Public School Or Private School?

[sandwedge 30]

very interesting sandwedgei always thought that teachers had cushy jobs. Get off at 3:30, maybe mark a few papers and once you've taught a course a few times, the course prep is virtually nonexistent. Apparently i'm mistaken.tell me what you were doing when you were working long hours and many days straight?Glad your enjoying the poker job. How's the market nowadays? people still playing a lot in the b and m's? I haven't played in what seems like ages.

Well, remember that I worked at a private school and that the high school had boarding students. Every teacher was expected to coach or do extracurricular activities throughout the school year. I coached 3 sports - Middle school cross country, high school jv girls basketball, and middle school golf.During the basketball season, a typical week went like this: Teach a regular course load and basketball practices after school, basketball games on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday nights (roughly 4pm - 10pm or so), help run middle school basketball games for 3 hours Saturday mornings, and do at least one dormitory duty during the week or on Sunday nights(basically supervise the dorm from 7pm until midnight).Of course, it's something you know you're getting into when you accept the job, and most of the time it's very rewarding. There were times, though, that I'd be really fatigued especially during basketball season. This is when I'd add up the hours I was working, and it would often be in the 70 hour per week range, for several weeks in a row.I'm sure that there are cushy teaching jobs out there, but there are also ones that take up a lot of time. My job was nothing compared to the typical high school football coach, who really devotes all of his spare time for several months to his job. The reward isn't really in the paycheck - it's in making a difference in young people's lives.As for poker, yes there's still a market for the b&m's. We've had some very slow periods over the last year, but it seems to be all economy related. When people started getting their tax checks a couple of months ago, they were beating down the casinos' doors trying to get in.

[Dratj 0]

Well, remember that I worked at a private school and that the high school had boarding students. Every teacher was expected to coach or do extracurricular activities throughout the school year. I coached 3 sports - Middle school cross country, high school jv girls basketball, and middle school golf.During the basketball season, a typical week went like this: Teach a regular course load and basketball practices after school, basketball games on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday nights (roughly 4pm - 10pm or so), help run middle school basketball games for 3 hours Saturday mornings, and do at least one dormitory duty during the week or on Sunday nights(basically supervise the dorm from 7pm until midnight).Of course, it's something you know you're getting into when you accept the job, and most of the time it's very rewarding. There were times, though, that I'd be really fatigued especially during basketball season. This is when I'd add up the hours I was working, and it would often be in the 70 hour per week range, for several weeks in a row.I'm sure that there are cushy teaching jobs out there, but there are also ones that take up a lot of time. My job was nothing compared to the typical high school football coach, who really devotes all of his spare time for several months to his job. The reward isn't really in the paycheck - it's in making a difference in young people's lives.As for poker, yes there's still a market for the b&m's. We've had some very slow periods over the last year, but it seems to be all economy related. When people started getting their tax checks a couple of months ago, they were beating down the casinos' doors trying to get in.

Ah, I didn't factor in the extracurricular activities. My cousin teaches grade 3 in public school. I think his hours are fairly cushy, I can't imagine there to be too much going on after school for those kids. So, maybe the way to go is to teach the younger kids and be in public school. Ah, i miss the b and m poker in some ways but I just don't have the time to sit for hours at a table anymore. Also, the passion to play nowadays is significantly diminished. Do you still play a lot?

[AmScray 355]

Socioeconomic variables can have a meaningful impact on the attainment of of certain knowledge types, but "intelligence" is pretty much all genetic.We hate this fact as a society, since it's so non-egalitarian and seemingly unfair, but it is what it is. If your kid is already intelligent, then maximizing this by affording her the best possible education is important. If she is lacking in the genetic rudiments that eventually go on to precipitate 'intelligence' in adulthood, then it doesn't matter where she goes to school in her formative years; Mother Nature has already spoken.

[Nikki_N 17]

I wouldn't call the hours worked by the teachers where I work "cushy" (a public elementary school grades k-5). They are contracted for a 7:30-3:00 day with half of an hour for lunch and about 40 minutes of prep time. In reality, they usually arrive earlier, stay later and come in a goodly number of weekend days. In addition, they take home much of their grading to do in the evenings. In the summer, they often attend professional development activities. Indeed, the spring, summer and winter holidays are a nice perk, but many of those days they spend preparing for the regular school year. Also, teachers don't have time to post in forums, facebook, check the scores/call their bookees, chit chat, power nap, go to lunch in restaurants or take 20 minute shit/surf the news on their blackberry breaks during the school day. They have meetings most mornings and afternoons and a room full of kids from 8:00-2:30 except their aforementioned 40 minutes of prep which is often rife with interruptions and gets spent dealing with discipline issues.

[speedz99 145]

If your kid is already intelligent, then maximizing this by affording her the best possible education is important. If she is lacking in the genetic rudiments that eventually go on to precipitate 'intelligence' in adulthood, then it doesn't matter where she goes to school in her formative years; Mother Nature has already spoken.

I think it's the opposite. An intelligent kid will excel even at a mediocre school and end up fine, whether at a top college or kicking ass at a good college and moving up quickly after graduation in any arena. It's the average or slightly below average kid that benefits most from being in a really good school system and taking advantage of that experience.Of course, an extremely intelligent kid in a horrible school system would be in almost as much trouble as Forrest Gump in a great school system, but that's probably not important to theorize about for this specific poster's situation.

[Dratj 0]

I wouldn't call the hours worked by the teachers where I work "cushy" (a public elementary school grades k-5). They are contracted for a 7:30-3:00 day with half of an hour for lunch and about 40 minutes of prep time. In reality, they usually arrive earlier, stay later and come in a goodly number of weekend days. In addition, they take home much of their grading to do in the evenings. In the summer, they often attend professional development activities. Indeed, the spring, summer and winter holidays are a nice perk, but many of those days they spend preparing for the regular school year. Also, teachers don't have time to post in forums, facebook, check the scores/call their bookees, chit chat, power nap, go to lunch in restaurants or take 20 minute shit/surf the news on their blackberry breaks during the school day. They have meetings most mornings and afternoons and a room full of kids from 8:00-2:30 except their aforementioned 40 minutes of prep which is often rife with interruptions and gets spent dealing with discipline issues.

Let me know if any of the following is wrong and why. I'm curious and playing devil's advocate here. So, please don't take any offense. If I were a primary school teacher, I can understand the prep work to be a little more during the first couple of years but even then the material is so easy, i can't imagine it taking too much time. however, if you have been teaching grade 3 for several years, the prep work should be minimal? Also, say you spent 2 hrs a day after school to mark stuff, woudn't you still be done by five? I do agree with you that during school hours, it can be quite rough to manage all those kids but no job is all gravy. Unlike sandwedge, for primary school, you prob don't have to devote too much after school time to extracurriculars, if you did i can understand the hours to be very long. I also can't imagine any teacher spending much of the summer prepping. Some of my patients are teachers and they seem to have cushy summers, traveling for a month or two or spending most of the summer up at a cottage or something like that. They definitely think they have a sweet deal.

[Don Giovanni 0]

wow, lots of awful advice in here. mods, please delete all of these misinformed responses up until this post. thank you. ok. public schools are all terrible... everywhere. theres nothing local about it. private schools for the most part are only slightly better. in case you were wondering, colleges are almost universally terrible as well, except when it comes to convincing people to waste all of their money on them, and the degrees they hand out are worthless.do your kids a favor: send them to private school if you must and then tell them not go to college. tell them to read books and watch lectures and other videos on youtube if they want to continue learning. that will cost you and them relatively nothing. then tell them to focus on getting work experience or starting a business.

[Nikki_N 17]

Let me know if any of the following is wrong and why. I'm curious and playing devil's advocate here. So, please don't take any offense. If I were a primary school teacher, I can understand the prep work to be a little more during the first couple of years but even then the material is so easy, i can't imagine it taking too much time. however, if you have been teaching grade 3 for several years, the prep work should be minimal? Also, say you spent 2 hrs a day after school to mark stuff, woudn't you still be done by five? I do agree with you that during school hours, it can be quite rough to manage all those kids but no job is all gravy. Unlike sandwedge, for primary school, you prob don't have to devote too much after school time to extracurriculars, if you did i can understand the hours to be very long. I also can't imagine any teacher spending much of the summer prepping. Some of my patients are teachers and they seem to have cushy summers, traveling for a month or two or spending most of the summer up at a cottage or something like that. They definitely think they have a sweet deal.

Some things get easier with time in regards to prep work, but really, the standards in most states change somewhat every year and the number of required assessments and meetings to review the data from assessments grow every year in public school. That means learning the new assessment tools and how to analyze the data from the new tools and then use that information to reach out to the kids that aren't meeting the standards by implementing new teaching strategies. Also, teachers are now being threatened with stepping up their game or getting out. This is good for kids, but I think that the days of teaching the same lesson plans from year to year are over. It's all about teaching the same stuff in new ways and "No child left behind" and whatnot. The teachers are doing all of this now with less time than ever before. The half days that used to be set aside for planning, professional development and parent-teacher conferences have been eliminated. All of the activities that were set aside for those days have to be fit into the mornings and afternoons. Also, keep in mind that even some teachers in elementary school coach sports at the high school level. All the coaches are teachers. In our district, you can't hold a coaching position without holding some other instructional position at one of the schools. Many teachers teach summer school or offer tutoring, too. Not all, mind you, but many. There are also no "life licenses" issued to teachers in my state, anymore. All licenses issued for a couple of decades now have a continuing education requirement. I think there are teachers that manage to slip by with "cushy" teaching jobs by blowing off meetings and doing the bare minimum, but in my state, as in many, education budgets are being slashed and school districts, looking to get more value for their money, have increased accountability standards. The days of cushy teaching jobs around here have been on the way out for a while.That being said, one of the perks of being in education is a block of time in the summer and smaller ones in the winter and spring for vacation. Most teachers spend part of this time doing the things I've described previously, but they nearly all do some relaxing, too. After teaching 27-31 kids for five days a week, for weeks at at time, they need to relax.

[Dratj 0]

wow, lots of awful advice in here. mods, please delete all of these misinformed responses up until this post. thank you. ok. public schools are all terrible... everywhere. theres nothing local about it. private schools for the most part are only slightly better. in case you were wondering, colleges are almost universally terrible as well, except when it comes to convincing people to waste all of their money on them, and the degrees they hand out are worthless.do your kids a favor: send them to private school if you must and then tell them not go to college. tell them to read books and watch lectures and other videos on youtube if they want to continue learning. that will cost you and them relatively nothing. then tell them to focus on getting work experience or starting a business.

wow, are you serious?learning stuff on youtube?Good luck trying to get a professional degree by not going to college. If everyone followed your advice, there would be no engineers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, teachers, pharmacists, nurses etc. School isn't for everyone and there are lots of useless degrees out there but you can't seriously think no one should go to college.

Some things get easier with time in regards to prep work, but really, the standards in most states change somewhat every year and the number of required assessments and meetings to review the data from assessments grow every year in public school. That means learning the new assessment tools and how to analyze the data from the new tools and then use that information to reach out to the kids that aren't meeting the standards by implementing new teaching strategies. Also, teachers are now being threatened with stepping up their game or getting out. This is good for kids, but I think that the days of teaching the same lesson plans from year to year are over. It's all about teaching the same stuff in new ways and "No child left behind" and whatnot. The teachers are doing all of this now with less time than ever before. The half days that used to be set aside for planning, professional development and parent-teacher conferences have been eliminated. All of the activities that were set aside for those days have to be fit into the mornings and afternoons. Also, keep in mind that even some teachers in elementary school coach sports at the high school level. All the coaches are teachers. In our district, you can't hold a coaching position without holding some other instructional position at one of the schools. Many teachers teach summer school or offer tutoring, too. Not all, mind you, but many. There are also no "life licenses" issued to teachers in my state, anymore. All licenses issued for a couple of decades now have a continuing education requirement. I think there are teachers that manage to slip by with "cushy" teaching jobs by blowing off meetings and doing the bare minimum, but in my state, as in many, education budgets are being slashed and school districts, looking to get more value for their money, have increased accountability standards. The days of cushy teaching jobs around here have been on the way out for a while.

Well, even with all that, assuming you don't coach high school stuff and teach summer school (which you get paid extra and is only one month extra), is it correct to say that you still get 9 weeks off in the summer, one week march break and two weeks christmas (for a total of 12 weeks off a year-3 months!)? I'd say you work 40 to 50 hours a week max unless you're coaching high school sports (do you?) I'm not saying your job isn't important or isn't hard or stressful when you are teaching but with 3 months off a year, that imo is a cushy job. Let's say you are really hard working and spend a total of one of those months prepping, that still leaves you with 8 weeks off a year which is way more than any other job out there. No offense nikki but i think my cousin who is also a teacher would agree with me.

[bigkg 0]

learning stuff on youtube?

http://www.khanacademy.org/index.html?

[Dratj 0]

http://www.khanacademy.org/index.html?

wow, i never knew, i stand corrected. interesting link i will check it out.

[speedz99 145]

wow, lots of awful advice in here. mods, please delete all of these misinformed responses up until this post. thank you. ok. public schools are all terrible... everywhere. theres nothing local about it. private schools for the most part are only slightly better. in case you were wondering, colleges are almost universally terrible as well, except when it comes to convincing people to waste all of their money on them, and the degrees they hand out are worthless.do your kids a favor: send them to private school if you must and then tell them not go to college. tell them to read books and watch lectures and other videos on youtube if they want to continue learning. that will cost you and them relatively nothing. then tell them to focus on getting work experience or starting a business.

I...want to assume that this is a joke, but it's really written as if it's serious advice. I mean, I suppose if you're looking for your kid to only have the following options:-work a shitty job that doesn't reaquire a real education, hope to eventually work up to night manager at said shitty job-start a business from the ground up (like, from the trunk of a car as the initial office space) and hope to be in the right place and time to be in the .01% that makes it bigOr, you know, get an education and have a real career. You can still watch youtube videos to continue learning about whatever you want.

[AmScray 355]

-start a business from the ground up (like, from the trunk of a car as the initial office space) and hope to be in the right place and time to be in the .01% that makes it bigOr, you know, get an education and have a real career. You can still watch youtube videos to continue learning about whatever you want.

You're wrong about entrepreneurship. It's most definitely a 'spirit' and not everyone has it- and there are some examples of spectacular failures, to be certain- but it's not fair to set the bar at "making it big". There are plenty of people who don't 'make it big' ; rather, they 'make it small' yet still earn a helluva lot more than your average White Collar schmuck, are their own boss and have firm control over their own destiny- stuff every 'employee' would sever a testicle to enjoy. A large part of the reason the 'merchant classes' (you know who that means...) have enjoyed the position they have is because they teach their kids the basics of entrepreneurship. Worker bees usually spawn worker bees, owners usually spawn owners, white collar 'get a 4 year degree and a 'good job' schmucks usually spawn kids that attain nothing more than that.Really, parents create ceilings for their kids, usually based on their own limitations. It's OK if you're someone who's content having someone else sign your paycheck for the rest of your life, but don't discourage others from the outset as if making it on your own is some impossible dream. It isn't (for the right people)

[speedz99 145]

You're wrong about entrepreneurship. It's most definitely a 'spirit' and not everyone has it- and there are some examples of spectacular failures, to be certain- but it's not fair to set the bar at "making it big". There are plenty of people who don't 'make it big' ; rather, they 'make it small' yet still earn a helluva lot more than your average White Collar schmuck, are their own boss and have firm control over their own destiny- stuff every 'employee' would sever a testicle to enjoy.

I do agree that it's a spirit that comes from...well, who knows where. That's why you can't keep your kids out of school, let them watch some youtube videos to get an education, and then set them loose on the world and hope that they'll make it through ok, which is what that other poster was recommending. I was just pointing out the fact that most people won't do so well in that situation, so getting an education and becoming a worker bee is actually an important option that kids need.

A large part of the reason the 'merchant classes' (you know who that means...) have enjoyed the position they have is because they teach their kids the basics of entrepreneurship. Worker bees usually spawn worker bees, owners usually spawn owners, white collar 'get a 4 year degree and a 'good job' schmucks usually spawn kids that attain nothing more than that.

I guess it depends on how you classify jobs and entrepreneurship. After a shitload of education I'll own my own business, but I'll never make as much money as my brother (a corporate attorney), so who's a worker bee, who's a 'good job' shmuck, etc., and does that correlate in any objective way to "success"...it depends on what you're looking for out of life. Some people really do just want a solid cubicle job after a 4 year education that gives stability and a lack of stress, and I can't blame or look down on them for that.

Really, parents create ceilings for their kids, usually based on their own limitations. It's OK if you're someone who's content having someone else sign your paycheck for the rest of your life, but don't discourage others from the outset as if making it on your own is some impossible dream. It isn't (for the right people)

And, again, I agree with this, and didn't mean to discourage people trying to make it on their own. It's just idiotic, in my opinion, for that previous poster to recommend that parents put all their kids' eggs in the entrepreneurship basket. Getting a high school and college education opens doors, it doesn't close them...a much as people like to point at successful businesses led by people without high school and/or college degrees, there are many many more that were started by people that did have strong educations.