We have a public-school teacher shortage in Florida, a problem that extends to much of the country.
I hate to see it, because, while I’ve never taught at the pre-college level (I wouldn’t have had the courage or the strength), I’m a great believer in public education from which I and my children all emerged.
There are many reasons for this dearth of teaching talent, most of which have been extensively documented.
An obvious one is inadequate pay. We pay our teachers, you know, those we entrust to educate our children, less than we pay people to build cars or program computers or send rockets to space.
Why?
Well, there’s always the good old supply and demand argument. These other areas get more money because there aren’t enough trained people to do the job. An argument that collapses because of the current teacher shortage. I’ve also heard those other jobs demand a higher level of intelligence and hence deserve more money. After all, the equations that control rocket flight require considerably more mathematical acumen than fourth grade arithmetic. Yes, the math is at a higher level, but how many of those using it could get youngsters to understand fractions?
I’m unwilling to accept all these and most other arguments justifying low teacher pay. I think there are two main reasons why we don’t have enough teachers and they aren’t either of the above.
First, I don’t think there is the respect for the teaching profession that it deserves, and, of course, that mindset means teachers aren’t deserving of high pay. This lack derives from many sources. Believe it or not, many parents don’t show that respect. A terrible example is the ill-named Moms for Liberty nuts. They have no faith that trained and experienced teachers can discuss subjects in class in a nonthreatening manner, or even select age-appropriate books for the tender minds entrusted to them. The Moms stances are more terrible when they are endorsed by the power of government, as they definitely have been in Florida. It seems that legislators and the governor think they know more than teachers. After all, they’ve been to school so, surely, they are education experts. When I was a kid (oh, here we go) parents backed teachers (not with high pay but with support). A teacher could inform a parent of a problem, and action at home cleared it right up.
Second is what I have observed firsthand and relates to an earlier point. When I started to teach a course like calculus in 1970, I observed an interesting fact. While I had very few female students, invariably they were the best students. When I asked them about their major, more often than not they informed me they wanted to be middle or high school mathematics teachers. I felt the future was in good hands. Back then there still existed the notion by many that the only professional jobs for women were teaching, nursing, or secretarial.
Fortunately, that was beginning to change and women began to break into other fields in significant numbers. And that’s the problem. I still had excellent female students in my classes, more and more of them actually, but now when I asked their major the answers were engineering, computer science, physics, and their like. I know several of these students considered going into teaching, and they would have been good at it, but comparing salaries made alternative decisions an easy choice.
I’m afraid the result is the pool of prospective math teachers has been lessoning and growing weaker.
During the latter part of my career, I taught a class on number theory designed for future math teachers. That course is about, drum roll, properties of numbers. It involves proofs, concepts that are fundamental to mathematics. While there were some excellent students in the class, most were weak, and some unbelievably didn’t even like math. One said in a complaining voice that when she taught she wasn’t going to do proofs. I asked how she would handle geometry, at least if it was presented in the right way with proofs. She replied that she wasn’t going to teach geometry. I wondered, but did not ask, how her principal would respond to that stand.
The feeling I had was the set of future mathematics teachers was definitely not as good as it had been 30 years prior. I know several of my students, not education majors, told me they didn’t like math, and I fear that in high school they had been taught it by people who didn’t like math.
We’ve made a big mistake by not honoring the calling to teach and doubled down by providing inadequate pay for the professionals teachers are.
And as we continue in this vein, we will deny students the best education that they otherwise could have had.
But hats off to the teachers who stick it out and work harder than many who earn three times as much.
I hate to see it, because, while I’ve never taught at the pre-college level (I wouldn’t have had the courage or the strength), I’m a great believer in public education from which I and my children all emerged.
There are many reasons for this dearth of teaching talent, most of which have been extensively documented.
An obvious one is inadequate pay. We pay our teachers, you know, those we entrust to educate our children, less than we pay people to build cars or program computers or send rockets to space.
Why?
Well, there’s always the good old supply and demand argument. These other areas get more money because there aren’t enough trained people to do the job. An argument that collapses because of the current teacher shortage. I’ve also heard those other jobs demand a higher level of intelligence and hence deserve more money. After all, the equations that control rocket flight require considerably more mathematical acumen than fourth grade arithmetic. Yes, the math is at a higher level, but how many of those using it could get youngsters to understand fractions?
I’m unwilling to accept all these and most other arguments justifying low teacher pay. I think there are two main reasons why we don’t have enough teachers and they aren’t either of the above.
First, I don’t think there is the respect for the teaching profession that it deserves, and, of course, that mindset means teachers aren’t deserving of high pay. This lack derives from many sources. Believe it or not, many parents don’t show that respect. A terrible example is the ill-named Moms for Liberty nuts. They have no faith that trained and experienced teachers can discuss subjects in class in a nonthreatening manner, or even select age-appropriate books for the tender minds entrusted to them. The Moms stances are more terrible when they are endorsed by the power of government, as they definitely have been in Florida. It seems that legislators and the governor think they know more than teachers. After all, they’ve been to school so, surely, they are education experts. When I was a kid (oh, here we go) parents backed teachers (not with high pay but with support). A teacher could inform a parent of a problem, and action at home cleared it right up.
Second is what I have observed firsthand and relates to an earlier point. When I started to teach a course like calculus in 1970, I observed an interesting fact. While I had very few female students, invariably they were the best students. When I asked them about their major, more often than not they informed me they wanted to be middle or high school mathematics teachers. I felt the future was in good hands. Back then there still existed the notion by many that the only professional jobs for women were teaching, nursing, or secretarial.
Fortunately, that was beginning to change and women began to break into other fields in significant numbers. And that’s the problem. I still had excellent female students in my classes, more and more of them actually, but now when I asked their major the answers were engineering, computer science, physics, and their like. I know several of these students considered going into teaching, and they would have been good at it, but comparing salaries made alternative decisions an easy choice.
I’m afraid the result is the pool of prospective math teachers has been lessoning and growing weaker.
During the latter part of my career, I taught a class on number theory designed for future math teachers. That course is about, drum roll, properties of numbers. It involves proofs, concepts that are fundamental to mathematics. While there were some excellent students in the class, most were weak, and some unbelievably didn’t even like math. One said in a complaining voice that when she taught she wasn’t going to do proofs. I asked how she would handle geometry, at least if it was presented in the right way with proofs. She replied that she wasn’t going to teach geometry. I wondered, but did not ask, how her principal would respond to that stand.
The feeling I had was the set of future mathematics teachers was definitely not as good as it had been 30 years prior. I know several of my students, not education majors, told me they didn’t like math, and I fear that in high school they had been taught it by people who didn’t like math.
We’ve made a big mistake by not honoring the calling to teach and doubled down by providing inadequate pay for the professionals teachers are.
And as we continue in this vein, we will deny students the best education that they otherwise could have had.
But hats off to the teachers who stick it out and work harder than many who earn three times as much.
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