Submitted by janofdelft (not verified) on September 14, 2007 - 07:36.
As a new teacher coming late into the profession, I find the concept of merit pay intriguing, but only mildly so. It is largely irrelevant to either my professional competence or my personal satisfaction with the job. If someone with a checkbook thinks that my job and performance are worth more money, that's fine with me. I won't turn it down.
However, I came to teaching because of two loves. I love teaching kids, and I am passionate about my subject. If I were not doing this professionally, I'd likely be volunteering somewhere that I could indulge both vices. Nevertheless, I believe that we many, we occasionally happy many, we band of cousins (my apologies to the Bard), are offered a pretty insulting wage for our talents.
I am newly certified, magic-wanded and street legal as a teacher, and my recent training has Wonged and Schlechtyd me up to the eyelids. What these and similar teachers of teachers advocate is largely the straight goods and of substantial utility. What no-one has prepared me to do, however, is manage a classroom that is populated with juvenile criminals and students whose lifetime of acculturation sets us in an adversary relationship before they even enter my classroom. Are you suggesting merit pay for competency in a classroom like this? Too often it seems that the ability to teach devolves merely into the ability to get recalcitrant students to sit down and shut up. On those days I am not thinking, "It sure would be nice if I got paid more for this," but rather, "This is not worth all the money in the world." Given a choice between merit pay and spending the same money effectively on reducing the hassle between my students' values and attitudes and me (or between the school administration and me), guess which I'd pick.
The point is this: I work for both love and money, and it seems that we teachers get inadequate rations of both.
merit pay
Submitted by janofdelft (not verified) on September 14, 2007 - 07:36.
As a new teacher coming late into the profession, I find the concept of merit pay intriguing, but only mildly so. It is largely irrelevant to either my professional competence or my personal satisfaction with the job. If someone with a checkbook thinks that my job and performance are worth more money, that's fine with me. I won't turn it down.
However, I came to teaching because of two loves. I love teaching kids, and I am passionate about my subject. If I were not doing this professionally, I'd likely be volunteering somewhere that I could indulge both vices. Nevertheless, I believe that we many, we occasionally happy many, we band of cousins (my apologies to the Bard), are offered a pretty insulting wage for our talents.
I am newly certified, magic-wanded and street legal as a teacher, and my recent training has Wonged and Schlechtyd me up to the eyelids. What these and similar teachers of teachers advocate is largely the straight goods and of substantial utility. What no-one has prepared me to do, however, is manage a classroom that is populated with juvenile criminals and students whose lifetime of acculturation sets us in an adversary relationship before they even enter my classroom. Are you suggesting merit pay for competency in a classroom like this? Too often it seems that the ability to teach devolves merely into the ability to get recalcitrant students to sit down and shut up. On those days I am not thinking, "It sure would be nice if I got paid more for this," but rather, "This is not worth all the money in the world." Given a choice between merit pay and spending the same money effectively on reducing the hassle between my students' values and attitudes and me (or between the school administration and me), guess which I'd pick.
The point is this: I work for both love and money, and it seems that we teachers get inadequate rations of both.