[caterping]

> > For example, when a teacher has to send a student out of the room for bad behavior,

> I had a lot of teachers with serious personality problems when I was in public school.

During my time teaching I didn't meet any. Not saying there weren't any, just that I didn't run across any.

You must understand, high school kids are kids. They do the same stupid things we did when we were kids. They try to push bad behavior as far as they can until there are repercussions. Teachers are adults and professional educators. We've seen the behavior patterns over and over and over again. We try our damned best to let and get the student to win, but some are determined to get themselves thrown out.

Teachers and students are not on the same level, and it totally undermines the teacher's authority for administration to even hint that they are (eg, by having them sit together and "referee" a discussion).

> > Also, grading is a bitch.

> Suck it up.

Hey, you want educated professionals to take teaching jobs? I'm telling you that it's a metric ton of grading work -- and it's not fun like programming or problem-solving; it's grinding slow repetitive work that makes you miserable. I've worked plenty of other jobs. I've worked outside in the summer heat. I'm telling you that grading -- and dealing with the fallout from grading -- is miserable, and if you want good professionals to stay in the career for more than their first year, you're going to have to find ways to make it less miserable.

> I agree that schools start stupidly early in the US, but when your workday ends between 2:30 and 4:00, I don't think you can really complain about having to go to bed early.

That's the thing: it doesn't really end between 2:30 and 4. There's meetings after school on many days. There's paperwork. There's parent contact that must be carefully maintained (which provides necessary documentation if the student fails). And then there's grading. And that's if you're not doing any coaching or other after-school clubs.

> (and the end of seniority, teachers' unions, ridiculous benefits, rubber rooms, etc.)

If it weren't for teacher's unions, then any time that administration wanted a teacher gone, they would be gone. Teach a government class and point out something bad about the current local gov't? Gone. Superintendent gets a complaint about you? ("He assigns my kid too much homework!"). Gone. Superintendent simply doesn't like you? (Regardless of how good a teacher you are.) Gone. Teaching any controversial subject that a parent decides to complain about? Gone.

Yes, the health benefits are good. Perhaps this makes up to some degree for the lower pay.

I've got no idea what you mean by "rubber rooms".

[endtime]

>You must understand, high school kids are kids.

Okay, I agree with that, but...

>Teachers are adults and professional educators.

Where did you teach? I'll move there to raise my kids. Seriously - I grew up in a reasonably good school district (Livingston, NJ) and while there were some good teachers, many (I want to say most, but don't trust my memory to be undistorted) were atrocious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livingston_Public_Schools

>I'm telling you that it's a metric ton of grading work -- and it's not fun like programming or problem-solving; it's grinding slow repetitive work that makes you miserable.

To be clear, when I say a proof class, I mean that I was grading 30 problem sets (8 TAs, 240 students - this was CS103) of 13-15 problems, around 10 of which were proofs, every week. And many of the students were learning how to write proofs in this class. Trust me, there's nothing as painful to grade as that.

>If it weren't for teacher's unions, then any time that administration wanted a teacher gone, they would be gone.

It wouldn't be perfect. But I prefer a situation with some false negatives to a situation with zero true negatives. That is, I'd rather have most bad teachers and a few good teachers get fired than have no teachers get fired. May be less fair to the teachers (if you're of the school of thought that would rather let 100 guilty men free than punish 1 innocent - depends how you define fair) but it would be far better for the students.

>Teaching any controversial subject that a parent decides to complain about? Gone.

It's not clear to me why this would follow from a lack of teachers' unions.

>I've got no idea what you mean by "rubber rooms".

Do you have no idea what I mean by "Google" either?

http://www.google.com/search?q=rubber+rooms

[caterping]

> > Teaching any controversial subject that a parent decides to complain about? Gone.

> It's not clear to me why this would follow from a lack of teachers' unions.

The union sets up fairly strict protocols that the administration must follow if they want to fire a tenured teacher (the administration can, of course, let go a non-tenured teacher at any time).

The school administration is led by the superintendent of schools -- an elected position. The superintendent gets paid a lot of money and wants to get reelected. If parents complain to the super -- and they do -- then the super wants to placate them to ensure reelection.

Kids are kids, and they exaggerate (and often lie) to their parents about school. Parents want to believe that their child is telling the truth about mean Mr. Teacher picking on them, being too tough on them, grading them too harshly, or assigning too much homework. So parents quite often complain to the principal (who works directly for the super and is not part of the teacher's union), or even directly to the super.

[jacobolus]

Your arguments would be a lot more credible if they weren’t so condescending.

[endtime]

No, they wouldn't. They might be more accessible, even more effective, but they wouldn't be more credible.

In any case, I'd appreciate knowing specifically which parts you thought were condescending, since I wasn't trying to be, and it's not obvious to me on a reread where I was. Would you still have found them condescending if I hadn't said "Stanford"?

[jacobolus]

The condescending part is the “if I'm a grad student and I can read proof problem sets then all you lazy teachers should just suck it up, and if you say teaching is hard then you don’t know what you’re talking about” part (but also the part about how most teachers are shit). Your tone made you sound (a) incapable of empathy, (b) self-entitled, (c) both uninformed and uninterested in learning what people’s views are based on their own first-hand experience. All of these erode your credibility, and make holding a conversation with you unpleasant. (Notice that you also just did the same thing to me: I’m telling you straight up that your tone eroded your credibility in my eyes and you are telling me that I’m wrong.)

Anyway, I have no personal gripe and am not trying to tear you down; consider this just a friendly reminder that a little humility and open-mindedness goes a long way, especially when you’re talking about an issue about which it’s clear your analysis is coming from outside and is mainly anecdotal, and the guy you were talking to is an expert speaking from first-hand experience.

* * *

For what it’s worth, on the actual subject at hand, the vast majority of my teachers (in public schools in a mostly middle-class/upper-middle-class suburb at the edge of Los Angeles county) from elementary school through high school were frankly quite excellent, and worked their asses off for their students, easily spending 60 or 70 hours a week on school-related activity.