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LizJ's picture

Money, teachers, and feelings... oh my!

The debate about money, teachers, and education is ongoing. The question here seems to be, is giving teachers more money as an incentive to teach well or even teach in the first place a reasonable thing? Some seem to think that just in asking the question itself is enough to say no, it is not reasonable because money doesn’t make good teachers and if teachers don’t want to teach with the salary they have know, then they don’t want to be teachers. This argument is tricky, because in one way, yes, we hope that people who want to be teachers will do so without worrying about making money. The thing about that is the fact that we live in a capitalist society and money is a motivator. Money won’t fix everything but why can’t we start in investing more into education then say, the military and a losing war. U.S. policy and decision-making should try to focus/work on domestic issues instead of trying to fix what they deem as “problematic” in the other parts of the world.

As discussed, money doesn’t make good teachers. But then what does make good teachers? Are good teachers those that are aware of their student’s feelings? By trying to understand student’s feelings, would teachers then know how to reach their students better? And if this is important, would it be required for teachers to be extroverted people?

 

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