This makes me think of one of my former students. He was a brilliant scholar and early in his career, he was a visiting professor at a Japanese university. He chose to return there as a professor and stayed until his retirement. On one of his visits to his family here in the U.S., I asked why he had chosen to stay in Japan, and he told me that it was because educators were highly RESPECTED (capitols, mine) there.
Current school schedules in most places are ending the teacher year in mid-June and beginning the teacher year in mid-August. AND the two months between are UNPAID time off. The last year before I retired, I kept track of the hours I spent outside of my contract in the school building doing my job, attending meetings, and taking classes in order to maintain my credentials. I was stunned to realize that I had given a full free month of extra work to the school system.I loved what I did for 31 years, but I never got used to hearing people sound off about what an easy job I had. By the way, the second year out of college, my daughter was making $ 10,000 more a year renting cars than I was making after 31 years as an educator.
I’ve been watching baseball for nearly 80 years before my 15-year-old grandson finally was the one who could explain this rule to me. Now I can recognize an infield fly when I see it and don’t have to ask why the batter was called out. I agree that it’s a stupid rule.
1954-58 My tuition, room and board never went above $ 699 per year. which was roughly 20% of that of my daughter in 1987-1991. This was at state schools. To put it in perspective, my first teaching job in ’59 paid $ 3400 a YEAR.
In Virginia that are no teachers’ unions. There is a Virginia Education Association, but it has no bargaining power with school divisions on either the state or local level.
Does no one get the allusion to Shel Silverstein’s children’s book called THE GIVING TREE?if you’ve never read it, I recommend it.