What a great post that really makes you think about teachers and their role in a classroom setting, the department, and nurturing students. I love your philosophy and view on this subject and what a great teacher you are to learn and grow in your field. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and teach someone like me about the current climate in schools.
Great stuff. I agree with all that you mentioned. Greeting kids and saying goodbye should be obvious but often it is skipped over in our busy lives. Eye contact. That is important too. Soon those kids will be looking at their phone and need to learn how important it is to REALLY look at people.
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In short, a professor is a postsecondary academic instructor. Sometimes called postsecondary teachers, they teach students who are at the college level, typically in a university classroom setting. Professors are the highest-level of educators and usually specialize in a specific academic subject or field. They are critical faculty at a college. Teachers on the other hand are charged with teaching younger students, focusing on kindergarten through high school. They also are important faculty and critical instructors, focused on teaching students important skills. They focus on earlier, foundational levels of education that prepare students for more education that comes with getting older. Some of these teachers will also specialize in certain teaching fields, while others who are teaching younger students cover a much greater depth of academic fields and subjects.
Teacher: Teachers K-12 are responsible for ensuring that students learn important subjects and fundamentals that they can build on over time. Kindergarten teachers help students learn how to read, basic math, etc. Students and teachers build on that, and in the third grade students are learning more reading comprehension, more advanced math, etc. This goes on as children get older, and in high school they are reading long books, able to write essays on what they have learned and include their own insight. They are doing complex math formulas in calculus and statistics, which can help them in their futures. Teaching responsibilities include:
Professors: Professors earn an average annual salary of around $79,000 per year. The size of a college where a professor teachers, and the subject they teach are great influences on their salary. The length of time a professor has been teaching and whether or not they have tenure is also an important factor in salary levels.
Professors: Professor career growth is expected to increase at a rate of 11% by 2028. This is much faster than the national average. More students are going to college than ever before, and universities are in need of professors who can help meet demand.
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A teacher is an educator who works in a K-12 school system and who is trained to teach students of a particular age group or grade level, or in a specific academic subject area. Generally, teachers working with young students provide foundational instruction in several subject areas and also assist students in developing self-discipline and interpersonal skills. As students get older, teachers typically specialize in one specific academic subject and provide more focused instruction. Teachers at the high school level impart more advanced academic knowledge, along with skills and tools that help students prepare for life after graduation and for success at the college level.
The primary difference between teachers and professors relates to work setting and student population. Teachers work with young children and teenagers in K-12 school systems, while professors work with older teens and adults in college and university settings. There are also distinct differences in the educational and licensing requirements for teachers and professors, along with specific job responsibilities, research expectations, and average salaries.
At the college and university level, professors teach courses based on their specialized area of expertise and research. They are responsible for creating their own curriculum, assignments, and exams, along with acting as administrator of any virtual platforms help students access course materials and assignments. Unlike teachers, who may only conduct research while enrolled in a degree program, professors are also responsible for being active researchers in their fields, making ongoing contributions to the intellectual reputation of the institution where they teach. Responsibilities of professors include:
Teachers in a K-12 setting typically have their own classroom that they personalize for their students. In elementary schools, students usually spend their entire school day in one classroom with their lead teacher. However, in middle school and high school, teachers tend to specialize in specific subject areas and provide instruction to different groups of students that rotate into their classroom throughout the day. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many teachers (and professors, too) had to adopt online learning tools and become proficient users of virtual classrooms, a work environment that will continue to be part of the educational landscape. Teachers at the K-12 level typically get summers off, along with many holidays during the school year.
The job outlook for teachers is around the national average for all occupations, with the number of jobs expected to increase by 4% by 2031, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With an increasing turnover rate and post-COVID-19 teacher shortage, there is a demand for qualified and committed educators. Aspiring teachers can stand out in a competitive job market by enhancing their rsums with additional work and volunteer experience and professional development credits.
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In 2012 I moved from Mississippi to New York City to teach at a charter elementary school in Harlem. My 27 fifth grade students had reading levels ranging from third to eighth grade. They grew up speaking 14 different languages in their homes, which were scattered from the far reaches of Brooklyn to the South Bronx. I had spoken word poets, Lego masters, dancers, and chess fiends. One gave me a hug every hour, on the hour. Others had to be coaxed into speaking.
Each of these students learned at a different pace. Some needed specialized attention, some needed to be challenged. One student could compute multiplication with 4-digit products in his head, while others still counted on their fingers.
Therefore, it disturbed me when Gov. Phil Bryant recently joined a small chorus of Republican governors in announcing his dissatisfaction with the Common Core standards. This is what he saidin a statement last month (from the AP):
Common Core is a failed program and many are realizing that these standards are not what many believed them to be. Mississippi has the responsibility and authority to manage its own education system and not delegate that control to Washington, D.C.
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Thank you for teaching, in Mississippi, in New York, and thank you for teaching math to your students effectively. It is vital to have many tools in the tool box for teaching a math concept like adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing using whole numbers including unit fractions.
First, I am solidly a liberal, blue-stater and actually believe very strongly in Common Standards across the board. Just because a student lives in state X, should not mean that he will receive an inferior education. But there is a difference between common standards and CCSS. Standards are broad guidelines that allow for diversification, experimentation, personalization and adaptation.
But in the same spirit of non-idealism, philosophy is an esoteric discipline, most students take it to satisfy some requirement, or out of curiosity, or because it fits their schedule, so no amount of teacherliness is going to magically make it a super seat-filler.
The difference is competence over capability, teachers need to instruct to a point where the knowledge can be regugitated at a specific point in (exam) time in the present model. Vocational education also swims in the competency sea. Higher Ed is for building capability, not specifically how to operate a machine, more to work strategically in the organisation of work.
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