In your opinion, are teachers overworked and underpaid?

My husband always had a fit at how much of my salary I spent on things for my classroom. What I always told him was that it was far easier buying materials to work with, even if I had to pay for them myself, than it was trying to fill long days with nothing.

I was absolutely appalled when I'd heard that a few years ago, too.

Well I think it is awful that teachers must pay. What on earth do they use our taxes for? And teachers are making a way for the future of people. They should be respected more and make a much bigger salary.

I agree, but what I've found is that those who are the worst teachers are the ones who spend the most time with the principal convincing him/her what a good teacher they are. Administrators never seem to catch on that if they're talking all the time they aren't working. I worked in high school special needs for 8 years and was able to establish really great rapport with most of the students, including the BD ones. The BD teacher, on the other hand, was never in her classroom, and all she tried to do was get her students sent to other facilities so that she wouldn't have to work with them. There was one boy, Derek, who had major anger management issues. He was extremely prickly, but I had been able to get close enough to him that he trusted me. He struggled with anger in the BD teacher's classroom, so we made a deal with the principal. He gave Derek a card that said that if he ever felt like he was going to lose it, he could show the teacher the card and just walk out of her room and come to me. He tried this one day. That woman had the audacity to come storming after him, open the door to my classroom, and start screaming at him in front of the other kids. I could see him shaking and trying to keep his cool. She kept screaming and demanding that he go to the office with her. Then she stormed off towards the office. Pretty soon we got an intercom message that he needed to go to the office. I went with him. He was doing such a good job of keeping his cool, and I didn't want him to get into a position where he would blow. We met with an assistant principal. Sitting in the conference room, she continued to scream at Derek and say all kinds of mean things about him. He had his hands balled into fists and was shaking with anger, but he remained quiet. I put my hand over one of his to help steady him and to let him know I was proud of his behavior. I told the assistant principal about the deal we'd made with the principal, and he said he'd check it out. The result was that Derek was assigned to my room whenever he was supposed to have gone to hers. Unbelievably, the next morning I ran into the principal who had heard of the situation from his assistant. He concurred that Derek would be in my room, but he told me, "Maybe you should talk to Marilyn (the BD teacher) about handling Derek, because she is so good with him." I stared at him with my mouth open. Administrators can be so blind!!! And if they don't know which of their staff is doing a good job, then who's to judge?

I would have liked to see you keep up with me the last 4 years since I started teaching. In my fight to try and be the best teacher I could be, I worked 24/7 -- and still couldn't get everything done. I had no life at all.

I wasn't trying to offend you or say they are not overworked. I don't know if they are. I do know that I have seen some teachers that will work night and day to get through to the kids and then a few that as soon as school is out, they don't want anything to do with school. I think their pay should be figured on how good of a teacher they are, although I know that would be hard to do. Some deserve alot more and others deserve what they are getting.

With most teachers I've worked with, it isn't that they don't want to be good teachers, but so much extra work has been piled on them that they can't be the kind of teachers they want to be.

exactly! teaching isn't just walking a room and saying "ok kid, read this book and write me a report" Not only is teaching 5 classes a day exhausting, but when you're finished teaching, you have so much paperwork to fill out on this kid for TST, that kid for ADHD, parent conference here, document that. It's not just teaching anymore. We're so exhausted from the extra stuff that, like you said, we can't be the teachers we want to be.

Right! No one enters teaching for the money, we do it because we have a passion for it. If I wanted to make money, I would have stuck with my other thoughts for careers, like nursing, accounting, architecture.

Try 30, haha. My school has 7 periods/day and I teach 5 periods, one period is a planning period, 1 is for my team to meet and have parent conferences. I have a little under 150 students going through my classroom each day.

Yes, teachers are very important. However, they are also the whipping post for students, parents, and administrators. No matter what happens, the teacher is at fault. I have put in long, exhausting days only to have a parent jump all over me about something out of my control. It's discouraging, and there are very few percs. Some people think that teachers get to just lay around for 3 months every summer. Not true! I spent every minute of my summers fixing up my room and preparing materials for the next year. Thanks for responding.

Haha I teach middle school. I teach 6th grade. This is my first year, and I am anticipating wild students when we return from Christmas break. Everyone has warned me to be super mean because the hormones will have set in and they will be so moody! haha For me, though, this is the best time to have kids because you can make the biggest impact on them at this age. Maybe stop them from getting into stuff that they shouldn't get into.

Unfortunately, once a teacher is given tenure, it's very hard to get rid of them. I've known really bad teachers who have administrators fooled because they talk a good story but then don't practice what they preach. Administrators seem to be very obtuse when it comes to seeing the real worth of a teacher. It helps if the parents make a point of talking to an administrator if they're having problems with a teacher.

And thank you for your comment about the unruly brats. More and more children are starting school who don't have a clue how to behave appropriately in a group situation. Too many are used to being their parents' little cuties and the center of attention. They are used to inconsistent discipline if there's any discipline at all. I get angry when so much teaching time is taken up trying to discipline these kids when it could be used to benefit the rest of the class. And you know what? Those are the kids whose parents are the most critical and demanding of the teachers. They can't handle their child either singly or in a small group, but they think the teacher should do it with a whole classroom full of kids.