What's Your View on Teachers

[Bara_no_Hime]

I've heard that the best way to describe the majority of college professors would be "overpaid and uncaring", would anyone care to refute or agree with this idea?

Yeah, that is absolute bullshit.

First off, most college professors care a great deal. College professor isn't a job you go into because it's easy or cushy - like a regular teacher, you pretty much have to care just to go through the bullshit to get in the door.

Secondly, I believe that most public school teachers have better starting salaries than college professors. I admit, I'm using myself as an example here. I make 10k a year as a college professor. The large salaries are mostly held by tenured professors or the ADMIN.

Getting tenure - if it is even still available where you work - is a nightmare. It takes 10 to 20 years of work to achieve. And what is tenure? Job security. Before you have tenure, the college can pretty much fire you at any time for any reason.

Now, if you want to talk about apathetic and overpaid, you're talking about the Admin people. If you do an admin job at a college while teaching, your pay goes through the roof, but you're also doing admin work - which is soul-crushing business crap that takes you away from students and puts you in board meetings and crunching numbers, etc, until the students look like nothing more than tuition numbers.

My father was a professor. And then he got into admin. He's a Vice President (of a college) now... and he is apathetic (and overpaid). His current dream - to RETIRE and become "just a professor" again.

 

[hazabaza1]

Depends on the teacher.
Some are shitty people with no redeeming qualities.
Others, I feel sorry for, because they want to help yet shit kids are stopping them from doing so.
And more others... great people. Funny, cool to be around, and clearly passionate about not just their "job" but also about those they want to help.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I like professors. They have a passion to study their specialty.

Thank you! That's very nice of you to say. However -

Teachers are a fall back career for people who didnt make it in the real job.

This is entirely wrong.

Teachers have to go to college as "Education Majors" to learn how to teach to children. It is an entire four-year program with certification. No one "fails" at some other job and then "falls back" on public school teacher - they have to go to college specifically for being a teacher.

 

[petrolmonkey]

Great show,should have stopped after season 3 though.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I love teachers that do their work. I know that time and bad experiences can really grind a person but whenever a teacher goes out of their way to help their students I always get that fuzzy warm feeling inside.

 

[Hazzard]

There are good teachers, you tend to notice who is good and who isn't very quickly.
There are bad teachers, you get the impression they hate children.
And there are average ones who will teach you, but you may just forget everything after the lesson. I happen to have a lot of these at the moments.

I wanted to punch a boy at my school in the face once when he said that teachers "were overpaid, lazy people who ought to have tried harder in schools,"
And then my Aunt says basically the same thing to my Mum every Christmas, my Mum being a teacher.

It is a very unique job, there aren't a lot of other jobs like teaching and none a lot that involve working with children.

Also, I hate how David Cameron cuts education budget, makes exams harder and then wonders why exam results went down.
So they drop the budget, exams get worse so they use this as an excuse to drop budgets lower.

I believe that the Conservative government wants to scrap state schools and make all of them ones you have to pay for any education.

 

[Zepherus14]

Depends on the teacher.

There have been quite a few that not only cared for their work, but the amount of effort they put in made you yourself want to rise to their expectations, not that they demanded it from you.

My religion, Calculus, and Chemistry teacher in High School
My First year Calculus and Physics Profs
My Second year Organic Prof

These people had passion for their work that stretched much farther than a simple day to day routine. They wanted you to learn and grow as a person, not in just their fields, but as a whole. If more teachers could have a fraction of the abilities as these people, the world would be a better place.

My First year Calculus prof actually retired at that year, although very youthful for his age, he was getting older and decided to get to smaller class sizes. His mother was at his retirement speech in a wheelchair, at one point he thanked his mother, and gave a little head nod to her, she was wheeled up to the front and got turned around to see the entire lecture hall. And she got a standing ovation just for bringing her son into the world, that's just how much of an impact and influence this man had.

[hr]
There have been however teacher/Profs that have totally been there for the money/research grants, and not for the students. 'Not so Super Mario' is a prime example and it was perfectly clear that he didn't want to be in the lecture hall.

So it totally depends on the person, some people were just born to teach.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

A lot of parents see them as glorified, overpaid babysitters

Even if they were just babysitters, putting up with 30 children that don't want to be there simultaneously is a herculean effort and they don't get paid all that much.

Even though I absolutely HATED school I never really had a problem with teachers for giving homework or tests or anything. That comes with the territory, and when they as people seem to be good intentioned or even just doing their job, that's respectable. Some of them though are completely irrationally stick up the ass strict. Teach your curriculum, give your tests, and if you want to go above and beyond, try to make it engaging for your students. Doing things like inspecting binders to see if its properly organized into sections is intrusive and unnecessary. It creates more work for you as a teacher and has absolutely nothing to do with the curriculum.

 

[Mithcha]

Over the course of my education I hated every teacher I met with two, perhaps three, exceptions. One was a geography teacher who ate chalk, what teen doesn't like a teacher grabbing chalk straight from the ground and eating it. At 12 years old, that's awesome. Second was the head of year when I was in secondary school, she was just awesome. Third was a teacher I had in primary school, she could do her job, the rest there couldn't so she wins by default.

As an adult I work in primary education, or rather did and plan to go back into it, and as such I've had contact with teachers on a nearly daily basis. They're fucking morons. Arguably working with them on a daily basis has made me have even less respect for them than I did when I was kid. The amount of stupid shit that goes on behind the scenes, from insulting kids behind there backs, to staff room politics...the bitching and the moaning.

That said they're normally nice people, but the vast majority of them, and I've worked in three schools thus far, forget why they're there. It's quite sad actually, at least in Britain, I've seen so many NQTs come in full of zeal and imagination and throwing out absolutely brilliant ideas about how to teach the kids and within a year the enthusiasm is snuffed out of them, not because of the kids or the stress of the job but because of the tests. We don't teach to educate, we teach to test and that turns the teachers into mindless drones who spill out the same thing, slowly turning them brain dead until they forget they're purpose and start taking part in backroom politics quickly sucking in the next group of NQTs. The entire things pathetic, really.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

It's varied really. It depends on the person teaching and the way THEY see their job.

I've met the very best and some of the worst teachers in my school life.

 

[Xaio30]

I respect teachers very much, as I see their profession to be one of great importance.
That said, I prefer teachers who are professional and competent in their methods.

 

[Doclector]

I'll say the much; It seems to be very sink or swim. Except people who sink don't actually go away, they stick around and annoy everyone.

It seems to be the kind of thing you're either really good at, or really bad at. Like any other professional, I respect the good ones. I don't respect the bad ones. Simple as.

 

[AdamxD]

The ones who clearly enjoy the subject they're teaching are the best. By such a distant. I wouldn't be doing the course I'm doing at Uni if it weren't for my 6th form teacher. It's why I want to be one.

 

[Canis Fidelis]

I kind of like to see teachers as individuals, rather than just see them as a "Teacher" and I think there are lots of stereotypes from both sides that are either pretty accurate or at least right about a fair percentage of teachers.

For example the idea that teachers are overpaid (In the UK at least, don't know about anywhere else) has merit in some regards, from talking to a few of my teachers once I left school college/ they weren't on a bad wage by any standard, especially in my area where jobs are not exactly abundant and they also had access to a fair few benefits from working in schools/ colleges, and seeing as far as work goes teaching can be quite enjoyable and rewarding career i can see why some people resent those who teach.
However they also had a lot of potential problems to deal with if things went badly, and as such could end up very stressed out if things started to go off the rails, and with some truly terrible students causing havoc i can see why people think they don't get paid enough.

I find it hard to take a side actually, while some teachers at my schools really did not seem to care, or only seemed interested in making people miserable opposed to trying to motivate them deserve some flak there were plenty of genuinely great teachers with methods ranging from highly professional to really informal that I would not hesitate to defend against negative remarks.

Kind of hard to think about Teachers as a concept when most of mine were really individualistic I guess.

 

[Easton Dark]

Well, I'm in the process of becoming a high school teacher right now.

I think I'd respect them at least a little. My family has a history of education, and it's not an easy job, but if it's done right it can be fun and more rewarding than any other profession.

 

[In Search of Username]

I respect teachers 90% of the time. But I really hate bad teachers, the ones who just use the career as an excuse to bully kids or who just don't put any enthusiasm into it or the ones who are just plain incompetent. But overall I respect them, it's a good career choice.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

They're there to do a job and I'm there to learn. I'm not there to like them and they're not there for me to like them if I do it is a bonus and that's about it. also teachers do not exist outside of schools they just materialise there when school starts.

 

[Frission]

They are usually underpaid, crazy (or extremely unreasonable) in at least one aspect, and they get way too much crap from everyone their work helps. I've heard that the best way to describe the majority of college professors would be "overpaid and uncaring", would anyone care to refute or agree with this idea?

I would have to disagree on the college professors. Sometimes they're in there just for funding for experiments, but they are there sometimes to teach students something they are truly passionate about. Then again there's good and bad professors. A lot of college students seem to be under the illusion that they're still in high school. No one is going to take care of you. Should you go to their office hours, they're normally much more helpful.

It's just that their jobs are mainly educators instead of the combination of policeman, handyman, babysitter and social worker that is the job of primary and secondary level teachers. I don't envy their jobs, but I respect them. There should be a teacher's day like a veteran's day.