I taught teacher education classes in three Universities. There were students who chose a teaching career when they were still in High School. Some had been in the Future Teachers of America club. They had genuine passion, often they were the children of teachers. That was their strength, their weakness was not having any real world experience with bottom line work performance. Some, but not all, worked summer jobs and such in competitive industries, so that this was not a problem for them. Most summer jobs for these people would be at rec centers or summer camps etc. though, which was not as beneficial, and many never worked at a private sector job.
Those passionate people, however, were in the minority of students I had... mostly Elementary Education teachers. The majority of my students had followed some major that didn't transition easily into a real world job, and so picked teaching as a fall back at the end of their Bachelors Degree ... once they realized that they wouldn't make it to the NFL or Philadelphia Harmonic Symphony, or that they wouldn't get their novel published as they graduated with a degree in American Literature, or that a Business degree isn't worth much if you don't actually have a business, etc. That was when teaching jobs were fairly easy to get though.
It is a job any normal person can do with a year of professional education courses. All people who've graduated and earned a teaching certificate these days have had at least 18 years of modeling by hundreds of experts on how to teach a course and manage students. k+12+ 4 years BA + 1 year of professional teaching coursework = 18 years of training at a minimum. The competencies are almost universal to any educated adult, and a bottom line of outcome values is relatively standardized, not competitive. The pay is not based on bottom line performance, it is based on showing up and performing these standardized duties for a living wage and excellent benefits (over four months off per year). Most haven't shown they are worth more than that.
I know some excellent teachers. I have hired some excellent teachers to tutor my kid after hours and pay them excellent competitive wages because I want her to have options in the future. She is planning on a medical career. I would support any provision to pay teachers competitive salaries based on their performance but the teacher's unions will never agree to that. |
