01-29-2016, 09:27 PM
oncemoreuntothejimbree Wrote:If your motivation to be the best at what you do is directly proportional to your salary you probably shouldn't be in that line of work. Especially teaching. I think teaching is a calling. The best teachers teach because they love teaching. They don't teach for the salary, they teach despite the salary. They do it because they think it is a valuable service to others and provides meaning to their own life. They see the real value is in how they can change the lives of others for the better. Hopefully, the lives they have helped to improve go on to do the same for others. And so on and so on. They have a quality called "selfless service." It means they care about others more than they care about a pay check and will place the education of others above their own finances.
Since in your own words "there is zero incentive to be the best" you obviously weren't one of those types of teachers.
Feeling a calling to a profession doesn't mean you shouldn't be properly compensated. Nor does it mean that the lazy teachers get the same pay as the good ones.
You can say that it was frustrating for me to work above and beyond only to watch teachers who mailed it in and should be fired.
Without teachers unions good teachers can market themselves and get their own pay bump and a school district can focus their resources to bring in high talent. The problem now is that with the current set up the resources are piled in administration. Without unions they can freely move district to district now after 13 years you get bumped back on the pay scale.
