I agree with you that teachers who complain about being underpaid are being ridiculous. IMHO, they are fairly compensated, nothing more, nothing less.
Certainly, there are teachers who go into teaching because that’s all they’ve ever wanted to do, and they go straight from being students in school, to being teachers in school. They tend to lack a broader perspective vs. teachers who go from private to public employment (quite a few, BTW).
Yes, there are many difficult “white collar” jobs, but there are very few that deal with the type of stress that teachers deal with, especially as it relates to difficult students (behaviorally, mentally, physically), and in trying to get a *very diverse* group of students to understand the quality and quantity of material required to “pass the tests,” and/or advance to the next grade.
As for deep-sea fishing…they actually make FAR more than teachers, which can be justified by the very difficult nature of their jobs (I’ve known a few fishermen in my lifetime, and Alaskan fishing is unbelievably hard work, without a doubt). They can make tens of thousands of dollars in a month…far, far more than teachers ever will, even with the highest salary possible with a Ph.D, etc.
I agree that truly difficult work, like deep-sea fishing and ditch digging, should be paid more, but that’s not how our society operates. The highest paid people in our society tend to be those who have the easiest jobs, physically-speaking, but are in charge of money flows (financial industry, C-suite types, etc.). Believe me, I wish it weren’t so…I would love to see that whole compensation system turned inside-out and upside-down, but that is what we have to deal with right now.
Being a SAHM (which I currently am — homeschooling our kids) is not at all like teaching. I cannot overstate the differences between the two.
Let me state emphatically that I am not trying to be the spokesperson for public unions or teachers, etc. But I see a lot of emotional arguments and misinformation on the subject, and feel the need to interject when someone is trying to spread lies as fact — like the “$80K/yr average teacher’s salary,” for instance.
BTW, our states are not going broke because of the unions. They are going broke because of the boom/bust policies of the Federal Reserve.
