No, the last thing we need are intelligent people shunning the idea of a teaching career because there isn't any money in it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Thats the thing, it doesn't matter how brilliant you are. If you don't have the passion and patience for teaching, you shouldn't teach. If the money discourages you from pursuing a career in education, education was never what you were meant to do.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Except there are people who do have a passion for teaching but pass it up because it doesn't pay the same or hold the same prestige as becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Right now, in general, American teachers don't stack up at all to international teachers and part of that is because it's not respected or exclusive as a career. What would help? Better pay.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If you have a passion for teaching but pass it up because of the pay, you don't have a passion for teaching. A passion is a strong feeling to do something you love, regardless of other factors surrounding it, and that includes money. I think you think that anybody who wants to teach has a passion for it, but it's only the people who actually become one even when they know they won't be getting the best salary.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So do you think that currently all teachers teach because they have a passion for it? I think not, that fact that it is so easy to get tenure and so hard to get fired once tenured because is the unions, there are a lot of bad/lazy treasurers. And by that same logic why not pay doctors very little so that only those with a passion will become doctors. Then we can get rid of all those bad doctors only doing it for the money.... By making teaching a more competitive field, we, as a society can benefit.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I didn't say everybody who teaches has a passion for it (some just want some extra money) and I didn't say we SHOULD pay teachers less. My only argument is that if you have a true, genuine passion for teaching, how much you are paid shouldn't affect your decision.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But people have passions for many things. What if you have a passion for teaching and a passion for business or medicine? When deciding on which one to go into for a career, financial security does have to weigh in at some point.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

And all the shit they have to put up with from students makes their job extremely difficult, especially since it pretty much impossible to actually put the kids back in their place, without some parent that's got a stick up their ass freaks out and gets them fired. If anything they should get paid way more, more money would motivate a lot of teachers to teach more creatively, I think.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

well they could be paid more than forty thousand, that's less than a non profit worker. (the one i know gets 44k salary)

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Tenure and increased pay for good teaching.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

tenure sucks...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Most of my middle school teachers were retired cops, and my high school teachers are just teachers cuz they wanted to be teachers. Except for one who used to be a marine biologist who worked at the zoo.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Except if there's better pay then more people will apply for teaching jobs and whoever is the best out of all of them would become a teacher. Just because someone likes teaching doesn't mean they shouldn't be paid because of it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't think it's about whether they would become a teacher because of money, it's about what teachers deserve. Teachers are probably one of the most important factors in today's society considering that they are the ones responsible for educating the future of the world. Not only that but just think about everything that they need to put up with and all the patience and organization that is needed to succeed in the job. They don't just need a better pay, they deserve one.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Why not? More money can inspire people to work harder to keep earning that money. It would also inspire more people to pursue teaching which would make the market more competitive. I don't see a single thing wrong with it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yeah -- doctors, too. They shouldn't be in it just for the money, so let's pay them a ridiculously low wage. It's not like doctors and teachers are important or anything.

by Anonymous 12 years ago