<p>Great posts EPTR!</p>
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I doubt many are against the really good and motivated teachers. Most teachers, like most doctors, or engineers, or lawyers are mediocre, and there are those who are downright bad. The biggest anti-teacher sentiments I see are:
- while the system lets the good engineer prosper and gets the bad one pushed out of the door, the establishment protects the bad/incompetent teacher from any consequences, and there is little external reward for the good teacher. So the system encourages someone very motivated to seek their fortunes outside where they are rewarded, and retains those who’ll have problems in industry
- while the engineer’s compensation and benefits are constrained by market forces, the same doesn’t hold for teachers, especially benefits such as retirement and pension which, at least in our district, is way out of whack with anything else in the real world.</p>
<p>^And the sad fact is that over the last 40 years, we as a society have been content to let our teachers be drawn primarily from the bottom 25% of college graduates, and we’re getting exactly what we’re paying for. Yes, there are exceptions. Unfortunately, they are exceptions.</p>
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<p>While i agree there is huge variation in competency across professions and occupations, do you really mean this statement? It just seems so dismal. I’m curious if you live in a small place that doesn’t attract decent talent, or maybe you have perfectionism (of the kind that is applied to others).</p>
<p>I’m curious if you live in a small place that doesn’t attract decent talent, or maybe you have perfectionism (of the kind that is applied to others).</p>
<p>Areas which are not appealing to live & where education isn’t a value so it isn’t completely funded may have real difficulty attracting strong teachers.
This is unfortunate because they have as much need for a strong educational system as Seattle. ;)</p>
<p>I did not intend to hijack the thread and turn it into a debate about the merits of teachers and public attitude toward them. I was only pointing out that people on this site often make statements that are disparaging to teachers, in general, and the commonly held notion that those who can, do and those who can’t, teach is one that just gets me riled. I wonder if the mediocrity that is present in the teaching profession (as it is in every field) has anything to do with the lack of respect that teachers receive from many members of the public? It is sometimes demoralizing to work hard at a job, feel like you are making a contribution and then read comments like many of the ones here.</p>
<p>On a side note, teacher pension in many states, mine included, is overwhelmingly paid out of the pockets of the teachers themselves. In my state, we pay 95% of our pension contribution out of pocket and the other 5% comes from the state. It would cost the state government and the taxpayers much more money to eliminate our pension and put us into the Social Security population. Also, be aware that we can never collect SS even if we worked jobs in which we paid contributions, regardless for how long. Nor can we collect our spouses SS in the event that they die before us. Unlike SS recipients whose spouse passes.</p>
<p>Okay, Im stepping off my soap box. Back to the regularly scheduled discussion.</p>
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<p>This really bothers me. As a society, it seems we are in a race to the bottom. People should be able to earn a good retirement package if they work hard for decades. That corporate America has increasingly screwed people out of that does not mean that the public sector should follow behind!</p>
<p>My husband has a good retirement. And anyone who wants one like his should feel free to sign up to serve their country for 20 years and all that it requires. I don’t think my husband’s retirement is out of line. In fact, I think it’s completely in-line in a civilized society. Why in the world are we looking at organizations that exist only to make a profit when it comes to issues such as care of the elderly? It makes no sense.</p>
<p>To get this back on track…I approve of my son’s major (& I approve if he wants to change it) but I do worry about his ability to have benefits and retire someday. I know it’s far off and so I try not to worry about it but I do from time to time.</p>
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<p>Most people in any field are mediocre or average, most students are mediocre or average, therefore, most teachers are mediocre or average (think bell curve). This may not be true for a particular district that can attract above-average teachers (as certain companies can attract above-average engineers or lawyers) but, overall, most people in any field are average.</p>
<p>Returning to the main topic, I think pizzagirl has the right attitude toward majors - let your child’s major be his choice (eg political science) but offer advice on strengthening the degree with an eye to making it more rigorous, more comprehensive, or more marketable (eg. add economics courses).</p>
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<p>The problem with defined benefit pensions is that current management (whether the employer is a private company or a government entity) is easily tempted to make pension promises larger than what the contributions to the pension plan should be to be able to pay the promised pensions in the future. The temptation is to underfund the pension plan and let someone in the future deal with the mess.</p>
<p>Of course, the future of decades ago is now, so we today are dealing with the mistakes of the past. In private companies, it pits retirees against every other current stakeholder (including shareholders and employees, and potentially customers, suppliers, and the government); in government, it pits retirees against current taxpayers, government employees, and users of government services (including such basic things as police and fire protection and courts).</p>
<p>When one looks at the whole reason for existence of defined benefit pension plans, which is that most individuals will not individually save enough for their own retirement, one can see a reflection of that in the underfunding of the defined benefit pension plans – the supposedly expert pension managers were not saving enough for the retirement of all of the people they promised defined benefits to.</p>
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<p>It does depend on whether you mean average for the subject, or average overall. One can argue that any occupation that generally requires a bachelor’s or higher degree or equivalent education draws from the top third of the general population in academic skill, since that is probably the limit of how far bachelor’s degree education can be extended before the additional students become too marginal and unlikely to complete the degrees (of course, allowing for some below the line high school students redeeming themselves in community college, and some above the line high school students not completing or not starting bachelor’s degree programs).</p>
<p>So one can argue that K-12 teachers in the US are drawn from the academic top third of the general public, although in comparison to others getting bachelor’s degrees, they may not necessarily be at the top of the top third.</p>
<p>I meant that most of the teachers are average teachers, as I believe was the intent of Dad-of-3’s original comment. I made no comparison to bachelor degree holders in other fields, and am sorry for not being clearer.</p>
<p>By definition half of any population has to be below average (meaning below the median- let’s not nitpick statistical definitions and use the commonn meaning here). This does not mean not competent. Fully one half of any graduating medical school class is in the bottom half. Should this scare you? It better not- if you took away that bottom half the 50-75% range would become the bottom half. And so forth. Unlike getting any old bachelors degree teachers, nurses, doctors and a host of other professions are required to meet certain standards for licensure et al to be able to work in the profession. </p>
<p>We all want the best of any service. Be honest here- are YOU in the top percentage of your field? Do your “customers” deserve better? Do you have a “double standard”, where you expect to be given better than you offer?</p>
<p>Regarding college majors. I chose the subject I was most interested in, not the one easiest for me or that I was better than anyone else in. It was harder to do chemistry than other fields would have been, but it interested me and I was Honors quality, as well as NMS and all that. I knew I wasn’t as smart as my professors because I was in a top school for the field whereas I would have been far beyond some at many colleges.</p>
<p>Where do we draw lines? Not MIT or Harvard caliber therefore not worthy? Remember, the best physician in the world is of no use unless you have access to that person. Likewise with all of the other occupations- the best teacher, engineer, plumber et al is the one who can do a competent job of solving the problem for you.</p>
<p>Lets also remember the human aspect. Should you be fired because a better person comes along? A good civilization/society looks after all of the people, even if this means a less perfect result for some at some point. Everyone is vulnerable to being shoved aside.</p>
<p>Going back to the “approved” major. The bottom line is that people need to eventually support themselves. This is where the reality factor comes in. Have dreams but also be practical. Add something to that stereotypic dance major- another college major/minor or skills such as serving customers in a store or restaurant. Entering college students need to be reaching for the stars, settling for the planets/moon will come in such a short time.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for replying to my thread. Sorry I couldn’t get to it sooner.</p>
<p>I’m so glad to see so many parents are open-minded about their sons’ and daughters’ choices in majors. I can’t help but feel like a hypocrite. My mom was very open to what I wanted to study (I went from Journalism/Chinese major, Spanish minor, to teaching and now to nursing). However, if the shoe were on the other foot, I can only picture myself being pushy and would be upset if my child didn’t choose a major that he/she could excel and/or use to support him or herself.</p>
<p>Some of the majors I can understand the need for. Musical Theater requires groups and settings for production and creating plays can be a full-time job. However, for majors like History or English or Classics, I find them to be “hobbies” more so than actual majors. I love all these subjects, but I choose to read and study them on my own time using my local library. I probably know more about history, English and Greek mythology than the majority of people who major in these fields!</p>
<p>I know plenty of people in my generation believe in following dreams and fantasies, but at the end of the day, bills have to be paid. With a job as a nurse, I could work a flexible job and chase my dreams of becoming a best-selling author on the side as well as minor in English or Creative Writing if I so wanted.</p>
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<p>However, there are studies that indicate that people who concentrate in such “hobbies” outperform those who take more vocationally oriented subjects in the development of critical thinking abilities. And critical thinking abilities, along with the abilities to communicate and solve problems, are what employers say they value most highly in prospective employees.</p>
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<p>Depends on what type of employer and what type of job. Interviews that my son went to were mostly very technical - the place where he’s working had a “four-day-interview” where he basically worked in the design, development, and programming and nobody cared if he had picked up critical skills because he studied Sumerian (sp?) art. DD is headed to med school and the majority of jobs she’ll be interested in wouldn’t be open to someone whose claim to fame is they are critical thinkers but don’t have non-critical-thinking credentials DD hopes to get. </p>
<p>Nobody’s saying that you can’t rule the world without vocational abilities - Steve Jobs is a shining example as are many (maybe the majority) of the Fortune CEOs. However all the less than stellar docs that I know lead far more comfortable lives than most of the run of the mill critical thinking degreed peers. </p>
<p>People skills probably trump all others as it relates to success, but I doubt that reading about pubs in Ireland comes anywhere close to honing this skill as going to dissection lab does for learning about a hernia. In fact in the few non-technical classes DS took because he was forced to, he observed the techie students often had better grades than the arts majors, so the mastery of the course as measured by the prof was irrelevant for the skills that the non-techies possessed. These skills, perhaps the aptitude to organize and lead a group of students, the ability to influence people, to sell something, to negotiate, etc. were possibly acquired somewhere external and not in an artsie class. In fact, it’s quite possible someone who never attended college could be a master at these skills. </p>
<p>I must say I really like the “hobbies” analogy - I love listening to Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy on audio books, perhaps more so than Feynman’s lectures, but I’m sure it hasn’t made me one iota more competent in anything I do at work or play.</p>