• blackbelt352@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Both can be true. Teachers can be doing everything they humanly can with the constraints and budgets they’re given by the people in charge, whether it is public or private schools. They’re still people who need food, water, shelter and clothing, and so many teachers pay for the supplies they need with their own money, cutting into their ability to afford basic necessities.

    Having more money available to pay for teacher’s aides, and for the necessary supplies would remove a lot of the burden and barriers teachers face when actually teaching.

    • Chill Dude 69@lemmynsfw.com
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      8 months ago

      many teachers pay for the supplies they need with their own money

      They just shouldn’t do that. It should be actually illegal to do that. I really mean that.

      Imagine if this shit was going on, in the construction industry. Imagine if we got into a situation, where the people who hire construction contractors refused to pay for enough building materials, and then the contractors refused to pay for those materials, and then the actual construction workers started bringing in steel and concrete, from home.

      That would be BEYOND STUPID. Nobody would do that. But if they DID ever do that, it would completely destroy the economy, and basically make sure that no buildings could ever be built or repaired.

      Rather than telling the people at large that they need their asses kissed, the response should be to tell the districts: “well, I ran out of supplies, so I couldn’t teach.” If that functionally means a strike, then so be it. It is ethically problematic, because of the actual futures of the actual kids involved…but it should have been dealt with sharply and directly, all along.

      Instead, teachers are coddling governments and middle managers by taking the burden onto themselves. I know it’s easier said than done, but they need to start saying “no,” rather than saying “please help me, out of the kindness of your hearts.”

      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        Then the children would get worse education than they already get, it would be years until the pressure got enough to actually change anything in the administration, and then longer for it to have any effect on the funding that schools recieve from the government.

        It’s not some problem that can just be hand waved away because they should have handled it better in the first place or something. This shit has measurable effects on outcomes for the rest of a person’s life.

        The issue is that the consequences of any strong action from the teachers disproportionally effects the students, with little to no direct effect on the people that would need to be involved with improving the situation.

        But sure, go off on how teachers are failing students by stretching themselves thin trying to keep students from being screwed over.

        Same shit as telling schools to stop blowing absurd amounts of money on sports: it’s not nearly so simple. A lot of that money comes to the schools in ways (grants, etc) that legally obligates them to use it for sports and not where it would be more effective.

        But no, the true reason things suck couldn’t possibly be because shit is fucking complicated. Everyone is just too dumb or cowardly to do things the way you identified as the solution.

        I sincerely hope you grow to understand that most shit like this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place if any old layperson’s “hot take” idea could actually solve it. People are stupid, but not that fucking stupid.

        • Chill Dude 69@lemmynsfw.com
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          8 months ago

          It’s not some problem that can just be hand waved away because they should have handled it better in the first place or something

          Nah, I think it was EXACTLY like that. That’s where I was going, with my analogy about the construction industry. If the construction workers started being asked to bring in concrete and steel for the jobs, out of their own pay, THEY WOULD BE INCREDIBLY STUPID TO START DOING IT.

          They should refuse, immediately. They should absolutely nip that shit in the bud. Never give it any chance to become a massive problem.

          Imagine if every teacher had said “nope, we don’t do that,” the first time they didn’t have enough supplies in their classrooms, and someone started making throat-clearing noises, implying that they could just bring that shit from home. If they had all showed solidarity with each other, from the start, things would be very different.

          Now, of course, the practices are ingrained. It has been normalized.

          It WAS a mistake for teachers to allow that shit. The problem is massively more difficult to solve, now.