Author Topic: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?  (Read 27643 times)

Nick_Miller

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #300 on: August 01, 2020, 10:15:40 AM »
It's not smart to gather a lot of people into a small, indoor area right now. Period. Schools = small, indoor areas filled with inhabitants who aren't renowned for their self-discipline and "big picture" thinking (kids). Yes, it sucks to not have in-person teaching right now, but the fact that it sucks doesn't make it a smart idea to pack schools with kids and hope for the best. And think about buses, where you add more screaming and the driver's total inability to enforce masks while they handle the herculean task of driving a big-ass vehicle filled with kids.

And it seems like some people think online teaching makes teachers' jobs easier???? It's going to make it MUCH MUCH MUCH harder. So as much as it sucks for kids and parents, it sucks for teachers just as much. They would much much rather teach classes in a conventional way. Anyone who thinks this is a vacation for them is woefully misinformed.




Peachtea

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #301 on: August 01, 2020, 10:28:17 AM »
I will say that I wish I got paid as much as Drs dentist and Nurses.

Well, here's a reason. How much do you think nurses make in relation to teachers?

This may be part of the eye-roll teachers get. There seems to be an almost cultish attitude that teachers are "underpaid," while other professions are not. I know someone who recently retired as a teacher making 90k a year (yes, she basically had three months off every summer of her working life) who would complain about the things she couldn't afford. I don't personally know any nurses who make that much (not saying they don't exist, but they are going to be specialty nurses for the most part, i.e. nurse anesthesiologist). My cousin is an experienced nurse who recently said she has never surpassed 45k a year.

If you look up the average salaries of nurses and teachers in the US, they are competitive, except teachers work fewer hours per calendar year. In many cases if you calculated by average contact hours, teachers make more. Teachers also tend to have union contracts that include benefits that many other jobs don't have.

You took 1 of 3 jobs I suggested.  If you go back you would see the original person said all 3.  I still stand by my statement that I wish I got paid like Dr's, Dentist, and Nurses.

What I like about the Nurse payment plan is that if you get another certification your pay goes up.  Plus a lot of nurses are hourly.  Teachers do not have the option to go hourly.  For example I have 6 different teaching certifications and a masters degree and 19 years experience.  I make $7000 more then a brand new teacher.  You do not find that in nursing.  When you pass your test from one level of nursing to another your salary goes up automatically.  When you get a masters degree boom another major jump.  You would be hard pressed finding a nurse with 15+ years working in a hospital that makes less then 70K.  Plus they have the option to work OT.

If I had to do it again I would be a nurse.

Right. I took one of the three jobs you named to ask the question, "How much do you think nurses are paid?" Are you implying that I'm cherry picking information because you named three professions you "wish you were paid like" and I questioned the inclusion of one of them? I didn't name the other two because I agree with you that most doctors and most dentists likely make more than most teachers.

I am confused about this "nurse payment plan" you speak of. In my socialist dream world, we're all on a constantly elevating scheme of payment, but I seriously don't know what you are talking about here. My guess is that it's maybe based on one anecdotal piece of evidence (i.e. you know a well-paid, low-stress nurse). So the follow up questions:

-What do you mean by "another certification"? (Someone else suggested LPN/RN, this would be a completely separate degree and type of nurse. They pay scales you are thinking of strictly apply to RNs and specialized nurses and don't even include most LPNs.) If you're saying that a nurse becomes a nurse practitioner and then makes more money, well yeah. If a teacher becomes the principal they make more money, too. Additionally, you can't conflate RNs with "all nurses" when RNs are less than 5% of the staff in areas like outpatient care, doctors offices, many dialysis centers, etc.
-Yup, a lot of nurses get paid hourly. And often hourly = no benefits. There are many, many nurses in the world who are "relief" or "per diem" and get paid hourly, only when invited to work, and get no benefits. This is similar to substitute teaching, except that my experience is that most subs are not licensed teachers who had their school of employment close down and now have to sub full-time.
-I don't know what you mean by "pay goes up automatically" with more education. I am guessing, again, you know someone who works a)at a hospital, and b)at a hospital that still has a strong union. These are becoming less common. Corporate takeovers of smaller hospital systems are common in many areas, and with that comes loss of jobs for many, and loss of benefits for those who stay. My anecdotal data point is an RN I know who got her BSN after years in the work force, and the response was basically "why would we pay you more to do the same job?" Also of note, only about half of all nurses work in hospitals, so you're purposely selecting the highest paid.
-On the option to work overtime, it's often less of an option than a mandate, especially for--you guessed it!--the non-RN nurses who fill the staff at nursing homes and other places where a single nurse is in charge of a whole hall, unit, or floor by himself. If a co-worker doesn't show up for their shift, you literally can't leave as that would be abandonment. So a last-minute call-in or no call, no show means you get a surprise 16 or 20 hour shift sometimes. (ETA: Imagine if your school had a second night shift, and if the second shift teacher didn't come in, you had to stay and teach that teacher's class until midnight after you'd been there all day. If you didn't you could lose your license and be jailed.)

None of this is to catch you in gotcha moment, but to underscore that if the original question was "why are people down on teachers," a really, really common theme I've noticed with the profession is that teachers always think everyone has it better than them, and bring up their supposed low pay when any evidence to the contrary is brought up. It's not a good look in a world where so many people wish they had the pay, schedule, and job security that many teachers do.

Do I think teachers could be paid more in many areas of the country? Fuck yes! Lots of people should be. It doesn't mean that it's accurate to say "No one makes less than me, I'm a teacher!" (which a person recently loud-announced at my college reunion, while entering a group of people that I can guarantee make less than him, or at least have worse benefits, as the discussion he entered while making that announcement was about buying our own ACA insurance). Another teacher in this thread brought up her 7.5 hour work day. Sounds dreamy to me. Again, my response was to underscore why people already have a bias toward eye-rolling when teachers ask questions like "Do I actually have to use my own sick days if I get sick?" when other people don't even have sick days.

Teachers aren't unpaid volunteers. You can wish you got paid as much as a doctor, and I can wish I got paid as much as the teachers I know, and hopefully one day that will happen for both of us. American voters don't seem to be on board with income inequality (or really any other kind) being a thing, or the "liberal choice" for our upcoming election wouldn't be to vote for Biden, which to paraphrase Nina Turner, is like eating a half bowl of shit. 

That said, if you really wish you could do it over again, can you? Nursing is a 2-year program, usually with pretty low cost of tuition, and if you're sure the pay, benefits, and lifestyle would work out better for you, wouldn't it be worth making the switch now? Or are you close enough to FIRE that it wouldn't make sense?

Comments like this makes me feel bad for teachers, because it shows how much people devalue their credentials. It should be obvious that an LPN is in no way remotely similar to a teacher’s level of education and not what people are talking about when comparing nurses to teachers. (Not to mention LPNs are being phased out, my rural hometown hospital system won’t hire them and the local tech college doesn’t even offer an LPN program anymore. Same hospital system will also only let you be an ADN for x many years, they require BSNs.) A BSN RN = entry level teacher.

RN pay system, I believe, refers to them being paid hourly and thus eligible for overtime and drastically increase their take home pay. Like massive amounts of overtime. Or they can work part-time and still have benefits. Hourly is not benefit-less in the medical field. A vast majority of RNs have benefits. In 2018, BLS reported that 88% of RNs have access to health care benefits and 91% had access to retirement benefits. Or they can earn more degrees to significantly bump their pay. A Nurse Practitioner is a nurse with a masters degree and the median pay difference between RN and NP is over 40k (BLS stat) A teachers with a masters degree, as noted, doesn’t see that pay difference. And no an NP is not the equivalent of a teacher becoming a principal. Again, way to devalue their credentials. Someone in the teacher field has to become the manager of an entire school to be the equivalent of a nurse with a masters? What? And also, unionization in health care is growing not becoming less common.

Personally, whenever I hear folks start complaining about teachers and their pay and benefits and summers off, I ask them why they don’t become a teacher if the job is so cushy. The response is never something like it’s too late in my career to pay for more schooling or switch careers. The response is oh I wouldn’t have the patience for that or I don’t like kids or I wouldn’t want to deal with all those brats. Seems to me like a good reason the profession should be paid well, irrespective of what nurses are making.


Shane

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #302 on: August 01, 2020, 10:35:05 AM »
It's not smart to gather a lot of people into a small, indoor area right now. Period. Schools = small, indoor areas filled with inhabitants who aren't renowned for their self-discipline and "big picture" thinking (kids). Yes, it sucks to not have in-person teaching right now, but the fact that it sucks doesn't make it a smart idea to pack schools with kids and hope for the best. And think about buses, where you add more screaming and the driver's total inability to enforce masks while they handle the herculean task of driving a big-ass vehicle filled with kids.

And it seems like some people think online teaching makes teachers' jobs easier???? It's going to make it MUCH MUCH MUCH harder. So as much as it sucks for kids and parents, it sucks for teachers just as much. They would much much rather teach classes in a conventional way. Anyone who thinks this is a vacation for them is woefully misinformed.

School doesn't, necessarily, have to mean "gathering a lot of people in a small indoor area."

Schools Beat Earlier Plagues With Outdoor Classes. We should, too.

MudPuppy

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #303 on: August 01, 2020, 11:04:58 AM »
An NP requires a doctorate in MOST states and completely changes the job you do. NPs are not really the same things as LPN or RN at all.

And getting a masters doesn’t always mean you get paid more, either. In many cases a bedside nurse is a bedside nurse and pay doesn’t change much.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2020, 11:31:31 AM by MudPuppy »

GuitarStv

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #304 on: August 01, 2020, 11:14:49 AM »
It's not smart to gather a lot of people into a small, indoor area right now. Period. Schools = small, indoor areas filled with inhabitants who aren't renowned for their self-discipline and "big picture" thinking (kids). Yes, it sucks to not have in-person teaching right now, but the fact that it sucks doesn't make it a smart idea to pack schools with kids and hope for the best. And think about buses, where you add more screaming and the driver's total inability to enforce masks while they handle the herculean task of driving a big-ass vehicle filled with kids.

And it seems like some people think online teaching makes teachers' jobs easier???? It's going to make it MUCH MUCH MUCH harder. So as much as it sucks for kids and parents, it sucks for teachers just as much. They would much much rather teach classes in a conventional way. Anyone who thinks this is a vacation for them is woefully misinformed.

School doesn't, necessarily, have to mean "gathering a lot of people in a small indoor area."

Schools Beat Earlier Plagues With Outdoor Classes. We should, too.

I generally like the idea of outdoor schooling.  There are some significant problems with implementation that must be overcome though.

- what happens when it rains?
- what happens when it snows?
- how does written work get done when it's extremely windy?
- what happens when it's extremely sunny?  Even with sunscreen, sitting in 6 hours of high UV light is going to cause problems.
- how do you handle insects?
- what equipment will children use (the school desks that are in my son's school have particle board tops and will certainly not stand up to being left outside for a season.  Chairs might?  They're mostly plastic.)  Is there a budget to buy new stuff, or to replace all this stuff when it breaks?  Or is the expectation that everyone's going to sit on the ground?
- how do you keep kids paying attention to conjugating verbs and fractional conversion when there's so much else to look at?

Distance learning over a screen sucks.  Absolutely.  But I feel like outdoor learning is going to be significantly worse than a regular classroom setting too.  Outdoor learning likely has an edge on distance ed, but because of the challenges I'd guess it's probably going to be about 60% effective for the kids compared to 40-50% for distance ed.  We need to be upfront that outdoor learning is still going to be a lost school year for most children.

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #305 on: August 01, 2020, 11:28:02 AM »
RN can also be a two-year degree, many just choose to make it a bachelor's degree major. Most RNs I know have community college associates degrees. If the comparison being made here is between education years, then as others have noted, let's compare "all people with masters degrees" or "all people with BAs." That wasn't the statement I was replying to though, it was a teacher saying "I wish I made as much as a nurse."

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #306 on: August 01, 2020, 12:35:41 PM »
I will say that I wish I got paid as much as Drs dentist and Nurses.

Well, here's a reason. How much do you think nurses make in relation to teachers?

This may be part of the eye-roll teachers get. There seems to be an almost cultish attitude that teachers are "underpaid," while other professions are not. I know someone who recently retired as a teacher making 90k a year (yes, she basically had three months off every summer of her working life) who would complain about the things she couldn't afford. I don't personally know any nurses who make that much (not saying they don't exist, but they are going to be specialty nurses for the most part, i.e. nurse anesthesiologist). My cousin is an experienced nurse who recently said she has never surpassed 45k a year.

If you look up the average salaries of nurses and teachers in the US, they are competitive, except teachers work fewer hours per calendar year. In many cases if you calculated by average contact hours, teachers make more. Teachers also tend to have union contracts that include benefits that many other jobs don't have.

You took 1 of 3 jobs I suggested.  If you go back you would see the original person said all 3.  I still stand by my statement that I wish I got paid like Dr's, Dentist, and Nurses.

What I like about the Nurse payment plan is that if you get another certification your pay goes up.  Plus a lot of nurses are hourly.  Teachers do not have the option to go hourly.  For example I have 6 different teaching certifications and a masters degree and 19 years experience.  I make $7000 more then a brand new teacher.  You do not find that in nursing.  When you pass your test from one level of nursing to another your salary goes up automatically.  When you get a masters degree boom another major jump.  You would be hard pressed finding a nurse with 15+ years working in a hospital that makes less then 70K.  Plus they have the option to work OT.

If I had to do it again I would be a nurse.

Right. I took one of the three jobs you named to ask the question, "How much do you think nurses are paid?" Are you implying that I'm cherry picking information because you named three professions you "wish you were paid like" and I questioned the inclusion of one of them? I didn't name the other two because I agree with you that most doctors and most dentists likely make more than most teachers.

I am confused about this "nurse payment plan" you speak of. In my socialist dream world, we're all on a constantly elevating scheme of payment, but I seriously don't know what you are talking about here. My guess is that it's maybe based on one anecdotal piece of evidence (i.e. you know a well-paid, low-stress nurse). So the follow up questions:

-What do you mean by "another certification"? (Someone else suggested LPN/RN, this would be a completely separate degree and type of nurse. They pay scales you are thinking of strictly apply to RNs and specialized nurses and don't even include most LPNs.) If you're saying that a nurse becomes a nurse practitioner and then makes more money, well yeah. If a teacher becomes the principal they make more money, too. Additionally, you can't conflate RNs with "all nurses" when RNs are less than 5% of the staff in areas like outpatient care, doctors offices, many dialysis centers, etc.
-Yup, a lot of nurses get paid hourly. And often hourly = no benefits. There are many, many nurses in the world who are "relief" or "per diem" and get paid hourly, only when invited to work, and get no benefits. This is similar to substitute teaching, except that my experience is that most subs are not licensed teachers who had their school of employment close down and now have to sub full-time.
-I don't know what you mean by "pay goes up automatically" with more education. I am guessing, again, you know someone who works a)at a hospital, and b)at a hospital that still has a strong union. These are becoming less common. Corporate takeovers of smaller hospital systems are common in many areas, and with that comes loss of jobs for many, and loss of benefits for those who stay. My anecdotal data point is an RN I know who got her BSN after years in the work force, and the response was basically "why would we pay you more to do the same job?" Also of note, only about half of all nurses work in hospitals, so you're purposely selecting the highest paid.
-On the option to work overtime, it's often less of an option than a mandate, especially for--you guessed it!--the non-RN nurses who fill the staff at nursing homes and other places where a single nurse is in charge of a whole hall, unit, or floor by himself. If a co-worker doesn't show up for their shift, you literally can't leave as that would be abandonment. So a last-minute call-in or no call, no show means you get a surprise 16 or 20 hour shift sometimes. (ETA: Imagine if your school had a second night shift, and if the second shift teacher didn't come in, you had to stay and teach that teacher's class until midnight after you'd been there all day. If you didn't you could lose your license and be jailed.)

None of this is to catch you in gotcha moment, but to underscore that if the original question was "why are people down on teachers," a really, really common theme I've noticed with the profession is that teachers always think everyone has it better than them, and bring up their supposed low pay when any evidence to the contrary is brought up. It's not a good look in a world where so many people wish they had the pay, schedule, and job security that many teachers do.

Do I think teachers could be paid more in many areas of the country? Fuck yes! Lots of people should be. It doesn't mean that it's accurate to say "No one makes less than me, I'm a teacher!" (which a person recently loud-announced at my college reunion, while entering a group of people that I can guarantee make less than him, or at least have worse benefits, as the discussion he entered while making that announcement was about buying our own ACA insurance). Another teacher in this thread brought up her 7.5 hour work day. Sounds dreamy to me. Again, my response was to underscore why people already have a bias toward eye-rolling when teachers ask questions like "Do I actually have to use my own sick days if I get sick?" when other people don't even have sick days.

Teachers aren't unpaid volunteers. You can wish you got paid as much as a doctor, and I can wish I got paid as much as the teachers I know, and hopefully one day that will happen for both of us. American voters don't seem to be on board with income inequality (or really any other kind) being a thing, or the "liberal choice" for our upcoming election wouldn't be to vote for Biden, which to paraphrase Nina Turner, is like eating a half bowl of shit. 

That said, if you really wish you could do it over again, can you? Nursing is a 2-year program, usually with pretty low cost of tuition, and if you're sure the pay, benefits, and lifestyle would work out better for you, wouldn't it be worth making the switch now? Or are you close enough to FIRE that it wouldn't make sense?

Comments like this makes me feel bad for teachers, because it shows how much people devalue their credentials. It should be obvious that an LPN is in no way remotely similar to a teacher’s level of education and not what people are talking about when comparing nurses to teachers. (Not to mention LPNs are being phased out, my rural hometown hospital system won’t hire them and the local tech college doesn’t even offer an LPN program anymore. Same hospital system will also only let you be an ADN for x many years, they require BSNs.) A BSN RN = entry level teacher.

RN pay system, I believe, refers to them being paid hourly and thus eligible for overtime and drastically increase their take home pay. Like massive amounts of overtime. Or they can work part-time and still have benefits. Hourly is not benefit-less in the medical field. A vast majority of RNs have benefits. In 2018, BLS reported that 88% of RNs have access to health care benefits and 91% had access to retirement benefits. Or they can earn more degrees to significantly bump their pay. A Nurse Practitioner is a nurse with a masters degree and the median pay difference between RN and NP is over 40k (BLS stat) A teachers with a masters degree, as noted, doesn’t see that pay difference. And no an NP is not the equivalent of a teacher becoming a principal. Again, way to devalue their credentials. Someone in the teacher field has to become the manager of an entire school to be the equivalent of a nurse with a masters? What? And also, unionization in health care is growing not becoming less common.

Personally, whenever I hear folks start complaining about teachers and their pay and benefits and summers off, I ask them why they don’t become a teacher if the job is so cushy. The response is never something like it’s too late in my career to pay for more schooling or switch careers. The response is oh I wouldn’t have the patience for that or I don’t like kids or I wouldn’t want to deal with all those brats. Seems to me like a good reason the profession should be paid well, irrespective of what nurses are making.

What you're getting out of my comment is that you feel bad for how much people devalue teachers credentials?

To clarify, here is the order of events that led to my comment:
1. A poster at some point in the byzantine thread made a comment along the lines of (paraphrasing here) "If doctors and nurses can go to work and have a much greater risk of getting sick, why can't teachers?"
2. O.P. said "I wish I got paid as much as them."
3. I replied to that comment questioning if they understood average nurse salary compared to average teacher salary. I followed that up with the text block you copied.
4. What you and some others got out of that is that I am devaluing teachers credentials because I super incorrectly placed their value as humans on the same plane as icky trash people with an associates degree, who should be compared to paraprofessionals at best.

It sure does sound like the argument has become that different people have different amounts of worth based on how many years of tuition they could wrangle up. I mean, really, let's follow this thread... a teacher thinks their life should not be at risk at the same rate as nurses because, according to them, nurses make more. When this is challenged, the takeaway is that I am not referring to the *right kind* of nurse, and this devalues teachers somehow. Why not focus on the fact that if someone truly believes LPNs aren't "real" nurses for the sake of this wage vs. value of life argument, that is the real fucking problem here? It is agreed nurses lives are at risk, and they somehow signed up for that by being high paid nurses, but the low paid ones can fucking die because they don't have enough education to be valid as part of this argument.

So, again, according to the original logic I was responding to, nurses can, I guess, afford to get sick due to their higher rate of pay. When I say not all nurses, it's a smirking "Well, the poor ones don't count. Quit insulting teachers by comparing them with people who don't have the right credentials."

Turning this into a dick measuring contest about education levels and whether someone "deserves" their title or pay or whatever is beside the point. My answer to the question of why some people have a distaste for some teachers remains that the vocal ones seem to think they are more important than other people and are beside themselves that society doesn't hold their lives on high due to the fact that their pay rate is not where they believe it should be for their level of education. 

Oh, and the main PCP at my health center is an NP, who has two MS degrees and is also an RD, but I'm devaluing teachers by comparing them to someone who works essentially as a lead physician? Oh, Ok.

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #307 on: August 01, 2020, 01:13:38 PM »
And it seems like some people think online teaching makes teachers' jobs easier???? It's going to make it MUCH MUCH MUCH harder. So as much as it sucks for kids and parents, it sucks for teachers just as much. They would much much rather teach classes in a conventional way. Anyone who thinks this is a vacation for them is woefully misinformed.

This. The same goes for anyone who attended online classes for college, often juxtaposed with "real classes." I found online classes much more rigorous as a student than in-person classes. For one thing, attendance is based on actual participation metrics rather than just sitting in a seat and physically being there, which nets perfect participation in in-person classes. So that obviously extends to the instructor having to rank each students participation, etc. based on the more rigorous metric, which does not make his/her job easier.

The pre-'rona stigma about online learning being "easy" seems to come in part from boomers who went to school decades ago and can't conceive of taking a class online saying shit like "you get to go to school in your pajamas!," and part from upper class current college students who can't conceive of adults with schedules who take online classes being "equal" to them. The end game is that online classes at the higher levels were already stigmatized as unserious because of generation and class issues, so that is going to trickle down now to the k-12 level.

charis

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #308 on: August 01, 2020, 01:23:35 PM »
Just for the record, I think online learning is more difficult in some ways because there is no adult interaction to help students adjust when they aren't getting a concept. The online programs we've been assigned to just makes them repeat or start over, which is incredibly frustrating for my first grader, who's progress in reading definitely stalled this spring.

Gin1984

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #309 on: August 01, 2020, 02:26:05 PM »
In Montgomery county, in which the public school were to be online and private schools had decided to be in person, the public health officer has given an executive order to close private schools until Oct 1.

Megs193

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #310 on: August 01, 2020, 02:58:56 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

Shane

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #311 on: August 01, 2020, 04:02:32 PM »
It's not smart to gather a lot of people into a small, indoor area right now. Period. Schools = small, indoor areas filled with inhabitants who aren't renowned for their self-discipline and "big picture" thinking (kids). Yes, it sucks to not have in-person teaching right now, but the fact that it sucks doesn't make it a smart idea to pack schools with kids and hope for the best. And think about buses, where you add more screaming and the driver's total inability to enforce masks while they handle the herculean task of driving a big-ass vehicle filled with kids.

And it seems like some people think online teaching makes teachers' jobs easier???? It's going to make it MUCH MUCH MUCH harder. So as much as it sucks for kids and parents, it sucks for teachers just as much. They would much much rather teach classes in a conventional way. Anyone who thinks this is a vacation for them is woefully misinformed.

School doesn't, necessarily, have to mean "gathering a lot of people in a small indoor area."

Schools Beat Earlier Plagues With Outdoor Classes. We should, too.

I generally like the idea of outdoor schooling.  There are some significant problems with implementation that must be overcome though.

- what happens when it rains?
- what happens when it snows?
- how does written work get done when it's extremely windy?
- what happens when it's extremely sunny?  Even with sunscreen, sitting in 6 hours of high UV light is going to cause problems.
- how do you handle insects?
- what equipment will children use (the school desks that are in my son's school have particle board tops and will certainly not stand up to being left outside for a season.  Chairs might?  They're mostly plastic.)  Is there a budget to buy new stuff, or to replace all this stuff when it breaks?  Or is the expectation that everyone's going to sit on the ground?
- how do you keep kids paying attention to conjugating verbs and fractional conversion when there's so much else to look at?

Distance learning over a screen sucks.  Absolutely.  But I feel like outdoor learning is going to be significantly worse than a regular classroom setting too.  Outdoor learning likely has an edge on distance ed, but because of the challenges I'd guess it's probably going to be about 60% effective for the kids compared to 40-50% for distance ed.  We need to be upfront that outdoor learning is still going to be a lost school year for most children.

Steve, Answers to some of your questions are in the linked NYT article. Apparently, schools in NYC came up with solutions to most of the logistical issues you mentioned back in the early 1900s. I agree that 2020-2021 may end up being a "lost school year" for some kids, but I have a feeling my reason for thinking that may be completely different from yours. I send my child to school for socialization, not so that she can learn any particular curriculum. For me, it matters not even a little bit that sun or wind or snow or whatever might make outdoor schooling less effective at transmitting any particular curriculum. My reason for deciding to keep our daughter home this year is that her school is planning to diligently follow CDC recommendations requiring that students maintain social distance from each other, as well as from adults. Since the main, and really only, reason I'm sending my child to school is for socialization, it doesn't make any sense to send her to a school, where she's going to have to wear a mask all day and won't be able to get close to her friends.

Kris

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #312 on: August 01, 2020, 04:14:31 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

Megs193

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #313 on: August 01, 2020, 04:20:26 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

As did the rest of the world.  I work in healthcare in a private practice. We had to revamp how we did everything including finding ways to do more things online. We struggled for a week or two but we put in twice as many hours as usual so our patients didn’t miss out. We actually took a pay cut because we weren’t able to do elective procedures that make extra money. So we worked more hours for less money and adapted how we worked to be able to effectively do our job. Within 2 weeks we were able to provide the care we needed to in all new ways. My kids did online school for 3.5 months so there was plenty of time to improve the system. 

Kris

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #314 on: August 01, 2020, 04:25:23 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

As did the rest of the world.  I work in healthcare in a private practice. We had to revamp how we did everything including finding ways to do more things online. We struggled for a week or two but we put in twice as many hours as usual so our patients didn’t miss out. We actually took a pay cut because we weren’t able to do elective procedures that make extra money. So we worked more hours for less money and adapted how we worked to be able to effectively do our job. Within 2 weeks we were able to provide the care we needed to in all new ways. My kids did online school for 3.5 months so there was plenty of time to improve the system.

I repeat.

Ask your kids’ teachers what they were doing from mid-March onward.

Otherwise, you’re just pretending to know what you’re talking about.

Megs193

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #315 on: August 01, 2020, 04:31:03 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

As did the rest of the world.  I work in healthcare in a private practice. We had to revamp how we did everything including finding ways to do more things online. We struggled for a week or two but we put in twice as many hours as usual so our patients didn’t miss out. We actually took a pay cut because we weren’t able to do elective procedures that make extra money. So we worked more hours for less money and adapted how we worked to be able to effectively do our job. Within 2 weeks we were able to provide the care we needed to in all new ways. My kids did online school for 3.5 months so there was plenty of time to improve the system.

I repeat.

Ask your kids’ teachers what they were doing from mid-March onward.

Otherwise, you’re just pretending to know what you’re talking about.

It’s actually not my job to police them. I did send an email to the principal and the superintendent letting them know how 30 minutes of teaching every other day was woefully inadequate and that I didn’t see why they couldn’t do 2 hours of zoom or recorded instruction per day.

kenner

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #316 on: August 01, 2020, 05:20:00 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

As did the rest of the world.  I work in healthcare in a private practice. We had to revamp how we did everything including finding ways to do more things online. We struggled for a week or two but we put in twice as many hours as usual so our patients didn’t miss out. We actually took a pay cut because we weren’t able to do elective procedures that make extra money. So we worked more hours for less money and adapted how we worked to be able to effectively do our job. Within 2 weeks we were able to provide the care we needed to in all new ways. My kids did online school for 3.5 months so there was plenty of time to improve the system.

I repeat.

Ask your kids’ teachers what they were doing from mid-March onward.

Otherwise, you’re just pretending to know what you’re talking about.

It’s actually not my job to police them. I did send an email to the principal and the superintendent letting them know how 30 minutes of teaching every other day was woefully inadequate and that I didn’t see why they couldn’t do 2 hours of zoom or recorded instruction per day.

Who's asking you to police them?  You got a simple question--did you ask what they did?  If the answer is no, then admit honestly that (as noted above) you don't actually know and are just making up a narrative to suit yourself.

Seriously, the number of people on this thread who's main focus seems to be to try to drag others down is just amazing to read.

Megs193

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #317 on: August 01, 2020, 05:29:42 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

As did the rest of the world.  I work in healthcare in a private practice. We had to revamp how we did everything including finding ways to do more things online. We struggled for a week or two but we put in twice as many hours as usual so our patients didn’t miss out. We actually took a pay cut because we weren’t able to do elective procedures that make extra money. So we worked more hours for less money and adapted how we worked to be able to effectively do our job. Within 2 weeks we were able to provide the care we needed to in all new ways. My kids did online school for 3.5 months so there was plenty of time to improve the system.

I repeat.

Ask your kids’ teachers what they were doing from mid-March onward.

Otherwise, you’re just pretending to know what you’re talking about.

It’s actually not my job to police them. I did send an email to the principal and the superintendent letting them know how 30 minutes of teaching every other day was woefully inadequate and that I didn’t see why they couldn’t do 2 hours of zoom or recorded instruction per day.

Who's asking you to police them?  You got a simple question--did you ask what they did?  If the answer is no, then admit honestly that (as noted above) you don't actually know and are just making up a narrative to suit yourself.

Seriously, the number of people on this thread who's main focus seems to be to try to drag others down is just amazing to read.

The OP posted a thread that specifically asked why people are annoyed at teachers. I answered the question. Every parent I know feels like the district dropped the ball.  This was not specific to my children’s teachers. It was a district wide problem. I emailed the principal and the superintendent because it was a district wide issue.   They emailed us their online learning plan today and the kids will be in live zooms from 9-11 and 12:30-2:30 so clearly the 30 minutes every other day was not deemed adequate. 

OtherJen

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #318 on: August 01, 2020, 05:40:41 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

As did the rest of the world.  I work in healthcare in a private practice. We had to revamp how we did everything including finding ways to do more things online. We struggled for a week or two but we put in twice as many hours as usual so our patients didn’t miss out. We actually took a pay cut because we weren’t able to do elective procedures that make extra money. So we worked more hours for less money and adapted how we worked to be able to effectively do our job. Within 2 weeks we were able to provide the care we needed to in all new ways. My kids did online school for 3.5 months so there was plenty of time to improve the system.

I repeat.

Ask your kids’ teachers what they were doing from mid-March onward.

Otherwise, you’re just pretending to know what you’re talking about.

It’s actually not my job to police them. I did send an email to the principal and the superintendent letting them know how 30 minutes of teaching every other day was woefully inadequate and that I didn’t see why they couldn’t do 2 hours of zoom or recorded instruction per day.

Who's asking you to police them?  You got a simple question--did you ask what they did?  If the answer is no, then admit honestly that (as noted above) you don't actually know and are just making up a narrative to suit yourself.

Seriously, the number of people on this thread who's main focus seems to be to try to drag others down is just amazing to read.

The OP posted a thread that specifically asked why people are annoyed at teachers. I answered the question. Every parent I know feels like the district dropped the ball.  This was not specific to my children’s teachers. It was a district wide problem. I emailed the principal and the superintendent because it was a district wide issue.   They emailed us their online learning plan today and the kids will be in live zooms from 9-11 and 12:30-2:30 so clearly the 30 minutes every other day was not deemed adequate.

I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.

Megs193

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #319 on: August 01, 2020, 05:47:39 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

As did the rest of the world.  I work in healthcare in a private practice. We had to revamp how we did everything including finding ways to do more things online. We struggled for a week or two but we put in twice as many hours as usual so our patients didn’t miss out. We actually took a pay cut because we weren’t able to do elective procedures that make extra money. So we worked more hours for less money and adapted how we worked to be able to effectively do our job. Within 2 weeks we were able to provide the care we needed to in all new ways. My kids did online school for 3.5 months so there was plenty of time to improve the system.

I repeat.

Ask your kids’ teachers what they were doing from mid-March onward.

Otherwise, you’re just pretending to know what you’re talking about.

It’s actually not my job to police them. I did send an email to the principal and the superintendent letting them know how 30 minutes of teaching every other day was woefully inadequate and that I didn’t see why they couldn’t do 2 hours of zoom or recorded instruction per day.

Who's asking you to police them?  You got a simple question--did you ask what they did?  If the answer is no, then admit honestly that (as noted above) you don't actually know and are just making up a narrative to suit yourself.

Seriously, the number of people on this thread who's main focus seems to be to try to drag others down is just amazing to read.

The OP posted a thread that specifically asked why people are annoyed at teachers. I answered the question. Every parent I know feels like the district dropped the ball.  This was not specific to my children’s teachers. It was a district wide problem. I emailed the principal and the superintendent because it was a district wide issue.   They emailed us their online learning plan today and the kids will be in live zooms from 9-11 and 12:30-2:30 so clearly the 30 minutes every other day was not deemed adequate.

I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.

Without a doubt it did for the first month. My kids had virtual learning for 3.5 months because we go until the end of June. That was ample time to change and improve the plan. My private practice completely changed the way we operate with telehealth consults and a million other policies put in place to protect staff and patients. I am a healthcare provider who has never worked from home and started working half of my days from home using technology I wasn’t super comfortable with.  I learned it on my own time and continued to improve the way I was practicing. No one I know was asking for perfection, just improvement.

GuitarStv

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #320 on: August 01, 2020, 06:44:38 PM »
I was very upset this spring when our school district announced for spring learning that teachers only had to have office hours from 8 - 10 am because many of them had their kids at home. Meanwhile I was an essential worker (hospital) and my husband was allowed to work remotely but still expected to put in 40 hours. Neither of us had the balls to tell our employer we were only available from 8 - 10 am.

In this thread, I've heard that because I'm a healthcare worker I should have expected to sign up to be around sick people. In my specialty I rarely deal with infectious people. In many specialties, healthcare workers have those same expectations (dentistry, dermatology, orthopedics). Meanwhile if someone were to ask the general public what careers are most likely to have people sick and vomiting around them, I'd expect to hear healthcare workers and teachers (going to mention obligatory drunk people bartender comments, but i'm talking purely about SICK PEOPLE). So its a complete fallacy that teachers have been working all this time unaware that children frequently become sick at school (or go to school sick for whatever reason). "I didn't sign up for this!!!" is not a reason enough to disregard the needs of millions unless that individual is willing to put their money where their mouth is and quit their job.
What Kris said plus:
- my dentist was closed for months. 
- Our doctors are still only doing teledoc appointments
- our clinic has shut down non-emergency work (no mammograms, for example).  Although they may start up again soon.

Why? Because COVID can kill.

Dealing with possible sick students and dealing with a disease that can kill you are not equivalent.
Do you think  your dentist was paid while he was closed????
She.

And well, no?  But what's the point?  Not all healthcare workers are "essential" (the point the other poster made), and if they weren't working, they weren't getting paid.

Teachers, however - teachers were working at the end of the school year (virtually - at least ours were, and full time).
Teachers will be teaching again this year (virtually, to start).  So...they will be getting paid also.  I mean, duh.

I've been working (from home instead of the office), and I'm also getting paid.  If I were unable to work from home and unable or unwilling to go to the office, I would stop getting paid when I ran out of sick time, COVID FMLA, and PTO.  I am not an essential employee.

NOT all healthcare workers were essential.  Not all were going to work, and they weren't getting paid.  Last I checked though, you can't get a virtual Xray.  You CAN, however, have a virtual teledoc appointment for many things.  LIKEWISE, you can teach virtually.  It sucks, but it can be done.

Quote
You hit the nail on the head.  I work in healthcare and some of my older coworkers chose to not come in to work and be exposed. They didn’t get paid.  If teachers want 100% of their pay then they need to work full hours. If that isn’t in school then they need to be teaching remotely for 8 hours a day.  I can only speak for my children’s districts but the teachers didn’t put in even close to that. Posting bull shit busy work that I could have googled and found online is not teaching. My kids had 1.5 hours of zoom meetings per week.  There should be 2 hours a day where they teach all the concepts and another few hours for kids who need one on one teaching if they have to teach virtually.

Our teachers are expected to teach virtually for the contracted amount of hours.  That depends on the grade, but it is not 8 hours per day.  190-240 minutes for elementary, for example.  That is active teaching time each day, and obviously does not include preparation, grading, and office hours.

I understand the 8 hours a day includes prep. I’m not even sure the kids need 190 minutes of zoom teaching per day. 120 minutes would suffice for most grades. Unfortunately my kids got 90 minutes per WEEK. I would prefer schools remain online for the safety of kids and staff but the teachers need to actually teach the kids, work one on one with kids who don’t understand it and provide more than links to YouTube videos. I’m sure there are some districts that did it correctly so I am not saying all teachers did this. I was simply saying that in the district my children attend they had a 30 minute zoom 3 times and week and some links to videos and online games. My husband and I bought multiple workbooks and started teaching our children themselves. The teachers got paid their full salary. The OP asked where the teacher hatred came from and I was giving an example. I like my kids teachers, I just don’t think they did their job.

You understand they only had a week or two to prepare in spring to go completely online, right? That it was an emergency situation?

I suggest you ask your kids’ teachers how they spent their time during a typical work week in March through June, before you decide whether they were “doing their job.”

As did the rest of the world.  I work in healthcare in a private practice. We had to revamp how we did everything including finding ways to do more things online. We struggled for a week or two but we put in twice as many hours as usual so our patients didn’t miss out. We actually took a pay cut because we weren’t able to do elective procedures that make extra money. So we worked more hours for less money and adapted how we worked to be able to effectively do our job. Within 2 weeks we were able to provide the care we needed to in all new ways. My kids did online school for 3.5 months so there was plenty of time to improve the system.

I repeat.

Ask your kids’ teachers what they were doing from mid-March onward.

Otherwise, you’re just pretending to know what you’re talking about.

It’s actually not my job to police them. I did send an email to the principal and the superintendent letting them know how 30 minutes of teaching every other day was woefully inadequate and that I didn’t see why they couldn’t do 2 hours of zoom or recorded instruction per day.

Who's asking you to police them?  You got a simple question--did you ask what they did?  If the answer is no, then admit honestly that (as noted above) you don't actually know and are just making up a narrative to suit yourself.

Seriously, the number of people on this thread who's main focus seems to be to try to drag others down is just amazing to read.

The OP posted a thread that specifically asked why people are annoyed at teachers. I answered the question. Every parent I know feels like the district dropped the ball.  This was not specific to my children’s teachers. It was a district wide problem. I emailed the principal and the superintendent because it was a district wide issue.   They emailed us their online learning plan today and the kids will be in live zooms from 9-11 and 12:30-2:30 so clearly the 30 minutes every other day was not deemed adequate.

I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.

Without a doubt it did for the first month. My kids had virtual learning for 3.5 months because we go until the end of June. That was ample time to change and improve the plan. My private practice completely changed the way we operate with telehealth consults and a million other policies put in place to protect staff and patients. I am a healthcare provider who has never worked from home and started working half of my days from home using technology I wasn’t super comfortable with.  I learned it on my own time and continued to improve the way I was practicing. No one I know was asking for perfection, just improvement.

Nothing to add.  I'm just in it for the Russian doll quote nesting.  :P

Peachtea

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #321 on: August 01, 2020, 06:47:48 PM »
Cut prior quotations for brevity.


What you're getting out of my comment is that you feel bad for how much people devalue teachers credentials?

To clarify, here is the order of events that led to my comment:
1. A poster at some point in the byzantine thread made a comment along the lines of (paraphrasing here) "If doctors and nurses can go to work and have a much greater risk of getting sick, why can't teachers?"
2. O.P. said "I wish I got paid as much as them."
3. I replied to that comment questioning if they understood average nurse salary compared to average teacher salary. I followed that up with the text block you copied.
4. What you and some others got out of that is that I am devaluing teachers credentials because I super incorrectly placed their value as humans on the same plane as icky trash people with an associates degree, who should be compared to paraprofessionals at best.

It sure does sound like the argument has become that different people have different amounts of worth based on how many years of tuition they could wrangle up. I mean, really, let's follow this thread... a teacher thinks their life should not be at risk at the same rate as nurses because, according to them, nurses make more. When this is challenged, the takeaway is that I am not referring to the *right kind* of nurse, and this devalues teachers somehow. Why not focus on the fact that if someone truly believes LPNs aren't "real" nurses for the sake of this wage vs. value of life argument, that is the real fucking problem here? It is agreed nurses lives are at risk, and they somehow signed up for that by being high paid nurses, but the low paid ones can fucking die because they don't have enough education to be valid as part of this argument.

So, again, according to the original logic I was responding to, nurses can, I guess, afford to get sick due to their higher rate of pay. When I say not all nurses, it's a smirking "Well, the poor ones don't count. Quit insulting teachers by comparing them with people who don't have the right credentials."

Turning this into a dick measuring contest about education levels and whether someone "deserves" their title or pay or whatever is beside the point. My answer to the question of why some people have a distaste for some teachers remains that the vocal ones seem to think they are more important than other people and are beside themselves that society doesn't hold their lives on high due to the fact that their pay rate is not where they believe it should be for their level of education. 

Oh, and the main PCP at my health center is an NP, who has two MS degrees and is also an RD, but I'm devaluing teachers by comparing them to someone who works essentially as a lead physician? Oh, Ok.

The conversation I commented on only dealt with pay comparisons. It’s not dick measuring to compare levels of education and compensation, since level of education required typically corresponds to salary expectations. And absolutely you’re devaluing the skills and education of a teacher by suggesting the right comparison is the average LPN with a one year vocational degree to the average teacher with a masters. That has nothing to do with the value of an LPNs life, but does really show how little people value teachers and their skills in general.

It’s obtuse to discuss LPNs in the context of a teacher with an MA stating I wish I was paid like a nurse. First, an LPN is not the average nurse. 80% of nurses are RNs, which is why people think RN when they think nurse...not to mention the fact that LPNs and ADNs are being phased out by the profession. Second, it should be obvious that someone is talking about their educational equivalents when comparing salaries. The fact that you don’t seem to think that a teacher with a MA has close to the equivalent level of skills for their profession as a NP with an MSN, further shows how devalued teachers are. You give a story of a PA with two masters...but so what? My HS biology teacher had PhD and was still paid shit...several of my HS teachers had multiple masters. And I went to a poor, rural school.

It’s also snide to suggest OP should go get a one year LPN or a two year ADN if they want to be paid like a nurse, when it’s clear that’s not the type of nurse OP is talking about and it would take six + years for OP to get to the equivalent level of degrees they currently have in their profession. 

In terms of an argument that nurses are paid more to risk their lives, I agree that’s a horrible argument if that’s the actual thrust of the argument. Mostly, because it ignores that many people who are not well paid are risking their jobs by going into work when they are  essential workers. You talk about LPNs but frankly anyone who is working at a hospital or grocery store is at higher risk. But that poor argument doesn’t excuse your equally poor argument that teachers are being complainy pants by not wanting to work in person when others, including those who are paid less, are going into work.

Anyone who works at a hospital knows they could be exposed to serious diseases and hospitals are not paying them anymore now because it’s part and parcel with their job. My dad is a janitor at a hospital and he’s more essential in this crisis than many of the nurses or doctors there. Which is why he was not furloughed when all the nonessential nurses and doctors were. He’s not being paid more because his pay already factored in hazardous conditions like being exposed to radiation waste and risking infection from needles when nurses carelessly dispose them improperly. And they wouldn’t even let the janitors and housekeeping folks wear masks or gloves, even their own. They were only allowed to start wearing their own masks in like June. Because before then hospital management was more worried that if non-nurse/physician staff wore PPE it would alarm patients and make them feel the hospital was unsafe or unclean. In contrast, grocery workers are receiving hazard pay and they very quickly had PPE, window shields etc.

The difference between my dad and teachers, is not the value of his life, which I happen to value pretty damn highly. This difference is his job cannot be done remotely and teachers’ jobs can. The difference between furloughed nurses and teachers is that a furloughed nurse isn’t working and a teacher working remotely is. I think it’s reasonable for teachers to request working remotely when every other profession that can be done remotely is doing so. Only 26% of the workforce is working in person right now. The rest are either working remotely or furloughed, with remote work being the majority. I also think it’s reasonable for teachers to question whether they have to use their sick days for covid, when the private sector has covid paid sick days (any employer under 500 employees), 10 paid weeks is school or child provider is closed (any employer under 500 employees) and workers comp for covid (at least in my state).

fuzzy math

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #322 on: August 01, 2020, 07:34:29 PM »

The conversation I commented on only dealt with pay comparisons. It’s not dick measuring to compare levels of education and compensation, since level of education required typically corresponds to salary expectations. And absolutely you’re devaluing the skills and education of a teacher by suggesting the right comparison is the average LPN with a one year vocational degree to the average teacher with a masters. That has nothing to do with the value of an LPNs life, but does really show how little people value teachers and their skills in general.

It’s obtuse to discuss LPNs in the context of a teacher with an MA stating I wish I was paid like a nurse. First, an LPN is not the average nurse. 80% of nurses are RNs, which is why people think RN when they think nurse...not to mention the fact that LPNs and ADNs are being phased out by the profession. Second, it should be obvious that someone is talking about their educational equivalents when comparing salaries. The fact that you don’t seem to think that a teacher with a MA has close to the equivalent level of skills for their profession as a NP with an MSN, further shows how devalued teachers are. You give a story of a PA with two masters...but so what? My HS biology teacher had PhD and was still paid shit...several of my HS teachers had multiple masters. And I went to a poor, rural school.

It’s also snide to suggest OP should go get a one year LPN or a two year ADN if they want to be paid like a nurse, when it’s clear that’s not the type of nurse OP is talking about and it would take six + years for OP to get to the equivalent level of degrees they currently have in their profession. 

In terms of an argument that nurses are paid more to risk their lives, I agree that’s a horrible argument if that’s the actual thrust of the argument. Mostly, because it ignores that many people who are not well paid are risking their jobs by going into work when they are  essential workers. You talk about LPNs but frankly anyone who is working at a hospital or grocery store is at higher risk. But that poor argument doesn’t excuse your equally poor argument that teachers are being complainy pants by not wanting to work in person when others, including those who are paid less, are going into work.

Anyone who works at a hospital knows they could be exposed to serious diseases and hospitals are not paying them anymore now because it’s part and parcel with their job. My dad is a janitor at a hospital and he’s more essential in this crisis than many of the nurses or doctors there. Which is why he was not furloughed when all the nonessential nurses and doctors were. He’s not being paid more because his pay already factored in hazardous conditions like being exposed to radiation waste and risking infection from needles when nurses carelessly dispose them improperly. And they wouldn’t even let the janitors and housekeeping folks wear masks or gloves, even their own. They were only allowed to start wearing their own masks in like June. Because before then hospital management was more worried that if non-nurse/physician staff wore PPE it would alarm patients and make them feel the hospital was unsafe or unclean. In contrast, grocery workers are receiving hazard pay and they very quickly had PPE, window shields etc.

The difference between my dad and teachers, is not the value of his life, which I happen to value pretty damn highly. This difference is his job cannot be done remotely and teachers’ jobs can. The difference between furloughed nurses and teachers is that a furloughed nurse isn’t working and a teacher working remotely is. I think it’s reasonable for teachers to request working remotely when every other profession that can be done remotely is doing so. Only 26% of the workforce is working in person right now. The rest are either working remotely or furloughed, with remote work being the majority. I also think it’s reasonable for teachers to question whether they have to use their sick days for covid, when the private sector has covid paid sick days (any employer under 500 employees), 10 paid weeks is school or child provider is closed (any employer under 500 employees) and workers comp for covid (at least in my state).

For the record, just because physicians and nurses got furloughed and your dad didn't absolutely does not mean that they were "non essential". Everyone at my hospital is being furloughed. Everyone. And it's not because they aren't essential it's because the hospital lost money and it's a power play because no one is taking vacation and costs went up. So in my department they're furloughing nurses except we're so short staffed that they can't take a whole day off they get a couple hours furlough here and there. In the meantime they're hiring travelers (at 2-3x the cost), they're making other people stay late, and calling people on their day off to come in and work at overtime rates to offset other people's furloughs. Because all this BS is mandated, we're short workers and the work has to be done, they're substituting a regularly paid worker with overtime and travelers so we can demonstrate we're all doing our part to save money.

I love my EVS staff and I show them tons of appreciation, but they are not more important than other disciplines at work. When EVS is busy, nurses and techs clean rooms. Your dad's dept is probably even more understaffed than the rest of the hospital and they couldn't figure out a way to furlough them without the place falling apart.

obstinate

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #323 on: August 01, 2020, 10:40:05 PM »
I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.
This excuse expired around about April 15th, as far as I'm concerned.

turketron

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #324 on: August 01, 2020, 11:03:20 PM »
I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.
This excuse expired around about April 15th, as far as I'm concerned.

So if you told someone they had 4 days to build a seaworthy boat from nothing, and even after they somehow managed to do so and keep their (admittedly shoddy) dinghy afloat and functioning for months, you'd be disappointed that they haven't been able to upgrade it into a luxury yacht already?

obstinate

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #325 on: August 02, 2020, 12:15:05 AM »
I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.
This excuse expired around about April 15th, as far as I'm concerned.

So if you told someone they had 4 days to build a seaworthy boat from nothing, and even after they somehow managed to do so and keep their (admittedly shoddy) dinghy afloat and functioning for months, you'd be disappointed that they haven't been able to upgrade it into a luxury yacht already?
I dispute that the difficulty of the problem was as huge as you're making it sound like. And my annoyance stems from the lack of apparent effort more than the failure that resulted.

To be clear: if you are a teacher and worked really hard this spring, or if your kids teacher was trying their hardest, good for you. I'm happy for you. But understand that for many of us this was far from our reality. I've described the shitshow that was put on in our Brooklyn elementary school earlier in the thread. The teacher was not hard at work bailing water as in your analogy.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2020, 12:19:40 AM by obstinate »

MayDay

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #326 on: August 02, 2020, 05:37:44 AM »
I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.
This excuse expired around about April 15th, as far as I'm concerned.

So if you told someone they had 4 days to build a seaworthy boat from nothing, and even after they somehow managed to do so and keep their (admittedly shoddy) dinghy afloat and functioning for months, you'd be disappointed that they haven't been able to upgrade it into a luxury yacht already?

This doesn't make sense.

Online instruction is not brand new. Online platforms (Google classroom, Schoology, etc) were already in place at I'm gonna say 90% of US schools. Online teaching methods were already being used in smaller doses. Teachers were already using these things! Let's not act brand new folks. Most other professions who can WFH pivoted quickly to being effective at WFH. The fact that tea hers won't is either a problem with them or a problem with the  job- it just doesn't work well to do remotely. I'd argue it's #2. If you want to argue it's totes fine to teach remotely then the problem in the spring was the teachers.

Peachtea

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #327 on: August 02, 2020, 07:23:18 AM »

The conversation I commented on only dealt with pay comparisons. It’s not dick measuring to compare levels of education and compensation, since level of education required typically corresponds to salary expectations. And absolutely you’re devaluing the skills and education of a teacher by suggesting the right comparison is the average LPN with a one year vocational degree to the average teacher with a masters. That has nothing to do with the value of an LPNs life, but does really show how little people value teachers and their skills in general.

It’s obtuse to discuss LPNs in the context of a teacher with an MA stating I wish I was paid like a nurse. First, an LPN is not the average nurse. 80% of nurses are RNs, which is why people think RN when they think nurse...not to mention the fact that LPNs and ADNs are being phased out by the profession. Second, it should be obvious that someone is talking about their educational equivalents when comparing salaries. The fact that you don’t seem to think that a teacher with a MA has close to the equivalent level of skills for their profession as a NP with an MSN, further shows how devalued teachers are. You give a story of a PA with two masters...but so what? My HS biology teacher had PhD and was still paid shit...several of my HS teachers had multiple masters. And I went to a poor, rural school.

It’s also snide to suggest OP should go get a one year LPN or a two year ADN if they want to be paid like a nurse, when it’s clear that’s not the type of nurse OP is talking about and it would take six + years for OP to get to the equivalent level of degrees they currently have in their profession. 

In terms of an argument that nurses are paid more to risk their lives, I agree that’s a horrible argument if that’s the actual thrust of the argument. Mostly, because it ignores that many people who are not well paid are risking their jobs by going into work when they are  essential workers. You talk about LPNs but frankly anyone who is working at a hospital or grocery store is at higher risk. But that poor argument doesn’t excuse your equally poor argument that teachers are being complainy pants by not wanting to work in person when others, including those who are paid less, are going into work.

Anyone who works at a hospital knows they could be exposed to serious diseases and hospitals are not paying them anymore now because it’s part and parcel with their job. My dad is a janitor at a hospital and he’s more essential in this crisis than many of the nurses or doctors there. Which is why he was not furloughed when all the nonessential nurses and doctors were. He’s not being paid more because his pay already factored in hazardous conditions like being exposed to radiation waste and risking infection from needles when nurses carelessly dispose them improperly. And they wouldn’t even let the janitors and housekeeping folks wear masks or gloves, even their own. They were only allowed to start wearing their own masks in like June. Because before then hospital management was more worried that if non-nurse/physician staff wore PPE it would alarm patients and make them feel the hospital was unsafe or unclean. In contrast, grocery workers are receiving hazard pay and they very quickly had PPE, window shields etc.

The difference between my dad and teachers, is not the value of his life, which I happen to value pretty damn highly. This difference is his job cannot be done remotely and teachers’ jobs can. The difference between furloughed nurses and teachers is that a furloughed nurse isn’t working and a teacher working remotely is. I think it’s reasonable for teachers to request working remotely when every other profession that can be done remotely is doing so. Only 26% of the workforce is working in person right now. The rest are either working remotely or furloughed, with remote work being the majority. I also think it’s reasonable for teachers to question whether they have to use their sick days for covid, when the private sector has covid paid sick days (any employer under 500 employees), 10 paid weeks is school or child provider is closed (any employer under 500 employees) and workers comp for covid (at least in my state).

For the record, just because physicians and nurses got furloughed and your dad didn't absolutely does not mean that they were "non essential". Everyone at my hospital is being furloughed. Everyone. And it's not because they aren't essential it's because the hospital lost money and it's a power play because no one is taking vacation and costs went up. So in my department they're furloughing nurses except we're so short staffed that they can't take a whole day off they get a couple hours furlough here and there. In the meantime they're hiring travelers (at 2-3x the cost), they're making other people stay late, and calling people on their day off to come in and work at overtime rates to offset other people's furloughs. Because all this BS is mandated, we're short workers and the work has to be done, they're substituting a regularly paid worker with overtime and travelers so we can demonstrate we're all doing our part to save money.

I love my EVS staff and I show them tons of appreciation, but they are not more important than other disciplines at work. When EVS is busy, nurses and techs clean rooms. Your dad's dept is probably even more understaffed than the rest of the hospital and they couldn't figure out a way to furlough them without the place falling apart.

An essential employee is necessary, not important. I feel my job and the mission of my agency is important, but during a government shutdown all but 2-3 people in my entire agency are classified as non-essential to protect life and property in the short term and we are thus furloughed. We would not have a functioning government if all the important employees who are considered non-essential during a shutdown were permanently cut. Similarly, in mid to late March, my parents’ hospital classified employees as essential or non-essential. The non-essential employees were all indefinitely laid off, they could either go on non-paid leave and use their PTO or they could go on unemployment. (They’ve since been brought back.) The hospital shut down entire departments. They quite literally deemed my dad (and mom) more essential in the initial covid response over many others, including nurses and doctors in non-essential departments. I’m sure the hospital still considered the furloughed surgeons more important though ;)

My parents’ hospital has not had the type of budget furloughs you’re talking about (yet), where all employees must take x furlough days to keep them in the black. Likely, because of how they furloughed non-essential employees in March/April. Although, you’re right my dads department is severely understaffed. My mom works in a Sterile Processing Service and she was one of 3 employees deemed essential to maintaining an emergency skeletal crew there. The rest of the department was was given the choice between temporarily moving to environmental services, taking non-paid leave (PTO), or getting their furlough notice for unemployment. All of them choose to be furloughed rather than go to environmental services.

MudPuppy

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #328 on: August 02, 2020, 07:27:34 AM »
I’m honestly shocked to hear how many of your healthcare orgs are furloughing instead of forming labor pools. At my orgs they are are putting everyone to work at anything. Housekeeping, dishwashing, making scheduling appointments. There’s enough work to go around even if it isn’t your “job”

GuitarStv

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #329 on: August 02, 2020, 08:53:24 AM »
I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.
This excuse expired around about April 15th, as far as I'm concerned.

So if you told someone they had 4 days to build a seaworthy boat from nothing, and even after they somehow managed to do so and keep their (admittedly shoddy) dinghy afloat and functioning for months, you'd be disappointed that they haven't been able to upgrade it into a luxury yacht already?

This doesn't make sense.

Online instruction is not brand new. Online platforms (Google classroom, Schoology, etc) were already in place at I'm gonna say 90% of US schools. Online teaching methods were already being used in smaller doses. Teachers were already using these things! Let's not act brand new folks. Most other professions who can WFH pivoted quickly to being effective at WFH. The fact that tea hers won't is either a problem with them or a problem with the  job- it just doesn't work well to do remotely. I'd argue it's #2. If you want to argue it's totes fine to teach remotely then the problem in the spring was the teachers.

I can't speak to the US, but here in Ontario online instruction and distance learning was largely non-existent in elementary schools beyond maybe a website that told parents what homework their kids should be doing.  It existed in secondary schools mostly as an idea that Conservatives in the government were using to push for increased classroom sizes to save costs by hiring fewer teachers (and most people with kids seemed against it).  One of the key problems with distance learning is that we have a surprising number of school children (I read a report indicating it was between 15 - 30%) without reliable access to computers . . . and these kids are clustered in lower income groups.

The average elementary school teacher here has received no training in how to teach classes remotely (and it's very different than teaching in a classroom).  Many did not have access to equipment needed for this - web cameras, microphones, scanners, etc. or experience using/configuring remote meetings. 

I'd be surprised to learn that things were very different for teachers in the States.  Can a teacher from the US confirm?

Psychstache

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #330 on: August 02, 2020, 09:30:33 AM »
I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.
This excuse expired around about April 15th, as far as I'm concerned.

So if you told someone they had 4 days to build a seaworthy boat from nothing, and even after they somehow managed to do so and keep their (admittedly shoddy) dinghy afloat and functioning for months, you'd be disappointed that they haven't been able to upgrade it into a luxury yacht already?

This doesn't make sense.

Online instruction is not brand new. Online platforms (Google classroom, Schoology, etc) were already in place at I'm gonna say 90% of US schools. Online teaching methods were already being used in smaller doses. Teachers were already using these things! Let's not act brand new folks. Most other professions who can WFH pivoted quickly to being effective at WFH. The fact that tea hers won't is either a problem with them or a problem with the  job- it just doesn't work well to do remotely. I'd argue it's #2. If you want to argue it's totes fine to teach remotely then the problem in the spring was the teachers.

I can't speak to the US, but here in Ontario online instruction and distance learning was largely non-existent in elementary schools beyond maybe a website that told parents what homework their kids should be doing.  It existed in secondary schools mostly as an idea that Conservatives in the government were using to push for increased classroom sizes to save costs by hiring fewer teachers (and most people with kids seemed against it).  One of the key problems with distance learning is that we have a surprising number of school children (I read a report indicating it was between 15 - 30%) without reliable access to computers . . . and these kids are clustered in lower income groups.

The average elementary school teacher here has received no training in how to teach classes remotely (and it's very different than teaching in a classroom).  Many did not have access to equipment needed for this - web cameras, microphones, scanners, etc. or experience using/configuring remote meetings. 

I'd be surprised to learn that things were very different for teachers in the States.  Can a teacher from the US confirm?

No, a teacher from the US cannot confirm, because school districts vary so much from state to state and locality to locality that no individual teachers experience could verify or disprove the claim.

Speaking from my experience (which is wide but still very limited) I work at a regional service center that supports about 140 school districts and charter schools in my portion of the state, and I can say with certainty that, based on the supports we had to provided, the number of districts that had functional distance learning in place prior to the shut down was no where even close to 90% for us. Some of the larger districts we work with in more affluent areas had some pieces in places and 3-4 of our districts were already 1-to-1, but our low SES districts, rural districts, and all of our charters were not at all prepared to begin distance learning.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2020, 09:33:44 AM by Psychstache »

Shane

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #331 on: August 02, 2020, 10:16:56 AM »
Dr. Mike shares his thoughts on The Uncomfortable Truth About Reopening Schools. TL/DR: Schools should gradually be reopened, because of the many benefits to kids. Adults who work at schools will be put at greater risk than if they stayed home, but the risks should be manageable if reopening is done gradually and school administrators are prepared to pivot if and when local circumstances require doing so. The uncomfortable truth referenced in the title is that reopening schools will definitely put some teachers and other adults who work at schools at greater risk of getting sick, and some adult employees of schools will probably end up dying from covid, but the benefits of reopening schools outweigh the negatives in Dr. Mike's and his guest's (pediatrician) opinions...

GuitarStv

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #332 on: August 02, 2020, 10:56:17 AM »
Dr. Mike shares his thoughts on The Uncomfortable Truth About Reopening Schools. TL/DR: Schools should gradually be reopened, because of the many benefits to kids. Adults who work at schools will be put at greater risk than if they stayed home, but the risks should be manageable if reopening is done gradually and school administrators are prepared to pivot if and when local circumstances require doing so. The uncomfortable truth referenced in the title is that reopening schools will definitely put some teachers and other adults who work at schools at greater risk of getting sick, and some adult employees of schools will probably end up dying from covid, but the benefits of reopening schools outweigh the negatives in Dr. Mike's and his guest's (pediatrician) opinions...

Agreed - there are significant benefits to re-opening schools.  But I don't share the optimism of that article.  Teachers (and support staff) will certainly die from this - given ages of the work force, probably quite a few.  When your child starts to notice the missing teachers at his or her school (maybe even his/her own teacher) it will difficult conversation, but one that you'll have to prepare yourself for.  We also need to start training replacement teachers right away to take the place of the dead to avoid shortages and the need to cram more students into ever growing classrooms if we want to keep schools open.

FIence!

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #333 on: August 02, 2020, 12:39:01 PM »
Cut prior quotations for brevity.

...
It’s also snide to suggest OP should go get a one year LPN or a two year ADN if they want to be paid like a nurse, when it’s clear that’s not the type of nurse OP is talking about and it would take six + years for OP to get to the equivalent level of degrees they currently have in their profession. 

Had you not cut the prior quotations for "brevity," you could have referenced my actual quote which said this:
That said, if you really wish you could do it over again, can you? Nursing is a 2-year program, usually with pretty low cost of tuition, and if you're sure the pay, benefits, and lifestyle would work out better for you, wouldn't it be worth making the switch now? Or are you close enough to FIRE that it wouldn't make sense?

I am talking about getting an RN certification at a community college, in two year, which is what almost every RN I know who works in a hospital did. If you are able to point to the place in my directly copied quote where I either suggested the OP should get a "one year LPN," or was "snide" to him, please perform that magic now.

Megs193

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #334 on: August 02, 2020, 02:42:08 PM »
I’m honestly shocked to hear how many of your healthcare orgs are furloughing instead of forming labor pools. At my orgs they are are putting everyone to work at anything. Housekeeping, dishwashing, making scheduling appointments. There’s enough work to go around even if it isn’t your “job”

I work for a private practice and we aren’t owned by a large organization. I have friends who were moved to a different department within the hospital. NY state did send out an email asking specific questions to find volunteers but I never received a phone call so apparently they didn’t get desperate enough to need a women’s health practitioner.

fuzzy math

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #335 on: August 02, 2020, 06:59:56 PM »
I’m honestly shocked to hear how many of your healthcare orgs are furloughing instead of forming labor pools. At my orgs they are are putting everyone to work at anything. Housekeeping, dishwashing, making scheduling appointments. There’s enough work to go around even if it isn’t your “job”

We had / have a COVID staffing pool. Earlier on when my dept staffing was cut back we had to go into the float pool but the only jobs were temp taking. I did that a few days and they stole a few vacation days from me when we didn't have the patient volume to justify everyone. Now we're back to full force and that's when they announced furloughs.

The furloughs are 1 week campus wide. It's specifically to regain $1 MM+. It has nothing to do with finding work for people. They also laid off about 70 people across the hospital and combined departments across different facilities.

Shane

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #336 on: August 03, 2020, 08:41:58 AM »

RetiredAt63

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #337 on: August 03, 2020, 09:00:58 AM »
@teacherwithamustache

I've only read the first page of this thread, but I just came across a piece from McSweeny's (a satirical site) that the  OP may appreciate. Theirs is a responsibility that I don't envy (says the veteran) https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/teacher

That was quite the rabbit hole.

mm1970

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #338 on: August 03, 2020, 11:54:34 AM »
Quote
Online instruction is not brand new. Online platforms (Google classroom, Schoology, etc) were already in place at I'm gonna say 90% of US schools.

ha ha ha no.

90%.

Hardly.

Not at the elementary level.  Nope.

Nick_Miller

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #339 on: August 03, 2020, 01:14:28 PM »
Quote
Online instruction is not brand new. Online platforms (Google classroom, Schoology, etc) were already in place at I'm gonna say 90% of US schools.

ha ha ha no.

90%.

Hardly.

Not at the elementary level.  Nope.

Yeah there is a HUGE difference between small, experimental online instructional programs and an online program stable program capable of filling ALL student needs, that is understood by all teachers and personnel, and that can be similarly taught to students and families.

And then there's the small issue of...TONS of kids don't have PCs or laptops at home, and they don't have consistent access to reliable, fast internet service either. Hell, so many kids' families can't even afford food, much less these things!

So this spring, schools were caught as flat-footed as the rest of us. But unlike businesses, they can't just tell their stakeholders (employees/students in this example) to "get set up with a home office on Monday and off we go."

So they've spent months building up online programs, and giving away/leasing thousands or (in the case of larger districts) TENS of THOUSANDS of laptops/chrome books, internet hot spots.

Some people act like they should have been able to pivot on a dime? Like the schools should have already been sitting on enough chromebooks for every.single.student to have one? Holy crap, do they not already understand how much people bitch about school budgets?


OtherJen

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #340 on: August 03, 2020, 01:27:15 PM »
Quote
Online instruction is not brand new. Online platforms (Google classroom, Schoology, etc) were already in place at I'm gonna say 90% of US schools.

ha ha ha no.

90%.

Hardly.

Not at the elementary level.  Nope.

Yeah there is a HUGE difference between small, experimental online instructional programs and an online program stable program capable of filling ALL student needs, that is understood by all teachers and personnel, and that can be similarly taught to students and families.

And then there's the small issue of...TONS of kids don't have PCs or laptops at home, and they don't have consistent access to reliable, fast internet service either. Hell, so many kids' families can't even afford food, much less these things!

So this spring, schools were caught as flat-footed as the rest of us. But unlike businesses, they can't just tell their stakeholders (employees/students in this example) to "get set up with a home office on Monday and off we go."

So they've spent months building up online programs, and giving away/leasing thousands or (in the case of larger districts) TENS of THOUSANDS of laptops/chrome books, internet hot spots.

Some people act like they should have been able to pivot on a dime? Like the schools should have already been sitting on enough chromebooks for every.single.student to have one? Holy crap, do they not already understand how much people bitch about school budgets?

Quite possibly, many of them are also bitching about school budgets.

MudPuppy

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #341 on: August 03, 2020, 01:41:34 PM »
Quote
TONS of kids don't have PCs or laptops at home, and they don't have consistent access to reliable, fast internet service either.

That's a significant problem in my county. Some outlying areas don't have internet service available for any prince, and no cell service either so chromebooks with data wouldn't solve that problem.

Nick_Miller

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #342 on: August 03, 2020, 02:43:30 PM »
Quote
Online instruction is not brand new. Online platforms (Google classroom, Schoology, etc) were already in place at I'm gonna say 90% of US schools.

ha ha ha no.

90%.

Hardly.

Not at the elementary level.  Nope.

Yeah there is a HUGE difference between small, experimental online instructional programs and an online program stable program capable of filling ALL student needs, that is understood by all teachers and personnel, and that can be similarly taught to students and families.

And then there's the small issue of...TONS of kids don't have PCs or laptops at home, and they don't have consistent access to reliable, fast internet service either. Hell, so many kids' families can't even afford food, much less these things!

So this spring, schools were caught as flat-footed as the rest of us. But unlike businesses, they can't just tell their stakeholders (employees/students in this example) to "get set up with a home office on Monday and off we go."

So they've spent months building up online programs, and giving away/leasing thousands or (in the case of larger districts) TENS of THOUSANDS of laptops/chrome books, internet hot spots.

Some people act like they should have been able to pivot on a dime? Like the schools should have already been sitting on enough chromebooks for every.single.student to have one? Holy crap, do they not already understand how much people bitch about school budgets?

Quite possibly, many of them are also bitching about school budgets.

Hmmm....do you recken so?

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #343 on: August 03, 2020, 04:53:24 PM »
An interesting thread. But I gotta ask the question: what happens a year from now when we still don’t have an effective vaccine or a vaccine at all?  It seems that a lot of folks are hoping for a silver bullet that probably won’t materialize. So are we going to keep the schools closed in perpetuity out of an (over) abundance of caution?  But keep expecting taxpayers to pay for them anyways?

In the mean time, I think it’s predictable what happens. First, parents who are able to afford private schools put their kids in private. Those who can’t or don’t want to end up doing some version of home school.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2020, 05:06:46 PM by Buffaloski Boris »

mm1970

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #344 on: August 03, 2020, 05:03:09 PM »
An interesting thread. But I gotta ask the question: what happens a year from now when we still don’t have an effective vaccine or vaccine?  It seems that a lot of folks are hoping for a silver bullet that probably won’t materialize. So are we going to keep the schools closed in perpetuity out of an (over) abundance of caution?  But keep expecting taxpayers to pay for them anyways?

In the mean time, I think it’s predictable what happens. First, parents who are able to afford private schools put their kids in private. Those who can’t or don’t want to end up doing some version of home school.
Hopefully we'll get some real leadership in the white house and kick this thing the way that many other countries have already done.  Why do Americans want to reinvent the wheel?  Why do people think it's either/or?  "Well, obviously we aren't going to keep paying for schools if they aren't fully open, and we aren't going to get rid of COVID soo...."  Seriously.

Kris

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #345 on: August 03, 2020, 05:11:36 PM »
An interesting thread. But I gotta ask the question: what happens a year from now when we still don’t have an effective vaccine or vaccine?  It seems that a lot of folks are hoping for a silver bullet that probably won’t materialize. So are we going to keep the schools closed in perpetuity out of an (over) abundance of caution?  But keep expecting taxpayers to pay for them anyways?

In the mean time, I think it’s predictable what happens. First, parents who are able to afford private schools put their kids in private. Those who can’t or don’t want to end up doing some version of home school.
Hopefully we'll get some real leadership in the white house and kick this thing the way that many other countries have already done.  Why do Americans want to reinvent the wheel?  Why do people think it's either/or?  "Well, obviously we aren't going to keep paying for schools if they aren't fully open, and we aren't going to get rid of COVID soo...."  Seriously.

Exactly. Effective leadership would have meant figuring out how to pay people to stay home.

Because the absolute earliest we will have a vaccine that is generally available to the public is mid-2021. If we had gotten people to stay away from one another, we could have dealt with this head-on. Instead, we are STILL in the fucking denial phase. With no end in sight.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #346 on: August 03, 2020, 05:32:24 PM »
An interesting thread. But I gotta ask the question: what happens a year from now when we still don’t have an effective vaccine or vaccine?  It seems that a lot of folks are hoping for a silver bullet that probably won’t materialize. So are we going to keep the schools closed in perpetuity out of an (over) abundance of caution?  But keep expecting taxpayers to pay for them anyways?

In the mean time, I think it’s predictable what happens. First, parents who are able to afford private schools put their kids in private. Those who can’t or don’t want to end up doing some version of home school.
Hopefully we'll get some real leadership in the white house and kick this thing the way that many other countries have already done.  Why do Americans want to reinvent the wheel?  Why do people think it's either/or?  "Well, obviously we aren't going to keep paying for schools if they aren't fully open, and we aren't going to get rid of COVID soo...."  Seriously.

I don’t view it as an either - or - sort of scenario. But obviously my view is not shared as in my metro area, none of the public schools are fully re-opening. Quite the contrary. All the large districts are doing virtual homeschooling. The smaller districts are in some cases doing two days on, three days off. That’s about the extent of re-opening.

We’ve already seen the short term to intermediate future and it doesn’t look a whole lot different from the present.  Except the private schools will be reopening more or less normally.  That’s about 10% of kids. So what does it look like a year from now when we still don’t have an effective vaccine or perhaps any vaccine at all?

Cranky

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #347 on: August 04, 2020, 06:12:05 AM »
Quote
TONS of kids don't have PCs or laptops at home, and they don't have consistent access to reliable, fast internet service either.

That's a significant problem in my county. Some outlying areas don't have internet service available for any prince, and no cell service either so chromebooks with data wouldn't solve that problem.

My district provided hot spots to any family that asked. About 20% of the kids effectively disappeared - they never once checked in.

Again, I think the schools are between a rock and a hard place here.

lisabobisa

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #348 on: August 04, 2020, 06:43:08 AM »
I mean, doesn’t it seem like the really abrupt nature of the shutdowns may have had something to do with that? Teachers here found out with the rest of the state on 10 pm March 12th that they’d be expected to start teaching virtually on March 16th. Of course it wasn’t adequate. There was no way that it could be. There was no blueprint for any of this.
This excuse expired around about April 15th, as far as I'm concerned.

So if you told someone they had 4 days to build a seaworthy boat from nothing, and even after they somehow managed to do so and keep their (admittedly shoddy) dinghy afloat and functioning for months, you'd be disappointed that they haven't been able to upgrade it into a luxury yacht already?

This doesn't make sense.

Online instruction is not brand new. Online platforms (Google classroom, Schoology, etc) were already in place at I'm gonna say 90% of US schools. Online teaching methods were already being used in smaller doses. Teachers were already using these things! Let's not act brand new folks. Most other professions who can WFH pivoted quickly to being effective at WFH. The fact that tea hers won't is either a problem with them or a problem with the  job- it just doesn't work well to do remotely. I'd argue it's #2. If you want to argue it's totes fine to teach remotely then the problem in the spring was the teachers.

I will speak on my experience at my school.

First, when everything shut down, most people, myself included, thought it would be for a week or two. This seemed to be the attitude of many teachers and school districts: This is temporary.  I never expected it to be 5 months later and no end in site.

Yes, some online teaching methods were already being used but it was not required for all teachers.  Our main curriculum is online, but most teachers found it easier to print out the material vs using it online. When we switched to 100% online we had one week to learn Google Classroom and Zoom and get our classes up and going. Some teachers who were already using the curriculum online were at an advantage, but others floundered. Also, our students did not have 1-to-1 technology, so parents/students had to get access to technology (which was on back order as every single school in the country needed devices). We had ZERO training on any of this.  To add to this, every week we were given some new expectation or requirement for implementing instruction from either the state or the district.  So I would have some good going for a week, then boom, Monday morning I had to change it.  And repeat 4-5 times over the course of 3 months.

What makes my situation a bit unique is 100% of my students have autism and are in an alternative school setting.  They all have IEPs and the majority have related services.  As such, we had to also figure out how to get them those services in a online environment.  As most of these therapies work best in person because of the skills they work on (i.e. Occupational therapists work on handwriting, grip, and other fine motor tasks; Physical therapists work on walking, running, maneuvering around obstacles and other gross motor tasks), so that in itself was a monumental task.

Now that we have ironed out the kinks and it looks like we will be online for a long period of time, this year will look very different.  Most teachers are more comfortable with the online platforms.  The related therapists have revamped the way they deliver services.  The school and district has a more concrete plan (that HOPEFULLY won't change 20,000 times) on their expectations from teachers.  My school, in particular, is VERY serious about implementing instruction in a way that can benefit our students and parents.  Teachers are expected to be actively involved in calls throughout the day, which was spelled out in our new contract.  If we do not do our job, we will not have a job...

I personally CANNOT wait until I go back in person, but for now, I will do online to the best of my ability.  I wish more schools and teachers had my school's mindset, because there would probably be less frustration and hate towards teachers.  It only takes a few bad apples to sour the bunch.

obstinate

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Re: Why all of the hatred for Teachers during Covid?
« Reply #349 on: August 04, 2020, 01:32:32 PM »
An interesting thread. But I gotta ask the question: what happens a year from now when we still don’t have an effective vaccine or a vaccine at all?  It seems that a lot of folks are hoping for a silver bullet that probably won’t materialize. So are we going to keep the schools closed in perpetuity out of an (over) abundance of caution?  But keep expecting taxpayers to pay for them anyways?

In the mean time, I think it’s predictable what happens. First, parents who are able to afford private schools put their kids in private. Those who can’t or don’t want to end up doing some version of home school.
I have about a month to figure it out. I have some nebulous plans to hire a gap year college student to come and work with my son on his work, try and keep him engaged, etc. We'll see how it goes.