Factors that Affect Teachers

As teachers, we all know that there are a plethora of outside factors that affect our students, our schools, and ourselves. This week in our Grammar class we read articles that highlighted some of these factors; such as, teacher’s cost of living, schools going green to help with failing test scores, sesame workshop, educating children that were affected by Katrina, and child farm workers just to name a few.

Since I am not in the classroom yet, I chose to focus on the teacher’s cost of living, since the others were about teachers already in the classroom. The article Teachers’ Cost of Living Matters More compares teacher salaries in different cities or regions against the national average or other U.S. cities. The cities are ranked by the adjusted and unadjusted elementary teacher pay. For example, in Memphis is adjusted pay is $50,797 and the unadjusted pay is $45,108, which is one of the higher when it comes to the difference between the two rates.

When I first enrolled in college, I decided to become a nurse. All I heard about growing up was to have a job that paid well and had great job security and therefore nursing seemed the best option for me. I had thought about teaching, but everyone told me I should become a nurse because it paid quite a lot more. So, for my first two years of college, I was a Nursing Major. However, when I met my husband and was miserable in my classes, we discussed me switching majors. The pay did come up because of how low teachers get paid in Tennessee. However, I decided my happiness was way more important than pay.

After reading the article, I was shocked to see that some pay rates dropped when they were adjusted in consideration of the cost of living. If the cost of living lowers the pay rate, I don’t think that would be fair to teachers. Why lower their pay just because the cost of living is lower? That doesn’t make much sense to me. However, if the cost of living is more, I believe teachers should get paid the adjusted rate. Teachers play an important part in society today and the future society. Some jobs that I feel are less important get paid a lot more. For instance, garbage men in larger cities can make up to $65,000, which is more than all of the teacher’s salary based on the chart in the article!!!! I cannot believe that! Teachers put in so much work than just the "work day". There are more things they work with outside of those 8 hours, such as helping children with their home life, staying after to grade or tutor students, research teaching techniques, etc. Hopefully, they will change teacher's salary because teachers use their personal time and money to help better their teaching techniques for the betterment of the children in their classroom.