>"Teaching is a profession, not a calling"

No. Teaching is not a profession. Teachers, (trained by the Marxists in the education departments of the universities and encouraged by the far left teacher's unions, are using taxpayer funding to embed Marxist dogma in the gullible young.

Is there anyone who thinks people's education has been improved over the last fifty years?
Any number of kid's cannot boil an egg or even understand basic hygiene and nutrition for goodness sake.
However the teachers certainly are well organised and get very well rewarded thank you very much. They also enjoy this by chucking a tanti at the first signs that people are waking up to them.
We need to change back to where we were and get some real sense in educating people to help them. That means stream kids, do not waste time on non academics with academic subjects, help them get a trade.
Teachers will say this is the wrong approach but where has their fads and fashions got us?

Teaching is a job, despite what teachers might wish it to be.

Professions have their own exclusive self controlling bodies; control their own destinies (more or less); set their own professional fees and police their own ranks.

Teachers have unions just like other workers and their conditions and remuneration are set by negotiation with, or impost by Government.

Teachers, especially those in adult education, deal with all of societys weirdos with no priveleged protection.

What happens when things go wrong?

Failure to protect teachers from Psychopaths is why people don't bother rating the job above other safer jobs... tell me I'm wrong: you can't

Well when it was a vocation and not just a pay packet! There were far fewer people leaving high school unexamined and virtually unable to read or write; or do the most basic maths!

Today and in direct contrast, there seems to be a "calling" to financial advice/brokerage firms, and helping people save money on all manner of everyday purchases!

For a suitable fee, commission or "bonus"!

Like with some forms of insurance, where both the deposit and the first years premium is allegedly paid up front as the "bonus"!

And because you aren't charged directly, and may even receive a $50.00 gift card; or 10% of your premium; (unbounded generosity) you are allowed to believe, you are saving money!?

When in fact all the commissions/bonuses and "freebies" may be tacked on to the tail of your loan or purchase/agreement!

i.e., when health policy payment go up on April 1, the mugs as usual are being made fools of, and just because they can't read or write add or subtract etc; and like most fools, need someone else to do it for them!

When teaching was a real profession and learnt on the job via an apprenticeship, not a university course; the dross were quickly identified and jettisoned!

Now, even if totally incompetent, protected by a union structure, that makes the teachers far more important than the best practice and the best outcomes, and in fact, may be accused of protecting incompetents and entrenching incompetent behavior; where arguably, many of the students have more knowledge on the subject material than a teacher, for who the position is just a pay packet!

Whatever happened to the truism, find out what you love doing, then get someone to pay you to do it!

I mean, a local teacher employed at a local Catholic school, was so insensitive, as to be out cutting his grass on Good Friday!

I suppose he'd do the same or as much during the up coming Anzac day dawn service?

So, not only are we losing competency, but traditional respect and basic good manners as well!?
Rhrosty.

Although it sounds absurd to claim we all know it, many engineers genuinely aren't in it for the money.

I doubt it teaching would be a profession if it wasn't a calling.

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Rhosty, what is wrong with cutting your own grass on Good Friday? What do Catholics normally do on the part of that day when they're not in church?

Yusterdee i cuddant evan spell univarsittee stewdent, now i ar wun; an gwaduwated as a teecher; an ona hundrud thowsend a yeer! Dats not as mush asa milyun iz zit?

I'm sorry if I unintentionally offend anyone, but if that particular (slightly overdone) cap doesn't fit, just don't wear it!

The point I'm laboring to make is!

What you don't know haven't or can't learn, you can't teach; and still couldn't even on a "PROFESSIONAL" salary of $100,000.00 a year!

I'd start you on $30,000.00 a year and ask you to earn your increases on results!

And the only way to test those results is to test the students!

And if you work hard couching them to pass exams on general literacy and numeracy, you will in fact be teaching them what they need to learn in order to be successful in their chosen careers!

Teaching is about outcomes for children, rather than overly generous pay packets!

Simply put, the Peter principle is very much alive and well in our classrooms; and means good academic qualifications just don't necessarily equate or translate into good teaching skills; or an ability to settle a rowdy classroom full of disruptive boys!

i.e., Hands up all those who want to play footy or cricket during recess?

Oh no not you young Mr Jones alias Hannibal Lecter/Jack the gripper/Conan the destroyer, not until you've completed a correctly spelled thousand word essay; and in your own time, why Sir must be obeyed; and why silence is golden during the lesson periods!

Alternatively, and in your own hand written words, explain the logs on page 45 of advanced maths.

And what you don't understand, jot down all the relevant questions, trot up to the teachers lunch room, before the end of the break, and we'll endevour to answer all of your inquires. Okay?

Which one do you prefer?

Hmm? Well?
Rhrosty.

Apologies and correction, Teachers lunch room should read, Teachers' lunch room.
Rhrosty.

According to my Sainted Mother Aidan, anything you like that's lawful, including attempted conception (or a wee doch an doris/bit of a fiddle replete with the usual grace notes) while standing on ya head in a hammock, except nonessential work!
[Och aye th' noo, if tha' was a most difficult way, my Da' would find it?]
And then only out respect for he who pays the piper!

Arguably he who pays the piper calls the tune! De ye no ken marrrrn?
Rhrosty.

All you have to know about teaching in this country is that McDonalds have to provide free maths teaching to all their recruits because, after at least 10 years of government's "education system" and its compulsory funding, compulsory attendance, compulsory curriculum, and compulsory teacher qualifications, the young products of this system cannot be trusted to know how to add up and subtract. And McDonalds can teach them quicker, better and cheaper, when its core business is not even teaching, but providing hamburgers for gossake. And then they put the maths teaching program online so everyone can access it for free.

A pity the Trade Practice Act doesn't apply to teaching: perhaps the teachers should be giving us our money back?

Would you believe anyone who claims that their calling is to serve the devil?

Has anyone ever had the calling to help government in its indoctrination?

There are teachers with the calling to educate children, to bring the best out of them rather than to turn them into cogs of the state's "work force", but in Australia they must remain underground.

>"Teaching is a profession, not a calling"

No. Teaching is not a profession. Teachers, (trained by the Marxists in the education departments of the universities and encouraged by the far left teacher's unions, are using taxpayer funding to embed Marxist dogma in the gullible young.

Peter....Teaching is with-in, you are educated well enough to use words that make differences that will induce values.

Tally

Rhosty,

"I mean, a local teacher employed at a local Catholic school, was so insensitive, as to be out cutting his grass on Good Friday"

You need to read up on Catholicism before you criticize; for Catholics Good Friday is a day of fast and abstinence but not a day on which they should not cut the grass, clip the hedge or whatever.

It is not even a day on which they should attend Mass; they can't anyway because the Mass is never celebrated on Good Friday.

Many teachers are devoted to teaching and that may be the problem with education. Teachers would do better, for their students and themselves, taking a hard-headed approach. The "educator martyr complex" exists even in higher education, where the pay is better than schools. What lecturers and teachers should be focusing on is making teaching more efficient, effective and so less frustrating for them.

After giving guest lectures at university I became fascinated and frustrated by the teaching process, with its lack of rigor and efficiency. Then I discovered the e-learning/distance education revolution. Being able to teach from home, or the other side of the world, is only part of it. The real revolution is in designing education to use student and teacher time efficiently, in the classroom, or on the Internet.

As an adjunct lecturer, I can't sit around complaining of not being paid much, as when not teaching I am not paid. So I spent years (and $10,000) learning to teach efficiently.

Talking at students for an hour is not efficient. So modern teaching uses presentations broken up into segments of six to twenty minutes. It makes no difference if these presentations are live or recorded.

Students learn better when tested regularly. So I have started using short weekly automated quizzes (chosen at random for each student, to stop them cheating). Students learn well when explaining to others, so I also have students discuss topics in an on-line forum.

Ultimately the student must be tested with a large item of work. Marking such assignments can be done much more quickly using "rubrics" (detailed marking tables). Getting stuff to and from students is easier using Learning Management System (LMS) software (I use "Moodle", a free Australian product).

This is not to say I still don't grumble about teaching, but I don't grumble as much. ;-)

For more on the future of education see my Higher Education Whisperer blog: http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/