.
Good leaders realize that leadership doesn’t stop at the end of the work day. Sometimes, the leader has to put in extra hours just like everyone else. As I see it, how can you actually be leading if you are not working as hard as those you are trying to lead?
What do you think?
Is teaching too easy?
Is compensation fair? High? Low?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
People usually go into teaching because they had a great teacher who inspired them; they care about kids or believe that it’s a way to make a difference.
