Teachers Aren’t Underpaid, They Just Need to Work Smarter

Above: A video of teacher’s protesting for higher wages.  If only I felt sympathy for them…

A few months ago, Hillary Clinton was holding a “town meeting” being televised on ABC’s “Good Morning America.  The topic of discussion was health care, and they had people in the audience asking questions to the presidential hopeful.

One of the ladies from the audience stood up to ask a question, and was introduced as a “middle class mother of two and an underpaid teacher.” She then went on to ask something to the effect of why politians are able to make so much money while people like her continue to be underpaid.

Okay, what I’m about to say may be upsetting to some, but the truth often hurts. So, here goes:

Teachers are NOT underpaid.

They earn the exact amount of money that they should earn, and they need to stop whining and complaining about it.  They knew going in how much they would probably earn, and if they didn’t like it, they shouldn’t have become teachers.

“OMG, Aaron, that is SOOOO cruel! How DARE you say teachers are not underpaid – they are responsible for teaching education to millions of kids, and without them they wouldn’t learn anything! For shame, Mr. Taylor, for shame!”

Thank you for that rebuttle. Now, allow me to totally destroy THAT argument.

If one were to base a salary on how many people one has helped in the course of a lifetime, teachers are definetely earning the right amount of money. It may seem like teachers teach “millions of kids” in their lifetime, but that’s not actually the case. In actuality, most individual teachers teach way less students than that.

Let’s take a typical high school teacher, shall we? This teacher teaches an English literature class, to 4 different groups of 25 kids each semester, every year they teach. That means, in the course of a year, this teacher will have had 200 students go through their classroom.

Now, let’s say this person stays on as a teacher for 25 years. In the course of 25 years, this teacher will have had 5,000 young people go through their classroom to learn the subject of English literature, a subject which – as many of you will probably agree – ends up being pretty useless when you get into the world outside of school. I have yet to go on a job interview where they ask me to recite Ralph Waldo Emerson, or to dictate words to them in the style of Shakespeare.

More importantly: in the grand scheme of things, 5,000 people is not a lot of people, especially considering that (a) this teacher is only teaching 200 students per year, and (b) there are still MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of kids they are NOT teaching each year.

The reason this form of teachng deserves the salary it gives out is because it doesn’t allow the person teaching to reach a wide mass of people. There’s a general rule to becoming wealthy: the more people you help, the richer you become. Teachers stay “poor” and “not paid enough” because they are only reaching a small few.

Let’s compare the above scenario with that of another type of “teacher”: the muppets on the P.B.S. show, “Sesame Street.” Whoever owns the rights to that program makes MILLIONS of dollars a year – possibly billions – teaching the same stuff pre-school teachers teach: basic math, spelling, word association, do’s and don’ts, etc.

And why do they make more money, you ask?

BECAUSE THEY ARE ABLE TO REACH MILLIONS OF KIDS AROUND THE WORLD - not just their small little town, but the WORLD –  AND TEACH THEM ON A DAILY BASIS.

Furthermore, they are able to teach using a wide variety of media. They don’t just have the one method of getting up in front of a chalk board and telling students to read what’s written on it.  No, they have many ways for adults to get these “teacher-like” products to kids: tapes, DVDs, interactive computer games, board games, concerts (I should know, I went to one as a kid), and the list goes on and on.

Again, they teach the same things those poor “underpaid” teachers teach, and make TONS of money doing it because they do it smarter!

Let’s look at another type of “teacher”: Robert Kiyosaki. He’s that guy who created the whole “Rich Dad” series that teaches people how to look for other ways of making money besides having a regular “job.”

This guy has probably taught more people about money management with his “Rich Dad” books – millions of copies sold, and the first book is STILL on the best-seller list almost 10 years later – than any finance teachers have with their textbooks! Because he’s able to reach more people – and therefore, teach more people – he’s able to make a bunch of money doing something most teachers wish they got paid more for: TEACHING.

Everytime I hear a teacher complain about being underpaid, I just want to slap the shiznit out of them and say: “STOP COMPLAINING, THEN, AND FIND A BETTER WAY TO MAKE MORE MONEY AT TEACHING!”

If a teacher enjoys teaching math to kids, great – create something that you can market to millions of kids instead of the 25 you currently have in your class, and you’ll make LOTS of money! If English is their choice of teaching, find a way to make it fun, exciting, and marketable to the masses!

The point is, if teachers are waiting for some politicians to come along and say “okay, we’re going to raise your salary to match ours!”, they are in for a looong wait. Politians, despite their sometimes questionable ethics, help out more people on a daily basis than teachers, and deserve to be paid more.

Teachers, on the otherhand, are quite replacable – if one math teacher is tired of being underpaid, a school can easily find another math teacher who is willing to do the job with less complaining AND a lower salary. If a teacher wants to make some REAL money at teaching, they need to get off their “woe is me” high-horse and figure out a way to make it happen themselves.

Truth of the matter is, almost ALL people feel underpaid at their job, and nobody wants to hear someone else complain about it. So smarten up, teachers, and figure out a way to GET PAID MORE without crying to the government!

-Aaron P. Taylor