Teachers in my area make ~$40k right out of college. My shop teacher in high school had a salary of over $80k. That’s 6 years ago.
I’m not sure I understand your comment, exactly. Are you saying that elementary teachers are just baysitters, as opposed to professionals? Do you have any idea the amount of education and skill it takes to teach children, not to mention qualities like oration, diligence, and patience? Hell, it’s not even legal to hire someone without a degree in the field.
How dare you, sir.
Hmm, actually he makes closer to $120k a year now. Here are the salaries of teachers at the high school I graduated from. Most have been there a while and have master’s, still, very good money. I know a guidance counselor that will receive something like 2/3rds or 3/4ths of her salary as pension until she dies.
I’m pretty sure that in days of olde the blacksmith was a relatively well-compensated professional. Nowadays, not so much.
Let’s see:
2 weeks off at Christmas.
A week at March (Spring) break.
Every statutory holiday.
Loads of PD days.
All summer off.
Plus you get a pension.
And all you have to do is teach “elementary” subjects to kids from a prescribed agenda. I’m sorry, but compared to the rest of the working “professions” this is a cake walk.
Dude, you are just asking for it!
-FrL-
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Take it to GD if you wish to debate about teaching. Don’t shit in this thread.
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There’s something you have to understand about me. I am incredibly patient. It’s not just me who says this, it is a personality characteristic that others have remarked on many times throughout my life.
I am slow to anger, as well. And generally, even when I do get angry, you can’t tell.
Basically, I am someone who doesn’t lose his cool. The few times I have ever done so have been in the company of people very intimately close to me. In public, absolutely never. It couldn’t happen.
Except one day when I was substitute teaching in a first grade classroom. What happened that day is the second most shameful moment of my life.
Teaching elementary school is not a cakewalk. Just the “babysitting” aspect alone is enough to drive a sane man insane. (That was me.) Add on to that the stuff involved in the teaching–lesson plan design and implementation, beaurocratic nonsense, working at home, doing professional development during holidays, dealing with parents, dealing with parents, and you bet the job can resemble hell on earth at times. Teachers deserve much more than they are paid.
-FrL-
While I 100% agree (my wife is an Optometrist, and making a living at that is getting harder nowadays), I’d have to say that Ph.D.s have it worse - we don’t know how long our schooling will be (sometimes 5-6 years), and Post-docs pay about $30k/year, mabye $40k/year if you’re lucky. You get to do that for 5-7 years, and then try to find a lab of your own. If you’re one of the lucky few to get one, you’re probably paid $60-70k starting out, and by this time you’re in your mid-30s when all of your friends who chose to get business or law degrees are making $100k+ easy. If you don’t publish, you’re out of a job. If you do, you’re entitled to the sweet sweet 3% government yearly pay raise, assuming the government didn’t have an off year raising taxes (as they’ve had in Florida) and decide to not raise wages that year.
I really am worried for this country, the incentive for those with brilliant minds to get into medicine and biomedical research is declining quickly - not that it’s still not “livable” professions, but, as you said, you have to fight for every penny now, and the average income for doctors is probably $150k, and the best of the best are lucky to make a 500k to 1 million a year. That’s pocket change to doctors of the past.
It’s not really fair to compare a resident’s salary to that of a boarded physician; the resident is still in training. Besides, as our attendings liked to point out ad nauseam when I was training, residents make a lot more now (in constant dollars) than they used to.
Residents get paid between $40-45K no matter where they are, which can be problematic for big-city programs. You can live like a king on that in East Buttcrack, North Dakota, but in the Bay Area or NYC it probably means you’re sharing your cardboard box.
As for the rest, are there really that many professions where nearly anyone can start out (after training) at a six-figure salary just about anywhere in the country? $150K is about average for primary care physicians; specialists range from a little more to a lot more. Maybe I just underestimate how much other professions pay.
Not true. It has become an artisan profession instead of skilled labor like it used to be. One of the few places that has managed to combine modern and older techniques for making swords is Albion. They use a CNC machine for milling the blanks for their blades, and then do some hand finishing and heat treatment, with basic but nicely crafted hilting.
The price of their stuff is in the middle between the lower level mass-produced or low-quality stuff usually made in third-world countries with low labor costs, and the much more expensive custom market. An Albion blade will cost you between $600 and $1200, with their limited museum-quality replicas running about twice that cost. The price for custom maker starts at around $2,000 for a decent Western sword, and they all have waiting lists that stretch for months or years.
The very few smiths outside Japan who do quality fully-traditional Japanese work, like Michael Bell charge between $5,000–10,000 for just the blade; polishing, basic furniture for the hilt, and scabbard will cost you almost as much as the blade. One of the few places that offers relatively decent Japanese-style swords for under $2,000 is Bugei Trading Company and all of the cheaper models are made in China, with a machine-intensive method of production. Custom stuff in a Japanese style (not capable of being considered fully traditional, though well made) still has to be largely done by hand. The price for that reflects the labor. Howard Clark sells most of his stuff through Bugei, but the price list on his site will show you how expensive he is.
Quality armor costs even more.
That’s very cheering to hear you say that. What about a university professor, not tenure track, but still with a Ph.D. and over ten years of experience earning far, far, less than $50K?
I would definitely say that university professor has come down in status.
800 years of big bucks and I have to get into the profession in the anti-intellectual 21st century…
If anywhere you mean with a major sports team, a straight to grad school lawyer graduating in the top 5% (upwards to top 25% if from a top pedigree school) with Moot Court Honors and/or Bar Review working for a large law firm will clear 6 figures. The only profession that could possibly due that straight out of undergrad are investment bankers working for a luck-of-the-draw, had a great year and bonuses investment group. Of course, most undergrads of this type go to some consulting firm or start out as an analyst for a couple of years. Oh, and along this thinking, I would also say sales people (particularly those who had really good years), but I think most sales people start out in some form of customer relationship management job or inside sales.
Airline pilots used to be well-paid. My brother in law works for one of the big-time U.S. airlines and has seen his salary shrink, his pension eliminated and his health insurance skyrocket. He’s now making as a captain about the same as he used to make as a co-pilot.
At that he’s doing better than pilots for “regional” airlines, who, after getting their own training, work for decidedly middle-class wages.
The mechanics are going through the same thing.
I know the debate is over, but just wanted to agree with this. It always amazes me that people who think nothing of spending $120.00 a week to send one kid to daycare during the summer figure a teacher should not only babysit for but educate a 25 student class full of them for the equivalent of $50.00 per child per week.
All my friends back in the '90s thought they were going to strike it rich by learning to fix computers. I told them it would be more or a less a manual labor job within a few years and they thought I was full of it. Now it’s pretty much happened. A Geek Squad-type job (I have no idea about the Geek Squad in particular, but that kind of job), pays as low as $6.75 these days. I knew people early this decade who were making $30-$40 an hour doing the same thing.
But “$0” is incorrect, isn’t it? They still get something, but not as much as before, right? Before welfare, they really did get nothing but charity. And they also incurred tremendous social stigma, whereas today there is little or none.
I am not debating the merits of teaching so this shouldn’t have anything to do with the above warning. We are spending about $8,000 a year to send our kids to public school. I spend considerably less than that to send them to day care when needed. In New Jersey it is not uncommon for tenured teachers to make at least 80k. Of course that varies wildly by school district depending on size. We spend more than anyone in the country on property taxes and most of that goes towards education. Teaching is not a low paid occupation around here. You are not going to get rich but it is well above average. Especially when you factor in the fact that it is not a 12 month a year job. I’m sure it is not that way everywhere across the country.
So did all my friends, myself included. :smack:
No, in fact they are better off in general.
Teachers around here with the same degree and same experience make slightly more than me*, per year*. They work less days, too.
San Jose opened a new Apt building supposedly catering to low income teachers- none qualified! Only a 1st year teach with the min degree or PT teachers would qualify.
Not that they are overpaid or anything- it’s just a decent living.
Police Officers make far more now than they did in the past.