Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on May 1, 2008 - 07:12.
I'm a male teacher who finally went into administration after fifteen years in elementary classrooms. I began teaching Kindergarten, and then moved on to 3rd and then 4th grade as I kept seeking new challenges.
I finally went into administration because no matter how hard I worked or how much I outperformed my teaching colleagues, male and female, there was no reward for my superior performance. The only way for me to increase my earning power significantly was to leave the classroom. I went the whole coaching, refereeing, tutoring, and working odd jobs on weekends route, as most male teachers do to make ends meet, and in the end I just got sick of it.
That's messed up. I would much rather have stayed in the classroom. I know it's fiscally impossible to pay all teachers high salaries because there are just too many of us out there. But after fifteeen years of distinguished performance--including performance feedback instruments from parents, peers, and supervisors, and with stellar results from standardized tests , I was getting paid the same as someone who was mediocre - or worse - for the same fifteen years, and that was just too discouraging.
In my long experience being a male in a heavily female world, very few of my female colleagues seemed bothered by this. Whether men are more innately competitive than women, I don't know. But I do know that I would still be in the classroom if may performance determined my pay.
All dressed up with no place to go
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on May 1, 2008 - 07:12.
I'm a male teacher who finally went into administration after fifteen years in elementary classrooms. I began teaching Kindergarten, and then moved on to 3rd and then 4th grade as I kept seeking new challenges.
I finally went into administration because no matter how hard I worked or how much I outperformed my teaching colleagues, male and female, there was no reward for my superior performance. The only way for me to increase my earning power significantly was to leave the classroom. I went the whole coaching, refereeing, tutoring, and working odd jobs on weekends route, as most male teachers do to make ends meet, and in the end I just got sick of it.
That's messed up. I would much rather have stayed in the classroom. I know it's fiscally impossible to pay all teachers high salaries because there are just too many of us out there. But after fifteeen years of distinguished performance--including performance feedback instruments from parents, peers, and supervisors, and with stellar results from standardized tests , I was getting paid the same as someone who was mediocre - or worse - for the same fifteen years, and that was just too discouraging.
In my long experience being a male in a heavily female world, very few of my female colleagues seemed bothered by this. Whether men are more innately competitive than women, I don't know. But I do know that I would still be in the classroom if may performance determined my pay.