Teachers: Underpaid and Underappreciated
The annual salary of an average high school teacher is about $58,000, which is a lot less than jobs like nurses, lawyers, or bankers.
The salary is even less for teachers who work at private institutions. Teachers have been educating students on the world around them and molding some of the world’s most brilliant minds for thousands of years, yet they do not get paid fair amounts. Some religions like Hinduism think of teachers as one of the most important people in society. If teachers are so important, why are they one of the lowest paid jobs in America? Because teachers provide quality education to our youth and have high-stress jobs, teachers should be paid more. The first reason that teachers should be paid more is because they provide quality education for our youth. Each day teachers work extremely hard to teach their students a variety of different subjects that will help them in future careers.
Important subjects like math and science help students to be able to have a basic understanding of the world around them, and English classes help students with communication and writing skills. Subjects like social studies allow for students to learn about the past and the world around them so that they can make more educated decisions in the future. Although each subject is not always necessary once the students graduate, the teachers try to teach students more than just the basic, trivial information. Teachers also teach their students important life lessons like budgeting time, public speaking, quickly understanding new topics, and writing skills. By having students learn a range of different topics and skills, teachers are giving their students a well rounded education that will help them after college.
Without teachers, students would never have access to this type of quality education. In addition to the necessary education they provide, teachers should be paid more because teaching is a high stress job. To help their students learn, teachers must create activities that will help their students to understand the material that they are teaching, which entails more than one would think. Not only does the teacher have to come up with fun ideas and educational projects, but they must grade each of them. All of this extra planning, grading, and tutoring involves a lot of work done outside of the school, taking up constant time and energy which causes the teacher to easily become stressed. Along with the added parts to teaching comes other responsibilities.
With the job of teaching comes the responsibility of caring for and disciplining their students. While the students are at school, the teacher takes on the role of the parent. Because of this, each time a student’s grades become too low or their actions require disciplinary responses, the teacher is the one who handles these situations. All of this responsibility is hard enough with one or two children, but is even harder with fifty or more kids who do not alway give their teachers the same respect as they give their parents. Most teachers want what is best for their students and experience similar stress to that of a parent. Teachers are needed at schools for more than just teaching, but with these many other responsibilities in and outside the classroom comes a lot of stress.
Although being a teacher is not a walk in the park, some may argue that teachers should not be paid more because their jobs are not as complex or essential to the community. Some argue that there are many other jobs in this world that require more skill and precision than being a teacher does. Architects must be extremely well trained so that the buildings and bridges that they build do not collapse, and pilots must also be very precise while flying because the lives of hundreds of people are in their hands.Without doctors in a community, many people would become sick and even more would die. I disagree with people who say this. Teachers play a very important role in the development of other jobs.
In order for other professions to exist, someone has to be there to teach them these skills. Doctors, architects, and pilots must all go to school in order to learn how to do their jobs. Without this education, our society would be reliant on other countries for healthcare, military, and more because there would be no one to do these jobs. Teachers are the backbone of our society, and without their incredible skill and precision, the many men and women who are essential to our communities would not be properly trained. The teachers in our communities deserve to be paid more because of the amazing and stressful work they do. Without teachers, there would be no education for our children.
They would not be able to learn basic information like math or science, or even learn skills like public speaking or writing skills. Teachers also have a very stressful job, between trying to teach lessons, planning projects, disciplining students, tutoring students, and just being there to help. Teachers do so much and impact so many lives, and they deserve to be compensated for all they do to mold our society’s young minds.
