Teachers

I couple of years ago I had a teacher try and tell me how they were so underpaid.

Of course I told them to find another job that paid better if they didn't like it and for a second they looked at me like I had three heads.

I suggested they go to sea like I do and it would probably mean they made a little more money. He really went off on me and carried on about how it was unfair that I made more than he did without a degree.

I suggested he get his seaman's papers and come on out and join me. He didn't like that. Apparently he wanted to have his cake and eat it.

I get paid what I get paid not because it requires a degree or even a lot of training. I get paid for the inconvenience of leaving home for weeks at a time coupled with the intrinsic danger of the job.

Does that trump a degree?

Apparently in this case it does because I make more than most teachers. It also does in many construction fields that work in remote areas. One can get paid a tidy sum for being inconvenienced. It galls them, too but the truth is that teachers make what they do because that's what they are worth. Someone offers that much and the teacher accepts that much. Both parties deem that to be what it's worth otherwise the job would go unfilled. 

Teachers generally go home every night and that's something that they fail to take into consideration when they look at non college degree careers that are well paid. 

In my world the same holds true.

A shipping company offers so much per day and if someone qualified accepts the job then that's what the job is worth.

As for the guy that I started this epistle about, he was livid when I suggested he pack a seabag and come out here and do a days work at sea and get a seaman's day's pay. He said it wasn't worth it to him to go to sea.

"But it's worth it to go to the classroom every day for a lot less," I replied.

"No it's not!" he snapped back.

"Sure it is," I replied. "If it wasn't worth it you wouldn't go in to the classroom."

Much hemming and hawing followed. 

Then I decided to watch his head explode. I pointed out that the guy that teaches one of the trades locally only had a GED...he never finished high school and only got  his GED so he could teach in one of the trade schools.

Much to the credit of the trade school teacher, an awful lot of his students are snapped up my employers long before they finish his course. Most public educators can't say that.

What is interesting is the trade school teacher had spent 4 years in the Army and had made sergeant. Most educators don't understand this but sergeants are not only grass roots leaders but grass toots teachers.

I told Mr. Public school teacher that the best teachers I ever studied under all had the same first name. It was 'Sergeant'. I got the usual answer one gets from someone that's losing.

"Oh, well. That's different."

No, it isn't different. Teaching is teaching. It is getting something  useful into someone else's head.


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY