Where Have All The Teachers Gone? | Michelle Schwartze | TEDxMissouriS&T

[stevenshelton]

Teacher Shortage? You mean a shortage of respect for teachers! You mean a shortage of fair pay! There is no shortage of teachers. We are just tired.

[akc]

Where have we gone? We’re still out here, watching, and hope everyone figures it out. I for one would like to return. But I’ve raised my standards, so we’ll see if/how things really change. This isn’t exactly what I was expecting when I got a masters degree to teach, but life does throw us some curveballs. Parents, local, and state admin need to get it together for the kid’s sake.

[qvbtbvy]

My daughters school is switching to 4 day school week. Im hoping the teachers will be getting a raise as well . They work so hard they all deserve it ❤

[inthevault]

Teachers are watching this to know where all the ex-teachers went so they can go there too. 😂😂😂

[josezabo]

At the end of the day, teachers just don't want to have mental break downs every day of the week

[jasminerichardson]

We are still here. Just finding a place where we will be valued. Educators aren’t martyrs and shouldn’t be expected to be.

[julieduncan]

You started teaching the same year I did. So much has changed for the worse since then. Nobody wants to be a teacher anymore. Those few of us left are carrying burdens we never dreamed of. More than half of the people teaching at my school are long-term substitutes. I’m gravely concerned about the quality of education our students are receiving.

[mercedia]

I taught for 13 years in the brick and mortar as a Special Education teacher. I left in July 2020. I left because the paperwork had become worse and the lack of support from the principal and some of the members from the Special Education department. Now, I am building my business as a financial advisor.

[victoriaizzo]

The reason I left teaching was not what came with Covid and the year after is not what made me leave teaching. It is the teacher evaluation system that the district was starting to use. Was told it wasn't being used as punishment or I got you but help improve teaching skills. That is not how it was used. It was away to micromanage and an instrument to make a person feel less than human. It is an instrument to put every teacher in the same box and teach exactly the same way. I was not a new teacher but a veteran teacher. This made a person feel less valued and not respected as an individual and a professional teacher. I loved teaching and was very passionate about it for many years.

[caronadams]

Good teachers can teach anything as long as they aren't being assaulted by their students and spending the majority if their time "managing" classroom behavior...while administrators refuse to acknowledge the real reason teachers are leaving the profession while providing little support or respect for the teachers.

[AtheoGay]

If I were to reapply to public school, I would make it known that I would be interviewing them and not the other way around. After 31 years as a special educator, I know my worth and what I am willing to accept.

[aknudsen]

I started teaching in the '90s and this will be my last year. I cannot do it anymore. Horrible pay, no support, being scratched, bit and slapped by 3 and 4 year olds with no consequences and no support. Physical abusive is happening towards teachers on a regular basis. You can only take so much before saying, "enough is enough". I've had enough.

[shinnam]

The US needs to look at what is working in Education in other countries. I have taught in four countries, the US, S. Korea, Sweden and Malaysia. By far the US Missouri school was the worst working conditions and the kids the least prepared for their grade level. No other country has as many teaching hours, class size is about average, no other place requires coaching or regular extra duties. No other place has mass shooter drills. Most other countries have about 20 planning hours, for teachers to prepare, in the US it is 5 hours. Sports are not provided by schools, they are ran by the government outside of school. The popular kids are the kids that work hard and get high grades, not the jocks. In Sweden, middle school students are not allowed to have more than one hour of home work per day. The subject teachers have to coordinate each other to make sure kids have have only two tests per week or other major assessments. Sweden has copied some of Finland's educational policies.
My "mentor" at my Missouri school was a wrestling coach, so he didn't have time for mentoring and told me he didn't. I had to coach soccer, both fall and spring, so I didn't have time for mentoring. My mentor in Sweden and my co-teacher in Korea would meet with me once a week and we would discuss what was working and what wasn't.

[amayaokamiden]

It's because the government and heads of schools look at those teachers as slaves or robots that don't need breaks, and can just work non-stop with no life of their own. We are tired, we are stressed and we are DONE

[erics]

I did my student teaching in 2016, but ended up dropping out because I couldn't handle the stress of all the testing standards. I love to think outside of the box and make education fun for the kids, but most school districts don't like that style of teaching. I knew tons of teachers before entering an education program, and they all told me not to become a teacher because of the direction of education. Then when Covid hit, I don't think I would have been able to handle all of the changes that took place. Over the past couple of years I have become intrigued with education around the world. I started researching education in Finland since they have the best education system in the world, and I was shocked at the fact that they don't have any homework. That and the kids are allowed to have fun while learning. I would have enjoyed school a lot more, if we had something similar to what Finland has.

[lauranowak]

She points to the fact that special education teachers represent much of the shortages, but does she ever mention the paperwork that teachers are expected to do? Teachers have been complaining about this for years. These paperwork requirements are not organic, nor are they necessary for learning. They seem to serve three purposes: to justify admin jobs, to cover districts' legal butts, and to decrease sped costs by not filling positions -- because they cannot find or keep teachers!

[John-frhu]

They have really relaxed the standards for Ted Talks.

[leticianoto]

I'm far more engaged with the comments than the talk itself. Priceless words from you all. I've been a teacher for 30 years and couldn't agree more even when living and working in a foreign country

[jorgedeleon]

The problem is teacher are to smart and figure out teaching isn’t the move . We get paid so little we are under appreciate and we are always to blame. The school system as lost placing accountability on the students and parents and less on the teachers. I only taught for one year and I rather work up north earning double or triple the salary despite the amount of work than be in school being degraded by administrators parents and students

[marcmeinzer]

Academic training past the age of 13 should be for those who are academically inclined and no one else. For the majority who are violently anti-intellectual, poorly behaved, and incapable of reading up to grade level there should be trades training, meaning no further academic lectures which they would of course simply ignore. We have a fantasy school system in which we pretend to be teaching the uneducable which always turns into a farce. This fantasy system is furthered through the vehicle of social promotion in which non-learners are promoted to placate the anxious parents. You might’ve thought that this would be common knowledge by now but apparently it isn’t. So long as everyone continues to ignore the ongoing fiasco the regular certified teachers will continue bailing out to be replaced by permanent substitutes. Then when the permanent substitutes quit as well they in turn will need to be replaced by computers and then the public schools will devolve into online academy monitored by paid babysitters, whatever you choose to call the babysitters. Will those babysitters be required to have degrees? If so then I would recommend that they get their degrees in babysitting instead of academic subjects, because all they’re going to be doing is babysitting, just as if they’d gotten a job at a daycare center.