What happens when you don't achieve the UAI you need? (2 Viewers)

[AsyLum]

May be thankless, yet rewarding in its' own way, pay is tipped to increase, teachers are well respected because they provide students knowledge that not everybody unqualified to do can and yes lots of stress/work

You asked as to why it was seen in a negative light, I'm looking to teach/lecture and gave you the truth. I was just stating the fact.

You paint a picture like their CO's in a max security prison or something. I guarrantee you Taxi Driver's, Police Officers and Baggage Handlers get a tougher time from the public then teachers. I'm not saying it is easy, sure you get some abusive kids, but at the end of the day your in the class room (high school) at max an hour with that lot before they move on. Plus, they are only kids- their often immature and a good teacher knows a little bit of psychology and how to handle this. Many of my best teachers never went crazy/yelled, but calmly embarrassed the disruptive kids, isolating them from the social circle they were attempting to impress. These teachers were also highly funny, interactive, passionate and treated the kids like freinds- and hence the respect flowed towards them. The teachers that often cop shit are in many cases incompetent, lack passion or have no personal skills or interest in the subject and hence should not have choosen the career path in the first place.

The fact you only have one hour with these kids is the very reason why the disruptions are so detrimental. Numbers don't talk back, taxes throw chairs at you. You outline some awful awful examples of 'good teachers' btw, one should never embarass a child.

Anyway, lets take a generalised look at the standard day-
The normal teacher prob arrives at 8-8:30 has coffee in staff room before going to their roll call class etc. Generally teachers also get a free period on many days (an hour) plus they get the lunch/recess or afternoon break off as well (even though they do get play ground duty rostered). Then factor in events like assemblies, often 40 minutes to an hour once a week they can sit down for and of course sport- up to 2 hrs of their afternoon where they jsut monitor the kids and have a chat. For eg, i use to go to the gym for sport and ten pin bowling- at both venues the teachers would bring a magazine/paper and just sit down and have a coffee. Not a bad way to get paid. In fact, on that same day we always had a 40 minute assembly in the morning and a half hour break before sport. Thursdays at my school meant a max of of 2-3 hrs in the classroom and a full day's pay!!!!!! Lets also consider that on the normal day, we are only talking about 6.5 hours people- my high school was 8:30-2:45 (that's 6.25 hrs but allow 15 in either arvo/morning for arriving etc)

You, like most people, assume that teaching is something that finishes at the bell. Lesson plans for 4-5 different classes a day, every weekday for 4-5 months takes a lot of time not directly attributable to the 8-3 time-frame you point out.

Now i have a lot of respect for good teachers and Im not saying it is not stressful, but not many other professions gets 10 week+ paid holidays a year as well. They never can get 'called in' for weekends etc There is a lot of perks. If you make head teacher etc it does nearly cap out at 80 grand a year. Not bad!

Like my point above, if you think that teachers just stop working after the day/semester is out, is frankly insulting and just wrong.

Assuming you meet someone in the profession as a future partner, u could b on 150+ a year combined. I know many wealthy teachers and they love their job and also after the first few years of settling do not find it stressful at all. They also have a very nice superannuation package, which i think came in during the 80's, but sadly might be phased out for new teachers now.

Rofl, this is bordering on wishful anecdotes, please refrain. "LOL IF YOU MEET A FELLOW HIGH COURT JUDGE YOU'LL HAVE A COMBINED ANNUAL INCOME OF A GAZILLLION BAJILLION DOLLAHS!"

The 'marking' is pitiful compared to a lawyer's work he has to bring home or an accountant's work around tax time. These professions, particularly a busy solicitor work very long hours for the money they earn as do many other professionals, often including weekends. They would also be lucky to get any more then four weeks annual leave.

You work similar if not longer hours marking essays, giving feedback, as well as developing lesson plans. Your stance is indicative of the cultural problem we have towards education, we devalue it as something 'easy' or not particularly worthy. We place more emphasis and value upon lawyers, in an industry which is so overcrowded with lawyers, that most graduates end up as glorified photocopiers and office bitches. Or accountants, who deal with very standardised and static situations.

Plus, if your good at your area of study teaching it at the high school level can be very briezy if not boring. Look at how bludgey casual teachers get it, often just babysitting classes without having to do any teaching. Geez look at PE teachers! Of course every1 wants 2 be one- paid the same as the 4 U maths teacher and they get to stand in the sun and blow a whistle or a draw a diagram of a dick on the board and explain sex to laughing yr 8 kids.

Casual teachers are some of the hardest working teachers out there. You probably don't realise, but most of them do not have stable incomes, they have to be willing to travel to different places and schools just to make a living. Of those casual teachers, there is a good minority of them who are also studying at the same time, for their PhD or Masters.

Your arguments regarding PE teachers and whatnot illustrates your general level of maturity and understanding of these things.

If you want to talk about really hard teaching, then discuss being a University Lecturer cause that IS NOT easy (emphasise lecturer/academic/subject coordinator NOT tutor, cause many of them do seem to have it easy).

Head lecturers and professors have it easier than most really. You lecture 5-10 hours a week and that's it. Those tutors you again put shit on, like the casual teachers, are the ones who are running these unis. Do you know that you're expected to do three times the work (or more to get promoted or even considered to be promoted) as a tutor or contract staff than a head lecturers? That you're expected to not only teach 3-4 units (not classes) but in addition to teaching, marking and supervising, but also that on top of this that to get higher in the food chain, you have to publish in 3-4 times more publications compared to the one citation of a head lecturer?

No, so please stop sprouting your crap because frankly its insulting to any teacher worth their salt out there.

 

[billbro]

AsyLum,

It really depends on the teachers teaching style and dedication. If the teacher simply makes students complete worksheets from external publications or reading textbooks, which seems to be the norm - I don't see that as difficult.

I don't agree that teachers work similar hours as other professions. I would say there are generally about four or five assessments a year, even multiplied by a few classes that seems reasonable. Feedback is given on a bi-annual basis and the teachers tend to copy and paste the comments - I remember my Economics teacher telling me that I had written the best essay he had read from a prelim student, yet in my report he talks about needing to improve essay skills??? This is compared to Audit slaves (that I'll probably become) that work past midnight every night, during the peak seasons.

Head lecturers still seem to take tutorials as well, the lecturer I worked for indicated that being course coordinator is the worst role. I'm not sure how hard it is being a tutor, but they are provided solutions beforehand. A tutor who does his role properly probably does have a tough time, but then you have those tutors that slap a slide on the projector and tell you to leave after 20mins.

With that said, I have an uncle in Hong Kong who is a teacher and it seems to be quite hectic. However, it just seems like the level of quality expected from him differs from what I experienced from my teachers at school.

 

[hopethisworks]

Hey guys, just two general questions;

1. So what happens if (hopefully not) we don't achieve the UAI we need to enter our preferred course?

2. Why is there negativity about teaching?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Cookie182]

I’m not going to bother quoting you directly as one extremely long; meaningless dissection is enough for this forum to handle. Scroll up; seriously I'm beginning to wonder if you even read my post. I must have said 3 times at least, "I’m not saying it doesn't get stressful" at times and i did also note that i have respect for teachers.

Perhaps u paid 20 k/yr and went to a private school or a selective school, if so i guess i can not comment. I went to a public school, and whilst there were some fantastic teachers (almost like mates by the end of yr 12) your generalisations regarding the workload are grossly overestimated. THERE ARE teachers who put in a lot of work, yes, a lot of work. But at the end of the day, they sadly get paid the same as a lot of teachers who practically put in none. And believe me these teachers exist. You mention casuals, sure, there are some great casuals and yes they travel to work (lol- many ppl across all professions travel to different workplaces) but they really bear no responsibility to the class beyond that hour. In my experience, all they ever did was take the note the permanent teacher left them and write up the pages that need to be summarised on the board. Then they would sit there and have a chat to the class. A lot of them were great people, really nice and interesting (and yes many were undertaking further study) but the job itself was very easy. Of course, all this comes from my own observations.

Four-five months of lesson planning?? I have teachers in my immediate family, and no, they don't. In the HSC particularly, u just follow through the syllabus with the textbook, ideally aiming to cover a topic/term. The hardest subjects would be say, economics as it is completely changing and require ongoing work (English syllabus regularly changes as well). But let’s take mathematics for a sec, the people that study math at uni are naturally going to find HSC maths very easy, and it is not a course that updates regularly. We used a textbook from 1987. Once you've taught the course for five years, you develop a solid plan, already have the notes prepared that u will use and so forth. Obviously, you get different students every year and your focus becomes meeting their individual learning needs but at the end of the day, u doesn’t lose your job if everyone goes shit. As long as you give out clear notes etc, the years keep passing through regardless of how many band 6's your class gets.

I know history teachers who adore their job as do much science, English, art, PE etc. teachers. My main criticism of this thread is that it paints a picture of utter terror. Sure there is the occasional misbehaving kid, once a yr a chair maybe thrown, so what? On the general day to day basis, particularly as you move into teaching older students, the good teachers develop close relationships with their students and as I’ve said they can be very influential and i had the upmost respect for them. But as to make out that their job is harder then a lawyers then u literally have got to be kidding. When lawyers/accountants stuff up or get something wrong their ass is dead set on the line, they can be sued. As i said, if u do your best, but in the end don't get the message across that well and everyone goes shit- u don’t get fired as a teacher. As for the comment- ‘the numbers don’t yell at you’, no your boss/clients do and unlike school kids they have you’re outside of work contact numbers and they also own your weekends if your work is yet to be complete.

In summary, if your not going to read anything, just at least read this last paragraph. Feel free to criticise my opinion if you will (why do you care for teachers so much any way, your profile says your a studying advertising?), but you will not convince me that being a teacher is one of the hardest professions. I think teaching, despite the supposed ‘low pay’, provides an incredible lifestyle job for passionate people, who love kids/young adults and who are generally dedicated to giving back their learning to someone. I think it is also a fantastic career to enter into later in life, after working in an industry, and it i something I may well do myself one day.

PS- As to your remark above, HC Justices only earn around 300-400 k. Yeah it is a lot, and I get your point that you can talk about ‘combined’ incomes in any job, but the main point I was making is that I know a lot of ‘teacher’ couples (not really uncommon to meet a future partner as a teacher once your in that industry from uni onwards) and they do very well financially. In fact, I do not really think teachers are that underpaid relative to other professional jobs (when you factor in $/hr AT WORK).

 

[Cookie182]

AsyLum,

It really depends on the teachers teaching style and dedication. If the teacher simply makes students complete worksheets from external publications or reading textbooks, which seems to be the norm - I don't see that as difficult.

I don't agree that teachers work similar hours as other professions. I would say there are generally about four or five assessments a year, even multiplied by a few classes that seems reasonable. Feedback is given on a bi-annual basis and the teachers tend to copy and paste the comments - I remember my Economics teacher telling me that I had written the best essay he had read from a prelim student, yet in my report he talks about needing to improve essay skills??? This is compared to Audit slaves (that I'll probably become) that work past midnight every night, during the peak seasons.

Head lecturers still seem to take tutorials as well, the lecturer I worked for indicated that being course coordinator is the worst role. I'm not sure how hard it is being a tutor, but they are provided solutions beforehand. A tutor who does his role properly probably does have a tough time, but then you have those tutors that slap a slide on the projector and tell you to leave after 20mins.

With that said, I have an uncle in Hong Kong who is a teacher and it seems to be quite hectic. However, it just seems like the level of quality expected from him differs from what I experienced from my teachers at school.

lol i should of left u to answer back. You seem to be able to put it in less threating, bias language then myself haha

But seriously, to reinforce i dont have any problem with teachers, just probably more an arbitary view based on a lot of observational research (had a lot of the worksheet type teachers over the years).

Haha my favourite is the classic copy-pasted comment in PE. Seriously, everyone in my class got the same. But then again, what choice does the teacher have when they don't know your name.

And yea, im also majoring in accounting and know how hard they work- so i get a little heated when asylum talks about their work as 'static' as though it is less challenging then teachers. Clients are much harder to please then kids! Imagine an accountant who got 12 weeks off a year (yea yea lesson plans i know).

 

[AsyLum]

AsyLum,

It really depends on the teachers teaching style and dedication. If the teacher simply makes students complete worksheets from external publications or reading textbooks, which seems to be the norm - I don't see that as difficult.

That's the problem, you see the easy road as the norm, but it isn't. Teaching courses are rigorous and of a fairly high standard. There is this assumption, mainly anecdotal evidence of some shit teacher being representative of the entire process.

The problem I have with your argument is that it spawns the relativism argument, "'everything is relative' but..." It doesn't make for good arguments, because you're not arguing, you're hiding behind hearsay and anecdotes.

I don't agree that teachers work similar hours as other professions. I would say there are generally about four or five assessments a year, even multiplied by a few classes that seems reasonable. Feedback is given on a bi-annual basis and the teachers tend to copy and paste the comments - I remember my Economics teacher telling me that I had written the best essay he had read from a prelim student, yet in my report he talks about needing to improve essay skills??? This is compared to Audit slaves (that I'll probably become) that work past midnight every night, during the peak seasons.

As above.

Head lecturers still seem to take tutorials as well, the lecturer I worked for indicated that being course coordinator is the worst role. I'm not sure how hard it is being a tutor, but they are provided solutions beforehand. A tutor who does his role properly probably does have a tough time, but then you have those tutors that slap a slide on the projector and tell you to leave after 20mins.

As above.

With that said, I have an uncle in Hong Kong who is a teacher and it seems to be quite hectic. However, it just seems like the level of quality expected from him differs from what I experienced from my teachers at school.

Again, it comes down to what I said about how we perceive education here.

 

[dood09]

tl;dr

chill out

 

[AsyLum]

I’m not going to bother quoting you directly as one extremely long; meaningless dissection is enough for this forum to handle. Scroll up; seriously I'm beginning to wonder if you even read my post. I must have said 3 times at least, "I’m not saying it doesn't get stressful" at times and i did also note that i have respect for teachers.

Perhaps u paid 20 k/yr and went to a private school or a selective school, if so i guess i can not comment. I went to a public school, and whilst there were some fantastic teachers (almost like mates by the end of yr 12) your generalisations regarding the workload are grossly overestimated.

Ad hominem arguments are awesome aren't they?

THERE ARE teachers who put in a lot of work, yes, a lot of work. But at the end of the day, they sadly get paid the same as a lot of teachers who practically put in none. And believe me these teachers exist. You mention casuals, sure, there are some great casuals and yes they travel to work (lol- many ppl across all professions travel to different workplaces) but they really bear no responsibility to the class beyond that hour. In my experience, all they ever did was take the note the permanent teacher left them and write up the pages that need to be summarised on the board. Then they would sit there and have a chat to the class. A lot of them were great people, really nice and interesting (and yes many were undertaking further study) but the job itself was very easy. Of course, all this comes from my own observations.

*sigh*

Your point about different people working in different capacities can be applied to any position, what makes it so essential to the argument of teaching?

'In your experience', again anecdotal evidence formed from your understanding as a student.

Four-five months of lesson planning?? I have teachers in my immediate family, and no, they don't. In the HSC particularly, u just follow through the syllabus with the textbook, ideally aiming to cover a topic/term. The hardest subjects would be say, economics as it is completely changing and require ongoing work (English syllabus regularly changes as well). But let’s take mathematics for a sec, the people that study math at uni are naturally going to find HSC maths very easy, and it is not a course that updates regularly. We used a textbook from 1987. Once you've taught the course for five years, you develop a solid plan, already have the notes prepared that u will use and so forth.


Obviously, you get different students every year and your focus becomes meeting their individual learning needs but at the end of the day, u doesn’t lose your job if everyone goes shit. As long as you give out clear notes etc, the years keep passing through regardless of how many band 6's your class gets.

More anecdotal stuff, hey I know economists and accountants who were absolute dropkicks, therefore all accountants are dropkicks.

As for the content not changing, sure but teaching isn't about regurgitating the same shit. As you stated, different students come in each year, each student is very different from the next, let alone the classes being taught. The difficulties in teaching are involved with the ability to teach, you kinda miss that point. Not everyone learns the same.

And regarding not performing well, wow, you must be living in some pipe dream.

I know history teachers who adore their job as do much science, English, art, PE etc. teachers. My main criticism of this thread is that it paints a picture of utter terror. Sure there is the occasional misbehaving kid, once a yr a chair maybe thrown, so what? On the general day to day basis, particularly as you move into teaching older students, the good teachers develop close relationships with their students and as I’ve said they can be very influential and i had the upmost respect for them. But as to make out that their job is harder then a lawyers then u literally have got to be kidding. When lawyers/accountants stuff up or get something wrong their ass is dead set on the line, they can be sued. As i said, if u do your best, but in the end don't get the message across that well and everyone goes shit- u don’t get fired as a teacher. As for the comment- ‘the numbers don’t yell at you’, no your boss/clients do and unlike school kids they have you’re outside of work contact numbers and they also own your weekends if your work is yet to be complete.

You painted the picture of utter terror, you strongly disagreed with my point that teaching was a thankless job, something you've illustrated quite clearly that it is, that it involves rather low pay, which when compared to other countries it is, and that it involves lots of stress and work, something which you disagree with and I've stated how most of your observations have been formed from a student's point of view, moreso than actually seeing how difficult it is in reality.

In summary, if your not going to read anything, just at least read this last paragraph as this will be my last post on this topic. Feel free to criticise my opinion if you will (you obviously want to be a teacher and I give you best the of luck), but you will not convince me that being a teacher is one of the hardest professions. I think teaching, despite the supposed ‘low pay’, provides an incredible lifestyle job for passionate people, who love kids/young adults and who are generally dedicated to giving back their learning to someone. I think it is also a fantastic career to enter into later in life, after working in an industry, and it i something I may well do myself one day.

I'm not into not-reading, though you may wish to review what I'm typing next time (with regards to the above paragraph).

And yea, im also majoring in accounting and know how hard they work- so i get a little heated when asylum talks about their work as 'static' as though it is less challenging then teachers. Clients are much harder to please then kids! Imagine an accountant who got 12 weeks off a year (yea yea lesson plans i know).

Imagine how much of a kick in the balls it is, when you collectively call teachers slack and shit?

And my reference to accounting is based on the notion that you follow a collective set of rules, you may deal with exciting instances from time to time, but there is no dynamicism to it, as far as I am aware anyway, I would imagine that stuff is relegated to risk management etc, not common accounting.

 

[ASNSWR127]

Ad hominem arguments are awesome aren't they?




*sigh*

Your point about different people working in different capacities can be applied to any position, what makes it so essential to the argument of teaching?

'In your experience', again anecdotal evidence formed from your understanding as a student.



More anecdotal stuff, hey I know economists and accountants who were absolute dropkicks, therefore all accountants are dropkicks.

As for the content not changing, sure but teaching isn't about regurgitating the same shit. As you stated, different students come in each year, each student is very different from the next, let alone the classes being taught. The difficulties in teaching are involved with the ability to teach, you kinda miss that point. Not everyone learns the same.

And regarding not performing well, wow, you must be living in some pipe dream.



You painted the picture of utter terror, you strongly disagreed with my point that teaching was a thankless job, something you've illustrated quite clearly that it is, that it involves rather low pay, which when compared to other countries it is, and that it involves lots of stress and work, something which you disagree with and I've stated how most of your observations have been formed from a student's point of view, moreso than actually seeing how difficult it is in reality.



I'm not into not-reading, though you may wish to review what I'm typing next time (with regards to the above paragraph).



Imagine how much of a kick in the balls it is, when you collectively call teachers slack and shit?

And my reference to accounting is based on the notion that you follow a collective set of rules, you may deal with exciting instances from time to time, but there is no dynamicism to it, as far as I am aware anyway, I would imagine that stuff is relegated to risk management etc, not common accounting.

imagine someone comparing teaching to accounting!

There is no comparison

Teaching is special

accounting is... accounting (BORING AS HELL!!)

 

[Sammy-Blue]

imagine someone comparing teaching to accounting!

There is no comparison

Teaching is special

accounting is... accounting (BORING AS HELL!!)

Also, all accountants ARE dropkicks. Invalid example

 

[Cookie182]

wow

you wiki'ed a few latin terms on the foundation of arguement philosophy. In fact, I think you are a little misguided. A Relativistic arguement makes the assumption that there is a plurality of standards with peoples views, and hence no 'opinion' can be held objective. Fair enough, then what makes your opinion that teachers work extremely hard 'absolute'? How can you be as certain that lecturers 'have it easy' as you previously stated? In fact, much of your previous post was full of 'ad hominem' (your reference in the last post to me 'spluttering crap' as an example).

Of course this is all personal opinion etc- I always get extremely pissed with people when they actually have no point, so they revert to digging apart a post trying to sound academic through either

1) Dissecting a post on the basis of grammatical errors
2) Spamming latin philosophical terms as though they some how give you academic credibility.

If you have nothing to say don't post. Otherwise if you are going to, make it worth while even if it is with a bias and subjective opinion its better then shying away and saying nothing. All you actually said in solid fact was something I had already stated- that 'learning is individual to each student'. I was never making a deductive arguement that, oh an accountant works hard, therefore all accountants work hard (dunno how economists came in by the way). Similarily, I never said- oh there is a bad teacher, they are all bludgers. Mark my words now if you don't believe them. Most teachers are hard-working as are most accountants. But there is no denying, surveys would back this up, the AVERAGE hours worked in the Finance industry is longer then those working in Education. In order to actaully compare the difficulty between the jobs, it would be hard as that would be largely dependent on the sample's intelligence/skill set and overall position.

*Here comes my opinion again and i admit as i can not currently back this point up, but I believe there would be more stress entailed to a job in Accounting or Finance then teaching. I thoroughly think that meeting clients expectations entails a greater amount of pressure then meeting student expectations (or parents for that matter), on average of course (will always be exceptions). What next? Your going to put forth the arugement that teachers have more stress then surgeons?

My last question- you talk about our judgements from a 'student's perspective' not from an external position. But how would you know yourself? I'm guessing your also clouded with student perceptions unless you HAVE ACTUALY TAUGHT at high school?

 

[billbro]

That's the problem, you see the easy road as the norm, but it isn't. Teaching courses are rigorous and of a fairly high standard. There is this assumption, mainly anecdotal evidence of some shit teacher being representative of the entire process.

The problem I have with your argument is that it spawns the relativism argument, "'everything is relative' but..." It doesn't make for good arguments, because you're not arguing, you're hiding behind hearsay and anecdotes.

Again, it comes down to what I said about how we perceive education here.

We don't have any objective data to go on, what else are we meant to go off apart from our perceptions? We aren't debating the difficulty of a teaching course, but the quality of the teaching. If you want an objective measure, I believe we generally been slipping across the board in international surveys. While the HSC is meant to be world class, our education system is viewed is quite easy by Asian countries. There would be two apparent reasons for this, either the education isn't up to scratch (which it probably isn't) or the quality of teaching is largely lacking.

I agree that I am making a sweeping assumption that might not be true. However, that is what I have experienced on the whole and until I see otherwise, I'm not sure why I should disregard the view. Your argument is not really much different, it is not as though you have presented pages of empirical data to substantiate your claims.

Everything is relatively though, but that's not really my argument. I am saying it is too hard to make an arbitrary decision because it is relatively.

My argument insofar as teaching being easier is not really based on relativism, it is merely subjective. However, as I said there is no real objective measure apart from how we rank globally and we've been slipping unless I'm mistaken. Maybe I haven't been articulating it very clearly, so I'll try again.

I think the tasks required to fully encompass a teaching role are less demanding and time consuming than the majority of white collar positions. I don't think it is plausible to assume the time required to prepare teaching materials is the same as the hours required to Audit a company at the end of the financial year or the preparation for a criminal trial. I do not believe the impact of a child could possibly be as stressful as defending someone accused of rape or brokering deals where you are dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars - especially with a free falling stock market. Even the lecturer - teacher comparison, there is more demanded of a lecturer than your everyday teacher. A lecturer are teacher and similar in many respects, the point of differentiation is that an academic needs to produce research to maintain their role, but a teacher doesn't.

So yes, I am merely expressing my opinion based on my perceptions, but then what post on here isn't shaped by someone's perceptions? Yes, it is based on the perception of our education system and the general consensus is that our system is crap - what's to say this isn't true though? Anyway I'm just rambling, in the end it is my view and I am not saying it is the correct and only view.

you wiki'ed a few latin terms on the foundation of arguement philosophy.

Ad honimem is fairly common terminology, doubt anyone needed to wiki it =P

 

[AsyLum]

wow

you wiki'ed a few latin terms on the foundation of arguement philosophy. In fact, I think you are a little misguided. A Relativistic arguement makes the assumption that there is a plurality of standards with peoples views, and hence no 'opinion' can be held objective. Fair enough, then what makes your opinion that teachers work extremely hard 'absolute'? How can you be as certain that lecturers 'have it easy' as you previously stated? In fact, much of your previous post was full of 'ad hominem' (your reference in the last post to me 'spluttering crap') as an example).

You're new here so I'll let you go, but please don't insult my ability to argue based on your assumptions

I haven't stated that they work really hard, I have said that the public perception is that they don't work at all, which as you've repeatedly illustrated appears to carry some weight. I'm arguing not for teachers to be placed on some pedestal along with rock stars, but to be recognised in their work, stress and difficulty just like the next person.

The lecturer comment was based on the observations and 'rules' which governs the requirements implemented within many universities regarding their promotions and status. I also stated that head professors and lecturers, if you're not fully aware, casual/contractual staff can be lecturers and can double as tutors, it is not simply a distinction between convenors or lecturers or tutors but more to do with their relevant employment statuses.

Of course this is all personal opinion etc- I always get extremely pissed with people when they actually have no point, so they revert to digging apart a post trying to sound academic through either

1) Dissecting a post on the basis of grammatical errors
2) Spamming latin philosophical terms as though they some how give you academic credibility.

You're getting angry because of your inability to retalliate with anything substantial, its ok I get that often.

If you have nothing to say don't post. Otherwise if you are going to, make it worth while even if it is with a bias and subjective opinion its better then shying away and saying nothing. All you actually said in fact was someting I had repeated- that 'learning is individual to each student', i originally stated that.

On the contrary, I have a lot to say and would say that our viewpoints are not too far apart, it is as you said, your opinion of what teachers do and what is involved with teaching that bothers me.

I have stated my point previously, try re-reading them.

My last question- you talk about our judgements from a 'student's perspective' not from an external position. But how would you know yourself? I'm guessing your also clouded with student perceptions unless you HAVE ACTUALY TAUGHT at high school?

I've been involved in several positions of teaching and am in the process of attaining a lecture-ship. But these qualifications are not what I am basing my arguments on, but rather the public perception versus the reality of what happens behind the scenes so to speak.

 

[AsyLum]

We don't have any objective data to go on, what else are we meant to go off apart from our perceptions? We aren't debating the difficulty of a teaching course, but the quality of the teaching. If you want an objective measure, I believe we generally been slipping across the board in international surveys. While the HSC is meant to be world class, our education system is viewed is quite easy by Asian countries. There would be two apparent reasons for this, either the education isn't up to scratch (which it probably isn't) or the quality of teaching is largely lacking.

I agree that I am making a sweeping assumption that might not be true. However, that is what I have experienced on the whole and until I see otherwise, I'm not sure why I should disregard the view. You argument is not really much different, it is not as though you have presented pages of empirical data to substantiate your claims.

Your arguments suggest nothing of the teaching quality, but rather of the skills involved in teaching as an occupation itself. That is what I believe this thread has been about (well this argument anyway).

I think the tasks required to fully encompass a teaching role are less demanding and time consuming than the majority of white collar positions. I don't think it is plausible to assume the time required to prepare teaching materials is the same as the hours required to Audit a company at the end of the financial year or the preparation for a criminal trial. I do not believe the impact of a child could possibly be as stressful as defending someone accused of rape or brokering deals where you are playing hundreds of thousands of dollars - especially with a free falling stock market. Even the lecturer - teacher comparison, there is more demanded of a lecturer than your everyday teacher. A lecturer and teacher and similar in most respects, the point of differentiation is that an academic needs to produce research to maintain their role, but a teacher doesn't.

You're comparing a very specific and in-depth part of the work versus the general idea of teaching though. It is not a fair comparison, and you must surely realise that teaching is a tiered environment possessing similar levels of specificity and expertise. What I'm arguing is not that one is better than the other, as I previously stated in my original post, I stated that teaching is a thankless job, that it is relatively low paid compared to other positions and that it is stressful/and involves a lot more work than what people accord to it.

Your examples emphasise this misunderstanding, you are placing extreme cases in other occupations and comparing them to the general idea of teaching.

So yes, I am merely expressing my opinion based on my perceptions, but then what post on here isn't shaped by someone's perceptions? Yes, it is based on the perception of our education and the general consensus is that our system is crap - what's to say this isn't true though? Anyway I'm just rambling, in the end it is my view and I am not saying it is the correct and only view.

I am attacking your argument, baed on the reasoning behind it, largely the inconsistency with presenting arguments as mentioned above and your inability to separate the system from the role. Our education system is suffering from a distinct lack of financial or infrastructural support by governments on all levels but that is an entirely different debate.

 

[Cookie182]

I agree that I am making a sweeping assumption that might not be true. However, that is what I have experienced on the whole and until I see otherwise, I'm not sure why I should disregard the view. Your argument is not really much different, it is not as though you have presented pages of empirical data to substantiate your claims.

I agree here. I think that the argument, whilst enjoyable, will never be resolved as we are all to an extent arguing on a subjective level. No data can substantiate our own perceptions, what we have all viewed and experience in the classroom and out. There also seems to be possibly an emotive side to the arguement- Asylum refered to my comments as 'slack' which implies that for him there is a level of insult within my claims. If so, I do apologise. My purpose certainly is not to degrade teachers- they play a fundamental role within our society. In fact, my own arguement is tainted with bias/emotion and you can see that with my defense of accounting. There's nothing wrong with this of course, we are all human and we all hold unique perceptions.

But to probably finish off as i really do have some uni work to get done Attempting to be objective as possible, I believe that a little research would be able to find that there are on average far longer work hours in legal/financial jobs then teaching and correspondingly higher stress levels. Having said that, a Prinicpal of a large high school (just a promoted teacher really) would put in more hours/stress then a junior CA. However, my point is this is an absolutle minority and in the majority, I believe my opinion would hold true.

 

[AsyLum]

I agree here. I think that the argument, whilst enjoyable, will never be resolved as we are all to an extent arguing on a subjective level. No data can substantiate our own perceptions, what we have all viewed and experience in the classroom and out. There also seems to be possibly an emotive side to the arguement- Asylum refered to my comments as 'slack' which implies that for him there is a level of insult within my claims. If so, I do apologise. My purpose certainly is not to degrade teachers- they play a fundamental role within our society. In fact, my own arguement is tainted with bias/emotion and you can see that with my defense of accounting. There's nothing wrong with this of course, we are all human and we all hold unique perceptions.

I'm far too tired to get emotional about this thread, so please don't mistake my eloquence and want to engage in argument as such.

 

[Cookie182]

Well Asylum,

After reading your last response i think ill resign here. I wasn't doubting your argumentive skills, but felt a frustration due to your lack of addressing our main point. It then hit me that we probably are not going to directly see eye to eye as we are not actually argueing the same point lol

I know it did not intially begin that way, but i shifted my focus towards a comparison in workload between the two industries. As you point out, it is a very hard thing to do as perceptions generally force us to conside the 'extremes' of each case rather then the 'average'. Your focusing on the idea that neither is better then the other and this noton of public 'thanklessness'. Whilst i actually agree in the greater part, i resent that you think my opinion of teachers is that they are all lazy. Never did i say that, and i think that a lot of the ongoing frustration stemmed from your lack of addressing my continued remarks that 'there are many good teachers' etc etc

anyway, good nite guys

 

[billbro]

True my argument hasn't been strictly related to teaching quality, but it is inherently associated with my assumption. It isn't particularly hard to extrapolate from skills towards teaching quality anyway. However, I can't say I've been keeping track of what I'm saying, not much of an excuse but this thread isn't exactly getting my undivided attention.

I am not comparing very specific roles compared to the general roles of teaching, rather I can comparing specific tasks in both professions. I'll concede a rape case was a imbalanced comparison, but amending that to a general court still yields the same results. I am not saying that teaching isn't a thankless job (not that it should be that way), but that it is relatively easier in terms of stress and hours.

If you want more general analysis, most white collar professions would appear to demand more hours and offer less stability than teaching.

Fair enough, though I think my posts have been fairly consistent until the last - though I don't plan on rereading them to check. It is a different debate, but it is not completely irrelevant. You wanted a more objective approach and showing the inadequacies of the system, certainly supports my assumption.

 

[Sammy-Blue]

...

 

[cannibal.horse]

I think a lot of people also forget a lot of those unpaid hours behind the scenes that go into teaching...Mother has marked 170 year 11 journeys papers over the last 4 days yet she won't see a cent for it. Technology has made it worse cause now she's also getting swarmed by hsc kids sending her emails and expecting them back in a few hours.