Ornery, if your dad retired a while back, then there probably wasn't the same kind of paperwork required of teachers that there is today. When I first started teaching twenty-three years ago, the only paperwork required of us besides grading papers and typing up tests and quizzes was lesson plans that didn't have to be very detailed. Now there is a bureaucratic mess of paperwork required of teachers that have nothing to do with teaching. I won't go into all the details because I did that in a similar thread a few weeks ago, but even lesson plans have to be ridiculously detailed now. Not only do you have to put what you're doing in each class each day, you also have to detail how each thing you're doing matches up with each of the State's Instructional Goals and Objectives, you have to explain how you've made modifications for each lesson for Inclusion Students in collaboration with the Special Education department at the school, you have to explain how you're using Reteach within the curriculum, and you have to show how you're using Writing Across the Curriculum.
That thing about not paying into Social Security must just be your state because I've paid plenty into Social Security. I'm looking at my last pay stub right now and they held out for my Medical Insurance premium, Social Security, Medicare, Federal Withholding Tax, State Income Tax, Life Insurance premium, and Optional Life Insurance premium.
I don't complain alot about how much I'm paid even though I still make below the 40k average after 23 years and an advanced degree. I do alright financially as long as no big unexpected expense pops up. What does bother me is the way that teacher pay keeps so many men out of the profession.
In most families today, both the husband and the wife have to work to make a nice living, but most men would like to have the feeling that they could support their family on their own if need be, and they don't see teaching as a good career for that reason. Or they go into teaching and then quit for a better paying job after they're married and have children and want to be better providers.
When I was in high school, one of my teachers was the perfect example of what we should want teachers in this country to be like. He was an absolute genius with a double major in Physics and Chemistry. He was kind, caring, patient, and had a wonderful sense of humor. I felt so lucky to have him as a teacher that I gladly signed up for Trigonometry, Calculus, and Chemistry in the same year because he would be teaching all three.
His wife became ill when she was expecting their first child and there were some sort of complications that affected the child. He decided that he could not support his family and their medical needs on a teacher's salary and so he managed to get financial aid and scholarships and was accepted at Harvard. He graduated from Harvard Law School and came back to this small rural area to practice law and work with the local community college.
I have no doubt that he's a fine lawyer, but I know he was an excellent teacher and I just wish that our profession didn't have to lose guys like that or not even have a chance at getting them in the first place.
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