Empty Classrooms, Abandoned Kids: Inside The Great Teacher Resignation | NYT Opinion
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- Опубликовано: 17 ноя 2022
- Across the United States, educators are walking out en masse. Vacancies - from teachers to bus drivers to custodians - aren’t being filled, and schools are scrambling to find substitutes. Those who stay are sacrificing preparation time to cover classes, taking on extra kids, extra grading and extra tasks. While working on an Opinion Video about the crisis, we heard of vice principals doing yard work, counselors covering lunch duty and teachers mopping floors. It’s an exhausting and destructive spiral. As people burn out and leave, conditions only worsen for those who stay. In our new video, six educators explain why they, and the American education system, are at breaking point.
The crisis that America’s education system finds itself in must be stopped. Millions of public school students depend on it. But the current freefall will not end until politicians start listening to educators, paying them a living wage, and giving them a reason to stay in the classroom.
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The teachers aren't abandoning kids, the education system is abandoning teachers.
THANK YOU.
One of the ways in which the system abandons students and teachers is by diminishing critical thinking - if public schools today weren’t simply a mouthpiece for partisan ideas, you would see happier teachers and more successful students. As a society, we’ve standardized ideology and criminalized questioning; teachers HAVE forgotten that their occupation is to nurture academic skills that can be applied independently, not impose a common dogma that would leave all students in a philosophical echo chamber. As a NYer I stand with DeSantis, not because he “censors” but because he is trying to restore what it means to teach - schools today keep content like racism on life support, sexuality for all ages at the forefront, and disregard skill. That’s the problem. There’s no teaching, just woke, political preaching. That is why other countries outsmart us. The schools have been hijacked and the kids are therefore in greater need of support. They know of 60+ genders but lack knowledge of syntax, arithmetic and what it truly means to respect & exercise democratic freedom of thought. God bless America. 🇺🇸
This 💯
@@ehernandez2726 what exactly have you seen teachers teaching your schools? What exactly do you mean by “woke”?
Facts!
Let's be real: Parents aren't raising their kids right and teachers aren't obligated to put up with it.
True.
I’m a school bus driver.This is very true.
💯
As a former educator, everyone wants to scapegoat the kids, but they are just kids. The education system is supposed to be *for them*. The world is giving up on them from every angle and they are being blamed for it. They are just kids.
I think it's more that the admin isn't supporting teachers. There's no consequences for bad behavior, and teachers are extremely restricted as far as what they can do.
I asked two teachers why they retired early. Their answers were pretty much the same, "It wasn't the kids, it was the parents". I fully believe this and am grateful I changed my major and did not enter teaching. I can't imagine having oversensitive, overly-demanding parents threaten my job/dignity every day. 🤦
I live in South Carolina. Teachers have left hereby the thousands. Tired of getting beaten . Students that look like grown adults having failed so many grades.
When I lived in Tampa, teachers pushed them through, many read at a 3 rd grade level at graduation, no respect , no consequence s for their behavior.
I home schooled. Public school is so bad.
@@dianakidd4219 Like everything in the US it depends on your district and land values. If you live somewhere with high property and land values the public schools are usually quite good. If you live in a large city or a poor city they are terrible.
@@nn123654
I realize that, I did some schooling in rural Appalachia. I had very good teachers. I got my rear whacked three times once for chewing gum in home room. So disrespecting a teacher never happened there.
I think they need to bring the board back. Teachers getting attacked is happening too much. We are importing teachers from Africa now. And nurses.
Thank goodness I didn’t choose early childhood education as a major in my bachelors degree.
I agree. I don’t blame the kids for their actions, I blame their parents. Some parents don’t deserve to have children. They get them for their selfish desire, aka their personal care taker
I’m a substitute teacher and I took a middle school assignment for choir. The profanity and disrespect that comes out of the kids mouth was unreal. Even the principal was concerned with what happened. Even though I’m not giving up, I’m concerned for the future of education.
I'm glad to hear the principal was concerned. Our principal won't remove kids from the classroom until after we've made three contacts with their parents. The only exception is harming themselves or another student, and threats don't count.
I’m also a substitute teacher. I agree.
Walk away - It's not worth your mental health.
Teachers are educators, not social workers. I do not blame them one bit for quitting.
calling them educators is generous. they're more like script-readers who repeat whatever is on the curriculum.
@@rumfordc Who made them script readers? Our government, overzealous and/or absentee parents, administrators, all of the people who were complicit in sucking the joy out of teaching by telling teachers they must follow a set curriculum on a set schedule and it has to fill the needs of every student no matter their skill set. You don’t become a teacher for the money. You do it because you love it and you love the kids. However, there comes a point when all that teachers sacrifice in their own health and well being, including time away from their families and friends, that what society currently expects of teachers becomes untenable. For all those who think they know better than teachers how a teacher should do their jobs, step inside a classroom as a teacher for just one year. Let’s see how well you fair by the end of that year.
@@adeleennis2255 Very true. What we have is certainly not what the teachers want. The blame should not be solely on them, it's on everyone.
I’m a school social work and my last day is Dec 19th. I can’t do it…
More like prison guards and probation officers.
It is not just the kids who lose. This is having a tremendous impact on our entire society. And it's only going to snowball into something worse.
It already has.
- According to a report from PBS News (06/12/19) 36 Mio. adults in the US lack the basic literacy skills for work.
- According NCES of 2019 54% of American adults cannot read beyond a 6th grade level
- According to a NAEP assessment in 2017 64% of 8th. graders cannot read at or above proficient level. According to the assessment of 2019 the result worsens to 66%.
This means more that the half of American students leaving school will add to the already functional illiterate or mediocre literate adults, not able to read and understand complex matters, therefore not able to develop solutions or make informed decisions. This alone will create an economic and social disaster because these people will not be able to enrole in college, or apply to high skilled, well-paid jobs, but hire themselves out in insecure, badly paid jobs, sometimes 2 or 3 to come by.
And then Republicans will point to an increase in crime and social unrest as a reason they should build more private prisons (that they profit from) and be voted into office. They are sacrificing our kids to retain political power and wealth.
Ukraine Plans Evacuations in 2 Stricken Cities as Temperatures Plunge
The government is making plans to evacuate residents who want to leave Kherson and Mykolaiv, where fighting has badly damaged the infrastructure.
5 MIN READ
THEY NEED TO BE PAID
This is so true
My wife teaches high school. She comes home crying most days and wants to quit up to 5x per day.
She consider herself LUCKY because she teaches ESL to Kids from overseas that have all had interrupted education. Most of them don't even try, which is frustrating, but she feels lucky because the general education students (native born english speakers) are out of control fighting, smoking, shouting, hitting teachers etc.
There is a lot wrong with the education system in the US, it all starts at home.
As a teacher myself, we just need more teachers and smaller classroom sizes. Their behavior is getting hard to manage and when the classroom sizes are over 30 you have no control
I remembered when I was a 4th grade teacher in Seattle. I had to create separate lesson plans for children with Down Syndrome and other developmental issues. I was exhausted with behavioral problems. It was a burn out job!!
I am a new teacher and i agree 💯💯💯
Anything over 20 you get out-numbered, the kids know this and you have a wild circus on your hands.
@@shaft5 Do you have Para Educators or even parent volunteers in your classroom? The more the better I say.
@@mycatlovesme159
No, thats a foreign concept to me.
Thats not a thing in my school.
@@shaft5 Really!? That’s terrible. May I ask what the reasoning is for less help? The para educators aren’t teaching but I had them help out in the reading groups.
People don't realize how serious this is. One of the fundamentals of keeping our society in the bare minimum of functioning is early childhood education, which America was already severely derelict. Some of these kids will not recover from the last 5 years of this kind of neglect, which of course leads to higher crime, increased poverty, etc. I'm really worried about this and have so much sympathy for these kids. Their country has failed to provide the lowest standard of a safe educational space.
IM, oh, well. Folks will have to try their best.
[People don't realize how serious this is]
People don't CARE how serious this is! if parents don't care about the kids education why on earth should anyone else
@@cg.5502, it's a waste of time.
Facts. Suffering in Jamaica.
None of this is by accident. Eliminating public education and vilifying academics is a necessary step for the GQP towards fascism. This way they won’t have to worry about future generations organising against them, like children living under dictatorships always do in public schools.
Other reasons I left:
-disrespectful kids
-parents in denial about their kids’
ability and deserved grades
-administrators caring about “customer service” (students and parents being the customers) instead of treating public education as a service to society to have an educated populace.
The only way I will ever teach anyone’s kid ever again is if it’s one-on-one and the child has parents who raised them the least bit properly. Unfortunately, many of you parents are raising absolute brats, and it’s obvious where it comes from….you. It’s not always what you say to them or around them; it’s also what you let them get away with or reward/punish them for (or don’t reward/punish them for.)
Don't forget school shootings. America has a school shooting EVERY month. Teacher's are afraid for their students lives and their own.
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
THANK YOU 🔊 🔈 🔉!
@@LK-to9lw My way of giving in my two weeks notice.
I walk off the job and say: Two weeks from now you'll notice I haven't been to work and have no intention of returning.
Public "education" is damaging to society.
Parents sure like MAKING their kids, but don't expect them to actually TEACH, PARENT, AND DISCIPLINE them.
exactly
I recently retired from teaching and I can tell you one of the causes of all this quitting is the lack of respect to teachers (from everybody, parents, administrators, kids) Additionally, we are not allowed to do classroom management for the sake of student rights. Your self- esteem gets hurt everyday while a bunch of mis-behaved students do whatever they please in the classroom. Standing up, yelling, offending you and you just stay there, not being able to do anything; not even defending yourself because you can be immediately fired. Then you get home from school to a ton of paperwork that doesn't have much to do with your real job in the classroom. You miss weekends and holidays in this fashion, not being able to rest properly. You are in constant anxiety because even a slight mistake gets you in real trouble. From being publicly humiliated by the administrator to legal repercussions of a student grade the parents were not satisfied with. To put it simply, we work in a mad house. No wonder many thousands are looking for another job, for the sake of their mental health
This is a cultural problem, lack of respect. even the politicians and media promote disrespect. It was born from the culture wars, and we are seeing it everywhere from schools, rampant shoplifting, crime, drug addiction. hopelessness and despair.
Thank you for sharing. I’m so sorry.
@@tubester4567 Also that a lot of parents, no matter what their political leanings are, think their child is the most special and can do no wrong and needs no improvement. Its sad because all it is doing is setting up their kids to totally fail once they have to enter the work force. And forget about being hired a a nice foreign form, they don't want our little royalty wanna-bes!
My mother quit teaching 20 years ago. She wanted to work for 30 years for her pension. But she was driven out by the students, parents, and administrators even back then. It's gotten exponentially worse since she's left. One thing you didn't mention is that teachers spend more time with the kids at school and after-school grading the papers etc. than they spend with their actual kids. I felt this as a kid of a teacher 35 years ago, I can only imagine how bad it is now. With teachers having to get more than one job, it's like working to feed a family you never see.
@@janejones7638 You are so right! It's terrible
A $25k salary? How is that acceptable? Between teachers and nurses one thing is clear; we're taking these people for granted and not giving them the pay and working conditions they deserve.
25K....don't believe that for a second. Another lie. Missouri's average teacher salary is around $52,000
@@pep590 It's a starting salary, but yea 25k is way too little. There is little to no incentive for teachers to stay in teaching when they could go anywhere and have more lucrative careers.
In my area teachers start at $27,000. In 10 years they are making $85,000.
Where I live in canada , depending on your experience you make between 50,000 and 100,000 after ten years and 6 yrs education. We do not have shortages here...we experience many of the same flaws in education, but shortage isn't one of them
Oh that's nothing. Before taxes, my salary as a teacher was $21,000. Had to move back in with my parents.
Have two relatives who became teachers. Both started as sunny, well adjusted, happy, and helpful people. Teaching left them cynical, angry, and disillusioned. Frankly, it was traumatic for them. And I don't know that they ever recovered.
welcome to life? what other job is 100% rewarding and furfilling? If they can't handle being the classroom with kids, they are better other else where. recovered? What are you talking about?
@@diddypopdiddy what are *you* talking about? Of course no job is goint to be all sunshine and rainbows 24/7, but one job also shouldn’t make you so constantly stressed, angry, and burned out. Ever heard of stability? If you choose to look at life and work so nihilistically, that’s a you problem.
@@diddypopdiddy try working at a school and thinking you can handle the kids it’s not only the kids it’s the management and other policy teachers does not get paid enough for bs
@@diddypopdiddy Being in a classroom with children and trying to teach isn’t easy especially now after covid I was apart of it, my sister was apart of it, hundreds of kids I know are traumatized from it because statistically, most children and adolescents developed a mental illness during lockdown and aren’t being treated for it. Of course it’s going to affect the classroom and teachers have to deal with their behavior that isn’t being managed and they aren’t paid to be counselors/therapists! There’s only so much a teacher can do and you have to understand that its a huge issue we need to address as a country or else society will literally crumble because this is exactly how the education system is in underdeveloped countries and look at how they are turning out. Nothing is really getting better or is taking so much time to get to a stable place.
@@diddypopdiddy What other job do supervisors have to deal with continuous defiance from a minority of those they are supervising. Imagine running a store where 5 to 10 percent of the employees you were supervising were trying to disrupt notmal store functions.
That's what schools are like these days.
I'm a new teacher and I'm just done with having to babysit children who were not even raised properly. Absolutely disrespectful and no morals.
Imagine if Teachers were treated like professional athletes. $400K minimum pay. Free college tuition. Top college prospects being drafted. Students fighting for the chance to educate the next generation. It's sad that we value celebrity and batting averages more than the education of our children.
It wouldn’t matter. Parents need to instruct their children, instill respect for education and the teachers. They don’t. And then when disruptive behavior is brought to the parents attention, somehow it is the teachers fault or the schools. No, your kid is violent or regularly disruptive then there should be a 3 strikes policy. 3 strikes and then send to alternative school. If they continue then expel them. My tax dollars need not be used for positive reinforcements to disrespectful, evil, violent minors. I don’t care about your socioeconomic background. You know right from wrong. Many people are dealt a terrible situation and they still do right.
That was legit a Key & Peele sketch
I was not impressed with ANY of my teachers. They allowed me to be bullied. I excelled at sports though, and nobody picked on me when I was playing them. Only gym teachers/coaches deserve respect, they actually stand up for you, and teach you how to stand up for yourself.
@@teg5135 Pre-COVID I'd go shopping at around midnight at Walmart. I can't tell you how many times I'd see young kids in Walmart at that hour. These kids should be home asleep not in a grocery store. Parents also tend to ignore their kids these days. They give them a screen and then play on their phone rather than play with their kids. Parents also don't parent their kids. Again with a Walmart example, the kids would be running around screaming, bumping into people, breaking things etc. (the Sephora phenomena is not new). The parents wouldn't care until they got into trouble because of the behavior of their children. So why would the parents care, how the kid acted at school?
People promised that’s how teachers would be treated after Covid. Sadly nothing changed 😞
My kindergarten students showed up this school year without potty training and without the basic behavioral skills like sharing and listening to adults. I have seen toddler level tantrums, children getting into physical FIGHTS in kindergarten. Ive never seen anything like it. What are you THINKING, parents? How is this acceptable way to send your kids out into the world?
Some of that is definitely the parents fault (like potty training), but the lack of socialisation these kids got because of the pandemic is almost certainly contributing to the tantrums, fighting etc. You can't keep kids at home with only their siblings (if they have any), with parents trying to work at the same time, without having serious consequences.
I'm not trying to let parents off the hook completely,
But I fully believe that the cost of living is too high for most people to be able to raise their kids at all, let alone raise them well.
Most kids right now are being "raised" by parents who are either gone working all the time, or stressed out and fighting over finances when they are home.
I believe there is literally too much stress from the cost of living and it's the most "anti family" thing going on right now.
If time spent sleeping at home isn't family time, and it's not, then in a week how much more time do people spend with coworkers than their own families? It's kind of disgusting when you really do the math.
@@ifihadfriends437 Tantrums and fighting are parent's fault not pandemic caused.An isolated human being do not fight.They fight because they are used to get their way without room for sharing.
@@inesdamonteines3985 Yeah - and they haven't learned to share because they haven't interacted with others to share with enough.
@@ifihadfriends437 If they don't share anything with their own parents neither do what they are told don't expect them to do it with a stranger.
This was my last year in the classroom. It took 3 degrees to become a teacher, and after a decade of abuse and discrimination from administrators I am done. Our kids deserve better.
You also deserve better 💜 stay healthy and I send good vibes, hope your next path is one full of joy and success 💜
it doesn't take 3 degrees to become a teacher? What are you talking about? yeah our kids deserve better educators than ones who quit and comment on youtube videos. good luck to your future.
@@diddypopdiddy Are you a teacher? If not, then maybe you should try it before you blame people for quitting. Now would be a great time to start! Go for it!
@@diddypopdiddy go be a teacher and then come back here and say this again.
@@diddypopdiddy You sound absolutely ridiculous did you even watch the video and comprehend that classrooms are literally empty because teachers have left. One of the reasons is because of folks like you who literally don't listen.
my mom loves teaching, it’s her passion. in recent years my mom has struggled greatly. almost everyday she comes home crying and spends the whole night planning and grading bc she can’t get it done during school anymore. it’s really hard bc she loves teaching, but at this point she is so mentally and physically drained.
Sounds exactly like me .
Tell her to find a position at an all-Asian school.
I taught for 12 years. Never made over $30k, but I have a Masters. I've been lied on, spit on, belongings stolen, broke up numerous fights, kids who weren't potty trained, and consistent years when more than 30% of the class came to me at below grade level reading. I even offered to keep a child when he failed and he was still passed to the next grade. I was a third grade teacher, and I spent the majority of the time dealing with bad behavior and remediating basic reading skills: how was I supposed to teach? To be honest, i don't really think the administration cared about teaching, just warm bodies to be in the room with the students. I can tell you honor stories about how the State funding was misappropriated for "other " uses, while we spend weeks without supplies like paper and ink, lacked Title One Teachers and Special Education services... Finally I decided I could do without the responsibility of being a glorified babysit.
Agreed. Third grade is WAY too late for reading.
In Kindergarten had to teach my child to read. He was sick for a total of 4 weeks, so he had time to learn reading. And then the country threatened to fail him for attendance.
It's all about checking boxes.
I can teach a group of Chinese 5-year-olds to read in 6 weeks. And they were sending kids to your in 3rd grade that can't read?
That’s exactly what I went through… as a STUDENT. And teachers allowed it. If teachers are only getting a $25k salary, then they are being overpaid.
@@averyjames4623Huh? Overpaid at 25k a year? Something is not adding up correctly in ur mind as a student, maybe shoulda paid some more attention in algebra
Well! That doesn't seem likely. This fine piece of journalism from the NYT just informed me that this sort of thing is not at all the reason that teachers are leaving....
Why do you have a master's if you are a teacher?
As someone who still would kiss the ground my teachers walk on, because they are the reason I am who I am, I feel so disappointed. There were times I would stay back at school because I didn't want to go back to a lifeless empty house or much worse, the one where fights had become an everyday thing. My teachers were my protectors, school was my safe haven and I am literally in tears watching these amazing people deal with so much. It physically hurts to watch this happen. Teachers deserve so much better! And we need to make sure that they get the better life they deserve.
❤
I can relate
I never liked school
But it was safer than being at home
And that's why I went to school
❤😢
My grandma taught in an area where poverty was high and she recently told me that many of her students told her they loved being at school with her because she was great to be around and the school gave them food which they often didn’t have at home.
@@terrao4971 that's a sad reality for people
I'm glad the kids had a place they liked to go
Blame the parents as much as anyone!
They are YOUR KIDS!
Education begins at home.
It’s not a teachers job to raise your kids.
Honestly, blame the parents more than anyone. So many of the problems in education can be traced back to them.
But it is your job to teach!
@@jenniferromero571 Teach the subjects and a few interesting ideas. Don't raise people's kids.
@@jenniferromero571 You are your child's first teacher. I'm not an educator I'm a parent it is not teacher's jobs to teach your kid how to be pleasant it's yours
@@twweety9 Jennifer is all over these teacher vids talking the same old rap. I think she's just a Karen, going by some of the other nonsense she's spilled.
When I was in school 50+ years ago, the concept was almost military. There were individual desks, no community tables, face the front, no talking. Raise your hand and wait until the teacher acknowledges you, talk with respect, and do not interrupt. There were very few problems.
And we came out with far better educated
And there was corporal punishment. That helped to drive reverence into the kids.
@@johnstow5613 reverence? Did you perhaps mean respect?
@@mwfmtnman I’ll say fear at least. Now, many kids are raised without consequences.
sit down shut up and listen to the teacher- created inventors, generals, presidents, businessmen etc- now we have people relying on the dole with no concern no manners no drive
After he graduated with his BA last year, my brother started working as a substitute teacher at our old high school. And he genuinely enjoyed it too! That was until a female student in one of his classes falsely accused him of sexual harassment. The school did a brief investigation and *chose to terminate him* as opposed to taking disciplinary action against the student for lying about something awful.
The students these days are not only awful, but they want to get teachers in trouble over the slightest infraction or a falsified crime.
I am happy for these teachers who don’t want to deal with this BS anymore. No teacher should have to work a part time job to survive!
If they do not teach they are not a teacher
@@cordelllongstreath741 So if your kid goes to school, but doesn’t study, does that mean they are not a student? I think you would be amazed at how many people are former teachers in our country. I am a former teacher. I make more money now working in a diesel mechanic shop ordering parts and controlling inventory than I did as a teacher. I also have set hours, a living wage, good benefits, and profit sharing. I miss the kids, but I don’t miss administration that doesn’t help with disciplinary issues nor parents who think they know more than the teacher. Did those parents go into hock to meet the requirements to become a teacher in the teacher’s particular subject? For most parents, that answer is no, but they sure as heck don’t mind telling teachers, the persons with the degrees necessary to teach, that those teachers don’t know what they’re doing. Now you have states practically willing to take anyone of the streets who’s willing to teach? There truly is no more offensive way to show teachers how much you disrespect the efforts and sacrifices they made in becoming teachers than to accept people who have no clue what it takes to be an educator. Why would someone go to university for five years and pay the fees to sit the licensing tests, if all they need is a little real world or military experience in order to become a teacher?
Yes for pay but also control inflation… and we’ll all be better for it.
I agree. The problem is that schools and government officials continue to offer them crappy wages, because they know someone will come fill it. They know someone will come and work two or three jobs and work in human number of hours.
Walmart did the same thing several years ago to their employees remember? The best way around this is to not play that game. Going to the private sector or become a freelance homeschooler for better money. You can't make changes to the system if you continue to support how lousy it keeps getting.
I've been teaching for 25 years and have always said that I would never retire mid-year but the past 2-3 years my students and many parents have become so disrespectful and absolutely uninterested in anything remotely connected to learning that every day is a struggle. Add that to all the pressures from district, state, and federal levels; the emotional state of the students; and the fact that my wage hasn't come close to keeping up with inflation in any way.
I would literally leave at lunch and not come back this year... after I made sure my students would be safe and that my team wouldn't have to babysit my students of course.
The thing is I actually love teaching and I am usually really good at getting the students engaged in learning but I'm not a counselor or psychiatrist and more and more of my students need that before they will be ready to learn.
Parents do not want to be parents!
@@ratherbfishing455 And they want to blame the teachers for their own failings as parents, so sad.
I wonder if extreme exposure to screens might be playing a part.
No society can be healthy if the people living in it have to work all Waking hours and sometimes more to make ends meet. Plus the turmoil that cultural fights and Politics is putting on every day people. 😢 parents are just as overwhelmed as teachers are. I mean the stress is constantly rising. There is no safe spaces anymore. I think we all know too well the problems Americans are facing nowadays are too many to list. And they have done little to deserve any of them. Most of them are brought on by greed. The greed of the ruling class. Capitalists.
@@EdithEsquivel I think that might be part of it, but it's certainly not all of it. As a person who grew up with restricted screen time when it was starting to become more of a thing with smartphones and such, replacing critical life events with screen time certainly contributes. At the same time, there are so many other factors that would lead to that increase the screen time in the first place. For the past couple of years leaving the house was heavily discouraged, and parents were often working from inside their homes with daycares closed. Not to mention the psychological damage that comes from that kind of isolation. I'm not here to argue whether or not quarantine was necessary, I'm just saying that it certainly had an effect and made the effects of extended screen time more pronounced.
Edit:
Not to mention, there seems to be less accountability for bad behavior against teachers. They are expected to put up with a lot more.
Teacher's don't "abandon" kids. We have to look after ourselves first and if that means leaving what we love because we have to, then so be it.
No one else looks after us.
I wanted to be a teacher, but I realized I would not make enough to support myself nor have enough to even enjoy life. I had multiple teachers tell me to not go into the profession as I would be “wasting” my life. I listened to their advice as they had been in the profession for 20-30 years respectively.
I quit in the middle. My fiancé quit in January. My best friend quit in spring break. All three of us worked in the same school district and it was horrible. My fiance had to break up fights every day. I saw fights, crowded classrooms,kids obsessed with their phones, disrespectful parents and kids. It was bad before covid and even worse afterwards. I had kids laugh at me during an actual school lock down as there was an active shooter outside our school. They laughed at me as I guarded the door and told them to be quiet and sit down. I lost my hair. Being a teacher is not an easy job. And the people who critize teachers by all means go ahead and take my place. I taught for 4 years, my fiancé taught 7 years (nominated teacher of the year) and my best friend taught 5 years. We didn’t want to just quit. Society pushed us out. We are in completely different fields not related to teaching and will never go back. They said if you don’t like it quit well we did! Now y’all get to see the repercussions.
Which fields did you respectively enter?
Exactly! Millennials and Gen Z don’t have the patience to deal with crap!
@@kristenturner1222 my friend works as an assistant technician. My fiancé works an accountant. I work with technology and communications.
@Marcus Aureliuswhat does feminism have to do with children being disrespectful? 💀
Winners never quit.
I am a high school teacher in Missouri and I made more money off of driving Uber for one week over thanksgiving break than I make in an entire month of teaching. This is why teachers want out.
I was a second year teacher and I had my first pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage. The admin had been horrible to me and parents weren't disciplining their kids. I was so stressed. I taught a few more years and had 4 more miscarriages then I quit. I rested....then had a healthy pregnancy. I'm home with my 10 month old son now. I have a Master's in Teaching. I could only make $45,000. What a waste. My husband doesn't want me to go back.
Our age has reached a conclusion in the wake of arriving at its zenith. The downturn and financial exchange crashes are influencing everything, not simply FTX and 401Ks. My retirement values portfolio, at $750K, is bleeding cash. I'm continually losing because of expansion. This world will disintegrate under its authoritarian rulers, similarly as. Assuming you are contemplating resigning yet are concerned that your annuity won't take care of the increasing expense of living, I am sorry. All over the planet, there are poor administrative, monetary, and energy approaches as well as awful international strategies.
Survey your portfolio with an expert and don't misstep the same way once more. Differentiate, as in your 401K, your stock portfolio, and ideally REIts and Land property. The way to creating financial wellbeing is long haul. I learned a long time back that you need to keep feelings (tenderfoot) out of your venture choices at all expense
God, you poor thing. Losing money against inflation with three quarters of a million dollars.
Gag.
Throughout all of these think pieces, no one wants to admit that student behaviors are a huge reason teachers are quitting. They are tired of having their physical safety threatened every day and admin just throwing up their hands saying, "Deal with it. It's part of the job." 😐
This behavior I could never understand. I am german and we have to take every kid. They cannot be homeschooled. But the US can just kick them out and make the parents suffer the consequences. Get your kid and yourself in line or keep it home! Imagine who would be left in your classroom...
@@samu6874 I wish it was that simple, but it isn't. There's a huge legal mountain teachers/admin have to climb to get just ONE continually disrespectful and even violent student out of a school. Meanwhile that one student poisons everything around him/her.
@@Greeklings It's a shame. Of course every kid should be able to go to school and should recieve help. But I still dont think that others around him should suffer.
I never understand why that's glossed over in so many news op-ed videos on this topic. Say the truth, say it plain, and say it with your chests. It's never going to get better if the issue isn't acknowledged.
Yup. The big elephant in the room no one brings up.
I work as a school bus driver and while my job isn't as hard, we have similar staffing issues. It's not uncommon for me to work 12-14 hour days. I've literally ran 2-3 routes for the same school with kids getting to school 3 hours late. Parents are understandable upset by that, but then they take it out on me like I have any power in the matter. One said she was going to have me fired and I snapped back that then she'd have to drive her kids herself.
There is a disconnect within society. They're mad that there isn't enough of us but they don't want taxes to go up and they don't want government to go after companies for more taxes. Education is dying because we won't support it.
@Marcus Aurelius are you saying if those 2 things are true for every kid there doesn’t need to be public education?
@Marcus Aurelius No
@Marcus Aurelius um no, the problem is that these schools aren’t funded as they should be. This occurrence naturally leads to less resources.
It sounds like parents are a huge problem and some “adults” should never have children. That parent that told you that she was going to get you fired, I would have loved to tell her that to her face!
@@terrao4971 Those "adults" want children for all the wrong reasons. They think that parenting is gonna be a walk in the park and then when they realize that it isn't, they try to run and hide. The entitlement in many parents of today is abhorrent! They think that because they gave birth to new life that the rest of the world owes them for life by raising their kids for them until their offspring turn 18. And then those same "parents" get angry when the rest of the world "doesn't raise their kids they way they want them to be raised". It's pure tyranny!
I was a teacher and in many instances I was given the title of the class, and told to go teach it, no supplies, no advice, that's it. I had to create an entire curriculum and lesson plans from scratch. Worked 12-16 hours 6 days-a-week and did not earn a living wage. Quit after four years of BS. Unless you've done it, don't think you could. I'm a nurse now, which is its own circus, and let me tell you teaching was EVEN harder. Hats off to anyone willing to teach.
I feel like a dodged a bullet leaving my education major behind in college. Now I'm 5 years out of college and making 6 figures for the 1st time before 30. So glad I had the change of heart.
What did you do instead?
I got stomped on by a few vocal parents for not being “good enough” so I quit. I went above and beyond, stayed late to do extra things, arranged field trips, created interactive lesson plans, and it still was not good enough. So I left. The good parents tried to talk me out of it but nope. I was done. Months later they don’t even have a substitute and I find this funny. Hope those families are happy!!
What a burn on them! That’s what they get! Ugly parents! I wouldn’t be surprised if their kids were the dumbest in class too..Good for you. The appreciative parents I’m sure are saddened by your resignation.
Serves 'em right! Kudos to you for sticking to your principles and forcing them to deal with the consequences of their actions.
If those families cared about their kids, they wouldn't have been abusive to teachers in the first place.
@@toonlyrics Those parents should have asked the teacher if there was any way they could help (provide resources, provide help on the field trips, etc.)
@marilynbennett9868 You are right - instead of being jerks, the parents should have been constructive. But there were always parents who preferred to be destructive, and with Maga agitation it's gotten a lot worse. These people love taking a wrecking ball to everything. So what if it harms their own children?
Stopped teaching after 38+ years..burned out because I spent most of my energy on maintaining order in the classroom..felt like I worked in Juvenile Hall instead..
Working with plants now..same pay..no behavior issues..quiet.. therapeutic...rewarding
I've never been a teacher nor had the desire to, but dealing with people made me go into the Laboratory Field. I'd rather deal with machines than people.
Good for you both. Get out of that caustic coal mine and breathe the fresh air of life.
What do you mean by working with plants? Are you referring to plant medicine like Ayahuasca or magic mushrooms?
I met a teacher who moved to my small town from a large city, and she said she got tired of being threatened and assaulted. Can't blame them period! The government has destroyed everything in this country that was once great!!
From the student side of this issue, I go to a very highly ranked magnet high school and we’ve still had teachers leaving in droves. One of my favorite teachers, a woman who cares very deeply for her students, left mid year because she couldn’t take the stress of an administration who didn’t care and kept piling on more work with no sympathy, combined with a student body who is vastly immature for their age because of their two years spent online. I’m thankful that she left for a private school job where she will get supported and compensated as she deserves, but this pattern has been repeated with many of the other teachers at our school, and it makes me very worried for the future of the education system. Basically, the issues talked about in this video are very real, and happening everywhere. Something needs to change.
Private schools pay WAY less than public. A lot of us have looked into that and simply couldn’t afford to make the switch.
It makes me so angry to think that I went to college for nearly a decade for this career. If I leave how could I use these degrees elsewhere? We invest so much time and money into becoming a teacher only to be faced with financial burdens for the rest of our lives.
You can do several things that pay more. Instructional Design for companies, Corporate Trainer is another. Teaching online or going overseas to teach are also possibilities. Tech companies like hiring teachers. You have more options than you think.
Can also move to a European country that values your teaching expertise.
@@jacobr0th Have you ever moved between countries as an adult (serious question)? It's not easy.
The "if you don't like it here go somewhere else" is EXTREMELY difficult when talking about moving out of a country.
You went to college for a decade? What?
welcome to every other college degree... ? What? you're not promised anything by going to college. work. And you went to school for 10 years to be a teacher? What? Thats your fault. Commit or go home.
As a special education teacher I have experienced everything these teachers have. The ‘spinning 100 plates’ idiom is accurate.
So how many plates you can handle
@@walkerpaulp6526 LIVE HER ALONE NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!
@@walkerpaulp6526 She should only have to handle one, the one that she is getting paid for, even if she can handle 100, especially how S***ty teacher's salaries are.
It's sad to say that a teacher has become a master juggler. Spinning a hundred plates was never part of our package deal. I remember a course I took in college said, "A teacher wears many hats." No one said it would be wearing them all at once. The struggles are as real as they get and getting worst.
If you're a sped teacher, make that 150 plates!
The last quote about teachers abandoning kids is the toxic guilt used against us at my school. 'Kids have big problems. We have to support them.' So I asked about the big issues teachers face in their own lives. My principal responded with, "You're an adult." Yep, I retired. Yes, kids are important! But, I'm not a machine! 😑😐 Retired from Texas public schools. 😢 I loved teaching critical thinking and the scientific method.
There are so many problems on so many levels, but the biggest ones are the behavior and discipline of students and a MASSIVE teacher workload. The paperwork administrators require and the pointless meetings they sit through leave teachers with very little time for planning and prepping for instruction. With the limited time they do have to focus on instruction, they then have to weed through inadequate and confusing curriculum. The odds are stacked against teachers and therefore students these days. I think the problem stems from listening to "gurus" and politicians and not listening to actual teachers. It's a case of the blind leading those who can see!
Best comment.
It is amazing how some parents feel entitled to veto or invent curriculum totally out of the blue, and they get indignant when you point out their idea is not going to work in reality. Huge swathes of parents believe the school down the street is a Maoist Satanist re-education camp, and that's why their kid is underperforming. You just can't reason with this. Since having a little one, it is really weird for me to see other parents in the class who don't even seem to try. They put their kids on a tablet with internet access and cross their fingers everything turns out.
Districts, admins, and local unions need to answer for what they're doing to teachers. In my local District, the teachers union at one point decided that everyone hired before this date sold be paid on a certain pay scale, and everyone hired after this date would get paid on a much lower scale. Meanwhile, cost of living has exploded, and the average workweek for teachers has exploded. These bozos at the district are literally scratching their heads and wondering why they can't retain teachers, literally looking around at eachother during the board meetings and shrugging, as though they have this inscrutable mystery in their hands. You can't make this stuff up.
Charter schools and online schools aren't much better, accept for certain kids and families who the right fit. I have family, their kid graduated out of a prestigious local charter school, a high school. She was an A student in HS, and she's struggling to pass to college. Her parents are seeing how the ultra-online tech-oriented charter school taught her how to do the bare minimum and fly through her online HW via memorization... but now that she's in a real engineering program where she needs to think deeply and devote long hours to physics, and memorizationonly gets your a D... and she doesn't have all the tools she needs to succeed, in terms of discipline and academics. It's going to be tough for her, if she sticks with it.
I guess that's not so bad, or not so unusual, for the kid, now that I wrote it out. We all have rude awakenings in college. She's a great kid.
But, just to say, the charter school kind of covered this up. The Charter school wasn't an automatic solution. They still have their problems.... and they love grade inflation and half-baked "student success" metrics.
Charter schools are not going to bail us out of this. Abandoning the public school system is not a solution.
Did you notice that this NYT piece explicitly informed us that the behavior and discipline of students is not a problem?
I am one of the teachers that quit. Administration was horrible. My last admin in public school was so abusive that I developed anxiety and needed to see a therapist. They cursed at us, took away our lunch for "emergency meetings." Our prep time was used for team meetings which meant no time to actually prep for lessons. Other prep time was used to meet with admin. Horrible. I ended up HATING teaching because of them. Sad part is I couldn't call them out and was so polite when I resigned.
I hope that administration in that school will be exposed for their disgusting bullying tactics.
My experience was nearly identical to yours at my previous school. I had to get on antidepressants just to finish out the school year. I found out later that other teachers around me were "medicating" themselves through other means. Like you, I was too polite to call them out. I tried many times, only to get the conversation spun around and gaslit to the high heavens. I wish you good luck and good health in your journey forward.
@@feistychickpea3494 Aw thanks! I hope the same for you. 😊
I’ve experienced similar. In addition I o everything mentioned, no one talks about how much bullying goes on from admin.
What’s so upsetting is that in many states, unions are prohibited. The union for my county makes sure that my planning time is protected, though I’ve lost some planning this school year due to the difficulty in finding substitutes. That’s a job that also deserves so much more pay and respect-many subs are retired teachers. They should be paid like the professionals that they are.
@@vezelay77 I'm in a state that prohibits unions. I didn't even know this until I entered teaching. And you're right. Subs do not get the respect they deserve. They are vital to making sure that teachers can do their jobs effectively. At my school and my previous one they grab the paras or the EIP/SPED/ESOL teachers to sub because we don't have any. And then of course admin makes us feel guilty when we need to take time off.
As a young educator myself that joined in 2020, I came in with high hopes thinking that I could make a change. After almost 3 years into teaching, I would say here are the top reasons why educators are leaving in alarming rates:
1. Lack of Funding/Pay. We are expected to buy supplies for the children with the little money we make. This includes supplies to make learning engaging, snacks/clothings for underprivileged children. What other field requires you to buy your own copy paper and ink? This is absolutely ridiculous. In addition, we are required to volunteer our “free” time in the evenings for school events.
2. Unrealistic policies implemented by local and state government. How could you promote an individualized learning plan for each student when you have way TOO many kids to one teacher. We are not superheroes. Most parents can’t even handle their 3 kids at home. So how is giving 25-30 first graders to a teacher manageable? Smaller class sizes signifies that teachers can focus on individuals better. The ideal class size is no more than 15 students.
3. Administrations. Believe it or not whoever is leading the school has a huge impact in the school culture. When you have a leader that respects, trusts, and values your time as an educator, most likely you will want to volunteer your time to accomplish the school’s vision. In addition, most administrators will listen to parent feedback than teachers. Which I believe is crucial, parents should have a say in their child’s education. But you sometimes have to take it with a grain of salt. Some parents expect their kid to have special treatment.
4. Teachers need time to plan or prepare for lessons. This is just common sense. As an elementary educator who teaches all subjects, you need time everyday to plan and prep effective lessons (Did you notice it was plural?). This includes time to print copies, cut, laminate etc. The amount of work that goes into a elementary lesson is insane. Especially if you want to engage your students.
5. Parents. I’m sorry if you are a parent and you feel like you’ve done everything you can but I can safely say that I’ve met parents who should have never become a parent. School is not the only place where they should be learning. Learning starts at home. Being a parents means sacrificing the little time you have. So read with them, or count. Do something productive for at least 20 minutes. Nowadays when a kid is out of control, an electronic is thrown at them so they can “calm” down. That is not parenting. We can’t do that in schools, so imagine the number of behaviors we handle.
I truly do love the kids. The relationships we foster within the classroom is what I cherish the most. You really do learn how to love them like your own. Teaching them is also exciting, but it’s all the rest of the baggage that makes it miserable and exhausting. Some serious changes needs to be made, or else there will be no teachers left. The ones who will suffer the most are the kids.
There's a problem with a curriculum too if they don't learn at school. Perhaps too many worksheets and not enough workbooks and not enough small notebooks to practice is the problem too. I do spend a lot of time with my kids on things that are not covered at school (e.g. sounding out letters and words, addition. There's something wrong with instruction when my child guesses words and answers to math questions as opposed to learning the mechanisms for reading and counting). I don't blame the teachers but the people who taught them and the school boards who develop that curriculum. I don't get why everyone makes their own as opposed to copying what works. Like I said, I spend time with my children doing that, but when I do that there's less time to talk and learn practical life skills and spend time cooking healthy meals and being outside. These things are as important as schoolwork and sleep. So something is not working if kids don't learn at school, teachers are overworked, and the American primary and secondary education lags behind other countries.
@@laliday I totally agree with you! There are so many learning opportunities at home. Not just academic based, but other life skills. That’s what I try to promote. Take the time to teach your kids a valuable life skill. I had so many kiddos not knowing how to zip their own coats and they were almost 7!
Very well said!
As parents, we view ourselves as the teachers partner! We synch with them regularly and let our kids know that we re all on the same page. And yes, both of us as parents work full time. It's not that hard to do, folks.
Funny
As a student, I've felt this struggle. The teacher that was supposed to teach AP US History had left during the Covid-19 pandemic and they had not brought a replacement till early spring. This replacement was not trained to be an AP Teacher and was still getting his stuff together so we fundamentally had no teacher. It was daunting having to teach myself an entire AP Curriculum and many of my fellow students just didn't try (and who can blame them? We had a sub for majority of the year). And this isnt a one off issue. Multiple teachers have left my school and replacements are not found often leaving students with nothing to do and nowhere to rely on but themselves. This problem cannot stay like this, students cannot be expected and a lot of them are unable to teach themselves entire curriculums, we need to treat teachers better and figure out a way so that their jobs never have to get this difficult :(
My dad was a high school senior in a somewhat tough center of the city school in the 1946-47 school year. He was one of 60 guys in his math class. His teacher was able to make it work because of the expectations that parents, admin, and society placed on the kids.
Exactly. Back then no bs behaviors were allowed or tolerated. Schools weren't a social services facility. Parents had to provide school supplies and clothing for kids. 3 strikes and permanently expelled. Can't meet grade level standard? You were retained as many years as needed. No sped services. Yup, much better back then. I'm a teacher and thankfully near retirement.
@@happycook6737 exactly. Btw my dad was raised by a divorced mom. She took no nonsense. And provided for him and his brother.
25% of that generation are functionally illiterate.
@@happycook6737
I’m a 7th grade English teacher. The students are most certainly out of control and their apathy towards education is astounding. The parents are largely responsible for that. Lousy family lives = lousy students.
@Kyle Everage Please. This happens all over the world. It doesn't help that most Western schools have compromised on all the discipline that they used to instill, where teachers were authority figures and somewhat scary and principals were utterly terrifying. School might not have been pleasant, but for kids who had no structure or discipline at home, at least they'd get it for eight hours each day. Not anymore.
@Kyle Everage I don't disagree. But America is more of a "take your own responsibility" than most countries--it remains (despite activist attempts to transform it from within) more individualistic and more personal-responsibility oriented than almost any other country in history.
Public education seems particularly chaotic in the US, but it casts a wider net. In a country like Germany--as well as most east Asian countries--the low-achieving students get separated from the college-bound ones through standardized testing in about fourth or fifth grade. It is very difficult for a child who is very academic but matures later to rise above this as a teenager. Conversely, a child who bombs through most schooling in the US but turns his or her life around at 10th grade still has a reasonable chance of getting through college. And even one who graduates with mediocre grades can excel in community college, transfer out by year 3, get a Bachelors from a moderately competitive undergraduate, and--if the grades are good enough--apply and get admitted into an Ivy League for grad school.
It's becoming less this way--due largely to attempt to model our country more like a social democracy. But the standards for teachers has plummeted as well. Many of them cannot manage children, the bad ones or the good. They aren't trained to do it. And while there's a limit to what should be expected of a teach--bad parenting is often at fault--the US education system does not sufficiently punish persistently trouble making kids. We boast about our increasingly strong high school graduation rates, with no thought that we've also lowered standards. Perhaps a sizable number of kids shouldn't be forced to stay in school. If we keep making excuses for unruly, low-achieving kids, the high school diploma becomes increasingly meaningless.
@@americandirt7834 Disciplining children is racist appearently.
@@americandirt7834 thank you.
Yea, I recall Andrew Yang saying 2/3rds of a kids success in school is determined at home, and only 1/3rd by teachers/the school. But we act like it’s 100% of the school’s responsibility. I gotta say, watching this, my daughter’s school system is very good.
When parents don’t educate their kids with ethics and etiquette, it becomes impossible for teachers to educate their children with knowledge and truth.
I would quit, too. It’s less an epidemic of bad kids, but moreso a plague of God-awful parenting….or lack thereof.
And the whole living wage thing 😢
No, it's definitely God awful. Most of these insane parents believe insane things like that there is a benevolent man up in the sky that will let you into his special club if you follow some specific rules and guidelines that promote you from having to address any sort of earthly responsibilities.
@@BicycleFunk yikes
@@robertnunnery6768 yikes is right!
I didn't get a degree to babysit. If they thought they could take me for granted, they learned they were wrong when I quit.
All companies are taking people for granted now a days. I used to be a mechanical engineer but left to become a carpenter. Engineers are also treated like disposable cogs in the machine by the useless talkers in charge.
I abandoned education in 2014 for simliar reasons and now I am a therapist. Best decision I ever made; get paid about 25k a year more too and I can go to the bathroom whenever I want.
Old friend, veteran math teacher who adores her students, quit in Florida this year. Simply couldn’t take the totality of politically driven directives & restrictions being placed on the classroom, many of which she felt directly harmed students or the quality of their education. All on top of insanely low wages & unhinged, abusive parents. She left the state.
@@rethinkcps2116 you ought to check yourself, troll. These are the people that know how to take care of your kids better than you do.
Good, I'm sure she can move to California or Illinois or New York and teach 2+2 = SnoopDogg to minority kids because anything else is racist.
These are exactly the sort of teachers Florida and other wise states are striving to filter out.
@@rethinkcps2116 sounds like a smart person you do realize they want teachers in Florida to Believe In Unicorns
Yes I get it. I am in FL and was an elementary school counselor. It's insane here. I hope your friend has better times and doesn't feel guilty. I felt such shame for leaving but got over it. The job was not sustainable and didn't pay a living wage. Unfortunately this is is one of the GOP wet dreams so they can privatize education and create greater inequities. It's easier to control uneducated people and profit off of them. Two more years and when my kid graduates I would like to leave the state or maybe even the country.
@@rethinkcps2116 Where are you gonna find someone else to replace them? Oh right, nowhere 🤡
Teachers are not suppose to be babysitters . Parents are not teaching their children manners and respect. I would not dare to behave like some of the kids today. If I showed disrespect to a teacher, I wouldn’t be able to set down for a week. My father would tell me , ‘you go to school to learn, not to misbehave and interfere with the learning of others.’ I know a lot of teachers that are leaving , they are just tired of it.
To get respect, you have to give it to your students. My goal as a teacher is not to create obedient citizens. Also, please remember that parents today are struggling and are dealing with more challenges than parents of the past, just like how teachers today have additional challenges.
We all struggle , if you have children, your job is to love them, and teach them. Take 1 hour a night from your busy schedule and hold them and listen them, and be a good example for them. If you don’t our country is in trouble.
Many kids don’t have fathers in the home. That’s one of the biggest problems facing our country.
@@firefighter0585is it the lack of fathers or parents dumping their kids in front of an iPad because they don’t want to spend time with them?
Most of the kids acting out aren’t from single parent households. They’re from nuclear families who had them by accident and don’t want anything to do with them. You can’t expect a kid to act right in a classroom when their parent doesn’t teach them respect and manners.
@@adamlambboy8332 We have an epidemic of fatherlessness. I suppose that could include fathers who are physically present but have mentally checked out but in most cases they're just not around. 85% of youths in prison come from fatherless homes
71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes
Nearly 25 million children live without their biological father
60% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes
I lived and taught in Taiwan for over 12 years. I was, like all teachers there, revered and treated with the greatest respect. In the USA, however, teachers have been vilified for decades. When half of the media is telling their base every day, all day, that teachers are 'groomers' and are 'indorctrinating' kids, the base will believe that. To any public school teachers who may see this: you are heroes.
People act like teachers are supposed to educate AND raise kids at the same time! It all starts at home.
The only people who can be accused of "abandoning kids" is their primary caregiver. Teachers aren't "abandoning kids". They're self-preserving. Until society en masse gives teachers the respect and support they deserve, this will continue to happen. Throwing money at the situation by paying teachers more in hopes of retaining them will make it worse because then you'll have people working for the money, not for your children. Good luck, parents!
You say this as if every parent is terrible, or as if all of the issues are caused by parents.
@@pisceanbeauty2503 No. What I said was: "GOOD LUCK."
No, it's society. Society is abandoning the kids, e.g. by voting in people who prioritise profit and culture wars over the wellbeing of children and those who care for them.
@@NoliMeTangere1163 I know plenty of teachers, many who work in “bad” schools. Most of the issues they have had that caused them to want to quit came from incompetent administrations, poor district leadership, lack of resources, unrealistic expectations, and generally bad management of schools. They were not mostly tied to students or parents. Most public school teachers expect that they will have to deal with certain problems in their student populations, they just want the resources and support to deal with them.
Parents can self reserve as well if the children are placed in safe stable hands
I teach elementary school. I took my first sick day of the year on Thursday just because I was feeling burned-out. Even though I entered my absence more than 24 hours in advance, they couldn't get a sub and resource teachers had to tag-team in my room. That meant that the kids who they would normally give extra support didn't receive any support.
Basically, if I take a day off, it's the kids who have to pay for it.
and your colleagues
that's not your fault.
And if you take a day off because you're burnt out or feeling unwell, you're expected to provide detailed sub plans that essentially take longer to prepare than just showing up would. I quit teaching this year for that reason-- you never get to have a break.
@@carolinepersons4260 Yep. When my dad was dying, I was traveling at least 100 miles a day (in Winter) to be with him if I was driving from home. Would get home at midnight, 1 a.m. then prep/send out lesson plans for the schools I was teaching at if I needed to stay with my family the next day. And hope that I got a sub. The other option was getting up at 5 a.m., getting to school by 8 and after work drive 60-70 miles in heavy traffic (depending which school I was teaching at the end of the day) to be with Dad until late. Repeat. I did that for a month. Needless to say, I got a horrible sinus infection with a temp of 104 on the day he died. Two days latter I passed out from the fever. Still had to provide lesson plans. And prep for the school district's art fair. (My then supervisor, his assistant, and one librarian from one of the schools I taught at got the art work I had prepped to the fair). I retired just before Covid and have not regretted it one iota.
@@carolinepersons4260 Absolutely! And because it was my first day-off since I started at a new school, I had to write where to pick up the students, when recess is, where to find emergency procedures (not to mention the time-consuming process of just thinking about all the things that need to be included), plus which students need extra support and how. I was working on my sub-plan until 8:30 PM. Thank goodness I was only burned-out, rather than outright sick.
My mom has been teaching for 30+ years. She loves it. Last year, she told me that she'd look for a different job if she wasn't so close to retirement (it's not worth it to lose out on the pension money). She's in a good school district with reasonable class sizes, good management, and decent salaries, but the past few years have cumulated in too much on her shoulders. If you had asked me five years ago, I would've told you that she'd probably keep teaching in some capacity basically forever. Now she's counting the years to retirement.
In my state, they just cut retirement Healthcare benefits for anyone with less than 10 years. I was at 9 years when this happened. Retirement benefits were the only reason that I stuck with teaching. I am leaving teaching as soon as possible.
I was 2 classes short of my teaching credential, after subbing in a classroom for 2 years I learned just how horrible the job actually is. I don’t understand why anyone would actively try and enter the profession anymore.
Teachers and nurses are responsible for so much, yet we're treated like crap and aren't given the resources we need to properly do our jobs. This is why there is a teacher and nursing shortage and there probably always will be one.
teachers deserve to unionize and have collective bargaining. teachers are essentially held hostage and they are one of the backbones of this country, they are educating the next generation!
They already do, genius.
The teachers union is BY FAR the group most responsible for the systemic racism we see today. Do some research, these "unions" are not what you think they are.
@@joltjolt5060 don't be mean about this. The teacher's unions have been so attacked and vilified and people are struggling.
@ Jolt Jolt Have you never heard of right to work states? I’ve worked in a state that allowed unions and one that did not.
@@joltjolt5060 Teachers unions are severely underfunded and, as you can see by the current state of the education system, unhelpful in many ways.
It’s not just in America. Teachers are walking away from the profession in Australia too. Kids Behaviour is horrendous and teacher workload is unsustainable.
There were so many parallels in this video with nursing. The crying in the car… I felt that. We need our educators but there comes a time when you got to do what you got to do for yourself. Even if it means leaving.
My teachers were monumental in ensuring my admission to a top college despite my background of being in Foster Care. They were a stable source during my awful upbringing. This seriously does a lot of harm to children like me.
Now what are you going to do for the next generation? I don't mean this as an insult, I mean this is a genuine question.
The system is unfairly breaking down teachers and knowing that they aren't going to resist, so things are not going to change on their own. So in order to fix it, you need to do more than just feel bad about the problem.
@@PreferredCustomer I mean... why should they care for the next generation?
@@PreferredCustomer What are YOU going to do? Don't ask someone else to help, YOU need to help.
@@standowner6979 Seriously? Are you an American citizen? We're not just a sting of isolated puppets. WE'RE ALL CONNECTED AND RESPONSIBLE FOR EACH OTHER!!!
I was a teacher and quit after a year. The ratios are WAY TOO HIGH. Teaching is done best when teachers can work one-on-one with the kids, and that doesnt happen when the classroom is as packed as they are. The pay was garbage too, but honestly, I could have looked past that. It was the working conditions that finally pushed me over the edge.
I’m a first year teacher and hearing this perspective makes me feel much better about the current situation I’m in.
We still have 3 unfilled positions and another teacher broke down in tears last week.
Glad media is covering this. Our nation seems to collectively know that teachers are underpaid, undervalued, and overworked. Yet we keep requiring more of them and the culture war makes it increasingly difficult. I decided to go another path
My mom was a teacher for 34 years. She retired 5 years before covid19 and was a substitute for 4 of those years. She left teaching entirely when covid19 hit and hasn't gone back. Her colleagues have been quitting en masse.
Covid19 proved the district absolutely doesn't care about the teachers. They all started making exit plans for ASAP. They just can't keep destroying themselves physically/mentally and being the punching bags of society.
What's even worse: she and her colleagues were raising the alarm on students not being okay in 2014! Students had been showing increasing behavioral and emotional problems for 5 years before covid. They were becoming increasingly violent, billigerant, depressed, and suicidal. Parents have been getting worse to deal with for over a decade and refuse to discipline kids. Administrators capitulate to these parents constantly. Teachers can't even remove violent kids from their classrooms. HOW is someone supposed to work like that? One of my mom's colleagues had to quit before she retired because the stress very literally was killing him.
Agreed. Things were declining before the govt lockdowns, now after all that it's much worse.
One of the things the govt lockdown taught me is that many parents hate their children. They didn't teach them to read, write, add, count, or behave like a civilized human being.
What distresses me even further is that alot of the parents weren't even working and if they were, they were at home. Most things were closed.
These parents actually made it a goal to avoid any interaction with their own flesh and blood they chose to create for months+....
Then the best thing these kids need to learn is that their parents are worthless. And that they have to be self-reluant to know who to trust and how to take care of themselves.
Both my son and my nephew quit teaching because they could do nothing for the children. Their parents would do nothing to correct them. On top of that, they feared for their lives due to school shootings. On top of that, my nephew left teaching to manage a restaurant for 20,000 more a year. My son makes even more! Teachers are getting dumped on. When our young people fail, our nation will fail.
A typical day for a teacher involves different occupations, such as a parent, teacher, social worker, cop, counsellor.
Tired of being taken for granted, under-appreciated, under-paid, and overworked.
ok 🤡
In the U.S., p-12 teaching is a profession that preys on teachers' altruism and desire to make a positive difference to children.
Same with all other helping professions. If you aren't making a corporation money in some fashion, you're treated with the same respect afforded a river leach.
This ☝🏾
Spot on. If you don't work beyond the hours you are paid, you are looked down on as if you're just not that dedicated to your students.
or attracts the most incompetent or by far the most undesirables into a field where they are given free access to kids. Maybe that is why American kids can't read/write or do math at the appropriate levels and have to be taught everything AGAIN in college. Maybe public school teachers would be respected/rewarded if they actually produced value to their customers? Like having their kids read and write above the 5th grade level when their kids graduate high school.
Bingo!!! Paint you like a superhero and treat you otherwise.
I started out my teaching career in the USA. I was still in college trying to finish my degree. I was living with my parents and barely making enough to survive. I got hired by school whose last teacher was fired. I walked into an empty classroom without supplies or resources. I had to pay for everything. The school board and the staff did not help. I struggled to keep my head above water and was released at the end of the semester because "proper teachers bring their own ideas and resources to the classroom"
I left the USA for 6 years. I worked overseas. I made more money, had more time to myself, and was less stressed. It was a great.
I moved back to USA because of COVID reasons and family reasons. I am back in the US public school system. The school barely has any teachers and they had to hire Filipino teachers to fill in 4 vacancies. I work from 7am to 9pm some days and still can't get things done. I am expected to volunteer, attend countless meetings, be a social worker, substitute, put in grades, lesson plan, build curriculum for 4 different classes, etc. It is ridiculous.
Just...don't?
If they have so few teachers, will they actually fire you? Probably not.
Don't volunteer. Bring your work to the meetings. Source as many lesson plans as you can.
What country did you work in? I studied abroad in Spain twice (an entire year during graduate school) and am a world language educator. Moving back abroad is definitely a part of my five-year plan. Also, I stop grading everything after around the first quarter. We know our students well and who the A students are, C students, the ones who know absolutely nothing, etc. With that said, when my A students turn in a fully completed paper, I glance over it and give them a 100. This only goes for the ones who can answer correctly at any given moment and so on. The only thing that I fully grade are their exams and certain writing/ speaking tasks. And I agree, it is absolutely ridiculous!
@@abbyc.4215 good for you to figure it out. Teachers can also assign work during class and grade that/provide feedback in class as they do it. You can also grade as pass fail , or grade participation (answering questions when you call them out, not voluntary because some kids are shy).
I am overseas and certified to teach. I don't prefer to go back and teach. You're treated like a slave, and you have no respect.
@@BearingMySeoulThere are things that need to get done, if they don't, their jobs become harder or they can lose funding and lose their salaries. There are literal things you have to do that are not in your contract, like being a mandated reporter. If you don't report in time you can lose your license, be sued, go to jail, or your kid could be in danger. There are so many more things to write.
I loved teaching for 23 years until I was targeted by a literacy coach. I decided to quit rather than go through the degrading PAR program. I didn't realize until I got out of teaching just how abusive to women most public schools really are.
I put the blame squarely on parents, who demand that teachers babysit their kids for them, but who also complain if the teacher imposes any kind of discipline on a kid who bullies other, trashes the classroom, etc. You can't have it both ways.
I was a teacher for 2 years and that’s all I lasted. Got out before I was too deep for leaving to be easy. Most of the kids are great but let’s not mince words, many are not. It is nearly impossible teaching students who don’t care, and I feel most sorry for the kids who do. Sadly, I see no way this crisis gets better. I think within 10 years public schools will have so many vacancies and empty classrooms that online will be the standard for public school.
You're absolutely right. Teachers give more of themselves than any other profession. They stay in a low paying, under funded, disrespected job because they feel if they give up on the kids, then who will be there for them? We've gotten here from horrible parenting and greedy, out of touch lawmakers. An investment in our schools and our children is a huge investment in our future.
Hopefully it’s a better version of online schooling because most kids learned nothing during the pandemic
@@cardiaccoder9622 yeah
@@cardiaccoder9622 I have a feeling it won’t be. It’ll be much more streamlined and organized, but it won’t be much better at actually teaching kids and having them care. It’ll simply be the only “functional” form of public education left for the average student. Education will then only truly be available for those kids who show a genuine desire to learn in person because schools will most likely have entrance requirements to weed out kids who will only take up space and be more trouble than they’re worth. I think that’s where we are headed.
I hope charter schools fill the vacancy. Gives the schools the ability to kick out trouble makers so the rest that want to learn, can
As a current teacher working 7/7 periods, no breaks - I feel like the days are all blended together. I love my job, i love my students, but it certainly takes a toll on the body physically and mentally. I arrive an hour early and stay 2 hours past my time to catch up on work because we are so short staffed. Im often times multi-tasking putting out fires that admins should deal with but have their own hands full elsewhere. Im not sure if paying more even will make a difference at this point as all we want is to make sure the students learn. But being divided all day shuffling multiple tasks is not making us as effective teachers as we can be. And while I do a good job at managing it, i have 9 years under my belt teaching and still am fairly young compared to my colleagues. Something at some point will have to give because we have no subs left in our district pool and teachers are quitting every few weeks to go into the corporate world.
Thank you for your comment.
You stay "past your time" - really. Teachers are.exempt workers, not hourly. They don't clock in or out.
Professionals don't watch the clock. Aggressive unions have skewed this. But choose one or the other. Set hours with hourly pay or professionals who work until it's done.
@@rethinkcps2116 according to the FLSA, the minimum threshold to get paid w/o OT for a salaried worker is 35,568 per year. Prior to 2021, we were getting paid 32k in my state. While we are not told to stay past our hours, contractually we are only supposed to work from 0630-1430 with a prep period. However, many of us need to come in before that time and stay after plus work weekends to met our daily tasks even though contractually we are supposed to keep our work between contract hours. Professionals get compensated for their extra time but we do not which doesnt make it right especiallly when many of us as they said need to work multiple jobs to stay afloat. I adjunct college nights and am an assistant manager for a property which makes my work week 60-80 hours.
@@thepathunknown417 - reread my comment. Exempt work is *not* defined by a union contract. It's a legal designation.
Professional mangers, artists, actors, journalists, marketing executives, doctors....list goes on..
Different - not better or worse - than hourly workers.
Look up exempt / non-exempt employees.
@@rethinkcps2116 That’s the point of this video. That teachers are choosing “other” in droves because they’re expected to do the work of several different professionals within the course of a day, but are only paid for one actual profession, teaching.
I left 3 years ago and i'm so glad i did. I had a nervous breakdown the ask gets greater and the recourses get less hours and PD increases and the respect gets less. The system is so broken.
My mother retired a few years ago. She was a librarian/teacher. She hung in there as long as she could, but she'd finally had it. She'd seen the decline of education in the good ol' USA. Prior to her retirement, she began actively discouraging other people to get into the profession. A cynical move on her part, yes, however she was so right. Now she works part-time at the Carnegie Library and enjoys it. My dad took early retirement as a music teacher and now he teaches music on his own.
I think it’s crazy how under supported and underrated teachers are. They pretty much raise kids. It’s crazy. And parents aren’t making it easier. I am a highschool student and I can see how stressed teachers are. Pretty much all of my classmates are stressed too. We need to fix the education system. It’s broken. It’s inhumane. We need to do better.
Demand change. I mean this sincerely to genuinely help you.
Generations before you at your age, would protest or fight for the better conditions of a world they wanted to live in. Taking it passively only sends a message that you are some bark, but ultimately no bite.
Resist. Cause "trouble." Do not put up with this quietly. Make yourself a voice that deserves and demands to be heard--for the sake of those next to you who deserve the same.
You are young and do not have anything to lose that cannot be gained later. Good luck and God bless.
4 teachers have already quit by the beginning of November and my entire department wants to quit. The saddest part is that we no longer feel bad for anyone leaving or wanting to leave. Btw, I work a minimum 12 hours a day and sleep about 4. I can't even get into everything, I would be here all day 🥴
I retired in 2022. I taught for 35 years. I truly enjoyed it and I had a good run. However, I saw especially during Covid such a disrespect for the teaching profession. I saw how America did not value their teachers. It was disheartening. I am so glad I am out of the teaching profession, that I am retired. I will not become a substitute. I do not want to go back into the schools, it is a bad situation. I’m praying much for all my colleagues who are still in the teaching profession.
Social media and the internet has made many stressed and unkind.
Taught 34 years. Three weeks before school ended, heart attack. Good now, thank God daily I left the profession that was a major factor in my health crisis.
The NYT opinion is spot on.
Yet the Times ultimately blame the GOP for everything. *sigh* Tired of hearing the same old tropes.
Let's actually look at those states with the teacher shortage. I'll bet you anything that the problems in those areas are in the district's lying in blue counties, not the red ones.
Every problem in the Times story itself, that references an actual city, is in L.A. and so on. All Democrats.
We've heard the same problems for decades, and it's always being blamed on the same party and the same fears, which justify the same tactics and the same kinds of people getting elected.
Insanity is trying the same thing over and over again without changing it. You may be afraid of tryi g things the GOP way, but things are pretty terrible already. Time to try anything different.
@@PreferredCustomer good points
It is not just the pay. It is the working conditions, the disrespectful students, dealing with disruptive students in a regular class. The inability to suspend or expel the few students who make it bad for everyone.
Yes, salaries are important. But the working conditions also matter.
Umm... I really don't think children are to blame here... They are victims in this situation. I think your blame may be misplaced. In my opinion, it's a clear case of teachers being overworked and underpaid.
@@krobbalt and students. I'm not even a teacher and there are kids in public schools who make it an even harder experience for teachers and students. These kids are not roses and sunshines.
Yes agreed I am in union the pay 💰 isn’t the issue in Washington DC it’s the amount of jobs! The paperwork etc
My favorite chorus director left to pursue higher education and find a job so he could have a family because teaching wasn’t paying him enough. I can genuinely say he changed my life. I had many issues with men in my home life and he was one of the best if not only main man in my life who was someone I looked up to and helped me through a creative outlet. I am forever grateful for the teachers who do their best. The taught me lessons my parents missed.
“We rely on teachers to not give a f-k about themselves.” Very profound statement.
In a neighboring county to mine, they had school the Mon. and Tues. of Thanksgiving break. A school board member posted on the school Facebook page asking parents to please report if any teachers had shown a movie during those two days and to include the name of the school, grade level and teacher's name. Fortunately it back fired and 800+ irate teachers and parents called for the resignation of the board member, but that is the nonsense teachers are dealing with.
School boards don’t get enough credit for how bad they have gotten the last 3 years and how the nut cases filling them are driving teachers out.
How is that nonsense. Kids should be learning not babysat with a movie
@@RAJOHN-ke7mc Oh, Christ. You just don't get it do you?
@@RAJOHN-ke7mc Really missed the entire point didn’t you. The US education system is literally collapsing without enough qualified teachers in the classroom. This means the quality ones are being stretched to cover maybe a few classes and they’re bringing in random people not even qualified to cover alllllll the rest because no body wants to teach in this environment. Some parents and board members for some reason think they have leverage over teachers but they don’t. Like…at all. The schools are desperate to hire bodies for classrooms. So doing something stupid like saying report all teachers putting on a movie before thanksgiving is the dumbest thing you could do - the teachers are already either quitting or about to quit they’re not jumping through weird hoops because someone felt a lil too powerful that day. The schools are lucky the teachers who are there are there at all, whether they show movies or not is so far past a relevant point. The quality isn’t happening anywhere because the entire system is on fire. No one can succeed. And this isn’t like it’s impossible to see how to succeed there are many many countries with far better functioning education systems and literally all of them are founded on respect for teachers. That board member/parent needed to just be less dumb in general with that nonsense
If the district in question was LAUSD it wasn’t about any random movie. Some external research group or something put out some film that some group of people found extremely offensive and inappropriate, the district put out a call to all parents apologizing for the content and explaining it came from an outside group as part of some sort of study. There were no details given. It wasn’t about having people snitch on teachers for playing entertainment or educational movies during class. The superintendent also announced extra days during fall break to make up for learning loss during L.A.’s extensive school closure, over a year, just a year after everyone kept kids home in observance of a teachers strike. The teachers had the kids ask the parents not to sign up for the extra classes so we didn’t. They couldn’t get enough teachers to volunteer and i don’t imagine the kids would learn much from someone teaching against their will or being babysat by unaccredited people again. Their time was better spent engaged in family time, we’ll have to find other ways to address learning loss which is very serious. Entire classes are failing the standardized testing in subjects like math because they’re being tested on things that have yet to be taught. It’s a mess for everyone, especially the kids who have no representation.
I'm in a STEM field, and my starting pay was also 38k a year. So many people are underpaid in their fields. But teachers are being treated even worse.
As a teacher I can assure the emotional/ psychological toll it takes on the educator is unsustainable. The educators receive no back up from admin, everything is thrown under the rug in order to please the parents, the students have no sense of cause and consequence, grades are inflated and not to mention the amount of the educator's free time that gets poured into work- its a tortous line of work with very little sattisfactions
The more college required to be a teacher resulted in less teachers. Schools complain about parents not being involved while being the biggest reporters to child services. Respect goes both ways.
I am in a long term sub situation right now. I’ve observed that it just takes one or two kids to disrupt the entire learning culture in a class. In the class I’m currently in, there are five students in the one class with moderate to severe behavior issues. The other students are frustrated with the constant disruptions. It makes for a very challenging and tiring day. My approach is to remain kind but firm, patient. Notice any good behaviors. Deal with the inappropriate behaviors. If schools could assign behavior specialists in the classrooms to work with the students with poor behavior, to the point of pulling them out when needed and working toward longer periods in the class, this may alleviate some of the burnout teachers are experiencing, while also increasing the learning experience for the students on task and ready to learn. Although this is an expensive approach, it may be a price we must pay for years of neglect. 🤷♀️
When those 1 to 2 students who disrupt don't have their behavior corrected, it teachers the other students that they can get away with being disruptive. The behavior spreads.
Have you ever tried to teach a class that has any block or brown students ? If there’s 1 in the class, forget about it
I’m a teacher and my coworkers are dropping like flies. It’s wild.
To all the teachers who are suffering my heart goes out to you. If you are a teacher and a parent, may God bless you.❤
It’s literally insane how teachers are treated. I’m a teacher and I’m about to quit
They also expect teachers to not care about their own family and kids. And if I hear one more person say we get paid summers off I'm going to vomit. Teachers are NOT paid during the summer.
Child care workers are quitting too. The pay is poverty wages, and we don’t get benefits. We are finding better pay at other jobs. We also need smaller classrooms, supplies, etc. it’s very stressful job, and because of that people don’t stay very long.
Kids are being used as pawns to further political agendas. How can we call ourselves a developed society when we can't even provide an education or child care? We're ruining our society for the future.
Maybe people quitting those professions will teach parents not to Pawn off their responsibilities. Or have kids when they're not ready for them.
The irony is that one of the things that made America great in the first place was mass public education for all. The USA was one of the first countries on earth to have this, and it made America what it is today. Something has gone seriously wrong....
I was majoring in education. Teacher I shadowed said don't do it, she wishes she went into accounting, but I took that lightly. Moved across country, took a temp teaching job before I could start school again. And That deterred me, it opened my eyes to the world of teaching. What's crazy is, it's not just the "never not working" and being underpaid and pressures. It's also the fact that they've taken discipline out of teaching... A child could physically violent and nothing be done, show up in class the next day... Admin doesn't gaf.