Reply #123: It really depends on where your affinity and talent lies

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i know tech people who would rather die than have to deal with a room filled with 30 children. I am certain student teaching courses involving this would be very difficult for them. Some people are better with the abstract, the impersonal, the sure thing -- numbers behave the same every time you manipulate them, they don't have feelings.

Discrediting and downplaying the importance of liberal arts and education theory/application is not conducive to cultural and social development. Education degrees cost the same per credit hour as physics, biology and computer programming. If they are worth so much less, why charge the same-- Is that a fraud? Also, my husband, while he has a degree in English, is an Electrician who apprenticed after graduation. He worked as a substitute teacher for a short time and has no desire to revisit that fresh hell. He now works at a nuclear plant and his apprenticeship was paid (no loans) and I think in his best years he was earning more than twice as much as any marine biologist or lab rat. His apprenticeship program did not require anything more than a high school diploma. He had always found math and science easier to understand but has a tendency to challenge himself which is why he chose to major in English in college. And yes, he is union IBEW.

Teachers are expected to produce direct measurable results by instructing and modifying the behavior of our largely unmotivated young. Some of these kids are underfed, overtired, hyperactive and oppositional.

Whoever is stuck with my nephew David in a classroom has my direct sympathy and is clearly earning every penny and then some. One must also take into account the school curriculums. My son was barely passing 7th grade in a private Catholic school in my city in NY. We temporarily moved to a rural community in Tennessee where he suddenly was pulling B's in every class. He tells me the work was easier. We are now back in NY where he attends a public high school in a suburban district and his grades are spotty, maybe an A, B and a couple D's and usually one F-- he is inconsistent and the grades change every quarter with different subjects getting the F or A. He also has PDD and is one very intelligent inquisitive kid. He just has trouble juggling the different classes. If he had 3 subjects a term, I think he would do well. I believe the rural southern school had a relatively less costly 4H curriculum (their schools are not as funded as the schools in NY). The pigeons will roost come time for college where I believe my nieces and nephews will be unfairly challenged.

Another example: Nurses attend a two year program as requirement to sit for the licensure. Sure, it is a rigorous two years. However we are often working long hours, presented with unbelieveable stress, poor working conditions and abusive people (Drs, patients, etc) and are usually paid annually close to what teachers make. (Of course we work holidays, nights, summers, weekends but when we go home, we leave work at work). If we were evaluated based on our patients health compliance we would all be out of jobs. We teach proper diet, exercise, medication protocols, congestive heart failure management, diabetic care etc. but do our patients follow these directions? Judging by our ED admissions I would say no. I'd like to see them try and fire us-- who would want our jobs? One floor in a non union hospital just decided that despite it being a one-day surgery center that closes at 9 pm. It is now a 24 hour patient holding center and has just informed its nurses they would have to cover night shifts and they had no plans to hire more nurses. How would you like that at your job? They will have to float some nurses from other floors to help cover this making those floors even shorter staffed.

These schools and hospitals are very lucky their employees care so much about their students and patients because otherwise the teachers and nurses would walk out en masse. Then some of these posters who think that their work, knowledge and training are so worthless and ineffective can eat their words. I hardly think social order would be horribly impacted if the engineers at Lockheed Martin decided to walk out.