NOT A SEXY PROFESSION

Apparently, teaching is not a sexy profession. A friend of mine who pretends to be an expert in chasing women says, "Never tell a woman you are a teacher. Nobody wants to go to bed with a teacher."

Why is that?

Maybe it's because people don't respect teachers, for some reason, in this country. In Europe, I understand, teachers are held in higher esteem. I don't know if they get more dates or have more sex.

Maybe teachers are not popular because they are "a bunch of weirdos," as a friend of mine says. BTW, she is a teacher, too. 

Maybe teachers are not sexy because they don't have any power outside the classroom, and they don't make much money.

Let us all feel sorry for the poor teachers, who apparently don't get enough nookie. I hope that doesn't hurt their ability to teach.

Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

WHY TEACHERS SUFFER LOW PAY

What motivates teachers? Why do people with college degrees and graduate degrees go into such a low paying profession?

The answer is that good teachers are in the success business. Their main goal in life is to help students succeed. They get a real sense of reward from helping other people gain knowledge and skills and get ahead in the world.

That may seem strange, in our modern, selfish, money-grubbing USA, where many people seem to worship celebrities just because they are rich. But it's true.

For the past five years, I've taught junior and senior English at Los Angeles Community Adult School. Before that, I taught part-time at junior colleges, mostly freshman composition. So I knew how to prepare my students.

Often my students would come back to visit, and they would tell me how well they did on the college placement test. When they could skip remedial classes and go straight into freshman English, that was a big victory, for them and for me. It made my day.

One of my favorite students was Alejandra, a 40ish lady from Latin America, with an IQ I'd estimate somewhere around 140. She made a living cleaning houses in Beverly Hills, but she should have been a doctor or lawyer or engineer.

A brilliant student, she could learn anything you asked her to, in about one-fourth the time of an average student. The night she graduated from our high school, she came to my classroom wearing her cap and gown, shook my hand, and thanked me for helping her and for being her teacher.

That made my day, and it made my year.

That is why teachers put up with such low pay.

Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

STOLEN RESEARCH

Here is today's example of Unbearable Crap:

A friend of mine says that when she was in graduate school, at a major university, her original research was stolen by one of her professors who published it as his own.

That definitely qualifies as Unbearable Crap.

I have expelled several of my own students for plagiarism, usually for copying essays or parts of essays from the Web and putting their own names on these "borrowed" or "mixed" essays.
Students need to be taught the value of original work, honesty, and integrity.

But some college professors seem to think they are above the law. What about ethics? What about academic integrity, as well as acacdemic freedom? What about fundamental social values, like honesty?

As most of my own students would say, a lie is still a lie, no matter who tells it.

Stolen research gets the Unbearable Academic Crap award for today.

Copyright 2011 by Roger R. Angle