[wk_end]

> Because to become teachers, you typically don’t have to have your ego brutalized jumping through irreverent hoops.

No, instead you have your ego brutalized by spending half your youth (not to mention tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars) getting an undergraduate and master's degree and teaching certification...only to receive poverty wages, pay for your own supplies, be abused by students and parents and administrators and HN commenters alike...

[Aeolun]

I was actually surprised when I looked up the pay bands for my old high-school and found that (head) teachers were earning near programmer salaries (this in Europe).

[nonethewiser]

What kind of idiot would choose that life for themselves?

[Joker_vD]

The ones who are currently teaching the kids right now?

Also, varies by country: the second world has "pedagogical universities/colleges" which are focused on producing school-level teachers in every subject taught in the schools — maths, chemistry, CS, you name it... and usually they have the lowest requirements compared to any other universities, so people apply there for a "last resort higher education" so to speak.

And then some people are bright enough to do well there, and some are not quite, and after graduation the smarter ones generally manage to find a better job than to be a school teacher while the dumber ones, well, they apply to schools to teach. And they get employed because schools almost always lack teachers. Yay...

I imagine things are better in the first world.

[andrewflnr]

Idealists. People who care about making a difference more than about money. You know, nice people.