A letter writer says teachers have it easy; a Teacher of The Year responds

[Yupster]

70. This has gotten ridiculous

Every job has its good points and bad points, and teaching is no different than any of the other ones and I say that as a former public school teacher.

For teachers, there are some real downsides.

The biggest is having to manage kids who are not their own who may have significant problems. I remember calling one mom.

Me - "Mrs. Jones. I need your help because I'm having trouble with Jimmy."

Mrs Jones - "Oh I know, isn't he awful?"

With more than half the kids in many classes growing up in single parent or blended family households there are significant problems with behavior, crime, drugs, etc. Teachers end up being the ones who have to address them.

On the other hand, like every other job there are significant attractions to teaching.

They work fewer hours and get more days off than most jobs. For many people that's why they are teachers, so they can get their kids after school at 4 pm. They also get many more days off than most jobs. Yeah they bring work home after school but so do many other jobs. I worked all day yesterday (Saturday) just because I had a lot to do.

This teacher gets up at 3 am. That's not because she's a teacher. When I taught I never woke up at 3 am. I worked every summer when I taught too. I trained our city's lifeguards. I couldn't sit home for two months. Sure there was a few days of inservice before school started and a day or two to get your grades in and room cleaned before summer starts, but otherwise the summer was my own.

Teachers have very good retirement plans. Many teachers are not even part of social security. That is a huge privilege that doctors, lawyers, stock brokers would love to have. Why teachers get this right and others don't, I have never been able to figure out. Most districts require teachers to put in between 6-7 % of their pay into the state Teacher Retirement Pension system. That may not be right for every state but it holds true for the ones I know. If she's putting 7 % of her pay into a pension and she's putting in $ 439 per month that would put her income at somewhere around $ 80,000 a year.

I was a teacher for about 10 years so I know how hard teaching is, but so are a lot of other jobs. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. You rarely see a story about how hard mudloggers have it, or nurses or anyone else. It seems these teachers have it rough stories outnumber every other job you ever see.