Wednesday, November 14, 2012
NHL lockout
I've been a diehard Bruins fan since 1954. I stopped going to games when the new Garden was built, and ticket prices rose to prohibitive levels. In my younger days I spent many hours in Boston bars sharing beers with the likes of Pie McKenzie, Teddy Green, Harry Sinden, Sanderson, Espo and the rest of them. But I'm giving up with this latest fiasco. Screw 'em all. There's plenty of good college hockey around the area, the AHL is nearby, local Junior teams and high schools are either playing now or are soon to start. Plus I love watching college football, and I've grown to enjoy EPL soccer (love games with no commercial breaks). So who needs the NHL?
Monday, November 12, 2012
Reflections on teaching from 2005
I wrote this 8 years ago. My thoughts haven't changed, although my health insurance contribution certainly has.
In relation to education, I have some thoughts from the perspective of having just retired from teaching and coaching for 35 years at a public high school inMassachusetts
Merit pay: In theory, good; in practice, terrible. Too much of good teaching is subjective. I have prevented suicides, helped keep families together, served as a surrogate father many times, written countless letters of recommendation, helped many players and students get college scholarships, solved countless discipline problems. None of these things would be factors in merit pay as I've seen it. In coaching one can have inferior players, do a great job with them, and still lose. The same is true in the classroom. Judge me by the scores of my honors and A.P. kids and I'll be a hero. Judge me by the scores of the lower level, non-college bound kids, and I may be a stiff, even though I may do a better job in the classroom with them.
Teacher pay: Anyone entering education knows that the pay is less than in the corporate world. As an Ivy League graduate, I've have many friends who are in the highest economic echelon. But teachers get paid in other ways. An anecdote: at one college reunion a fraternity brother who owns one of the biggest private companies in the world expressed envy that my wife and I were able to take a 7 week camping trip with our kids around the country one summer. He said that he would never be able to do anything like that. In the time vs. money trade off, we've opted for time. And we've always made enough money to own a house outright, have no car payments and put two kids through college without their having any loans to repay. It's called living beneath one's means and being frugal, but not anal.
Retirement: The plum of a teaching career is the pension. I get 80% of the average of my last three years pay. Without having to pay into the retirement system (16%) and having to pay state taxes (5.9%), I take home more retired than I did working. I currently pay $145/month for health insurance and the school district pays the rest, but that could change with each new contract. I don't get social security, but my wife will. All in all, a pretty good deal since I'm 57.
Administrators: The best place to be in education is in the classroom. The further removed from the kids one gets, the more aggravation one has and the less reward. But if you want more pay, you have to get into administration. It shouldn't be that way.
Respect: Any teacher who looks to the general public for respect is wasting his time. You get your respect from the kids in front of you every day, from their parents when you see them in the supermarket, from your former students who buy you a beer in a bar or stop by to say hello in a restaurant or fix your plumbing or do electrical work and just charge for the parts. But that's evidentally a difficult concept for many in our materialistic, money-grubbing society to grasp.
Anyway, we may not be millionnaires, but with the pension and our 403b money, we can pretend we are.
In relation to education, I have some thoughts from the perspective of having just retired from teaching and coaching for 35 years at a public high school in
Merit pay: In theory, good; in practice, terrible. Too much of good teaching is subjective. I have prevented suicides, helped keep families together, served as a surrogate father many times, written countless letters of recommendation, helped many players and students get college scholarships, solved countless discipline problems. None of these things would be factors in merit pay as I've seen it. In coaching one can have inferior players, do a great job with them, and still lose. The same is true in the classroom. Judge me by the scores of my honors and A.P. kids and I'll be a hero. Judge me by the scores of the lower level, non-college bound kids, and I may be a stiff, even though I may do a better job in the classroom with them.
Teacher pay: Anyone entering education knows that the pay is less than in the corporate world. As an Ivy League graduate, I've have many friends who are in the highest economic echelon. But teachers get paid in other ways. An anecdote: at one college reunion a fraternity brother who owns one of the biggest private companies in the world expressed envy that my wife and I were able to take a 7 week camping trip with our kids around the country one summer. He said that he would never be able to do anything like that. In the time vs. money trade off, we've opted for time. And we've always made enough money to own a house outright, have no car payments and put two kids through college without their having any loans to repay. It's called living beneath one's means and being frugal, but not anal.
Retirement: The plum of a teaching career is the pension. I get 80% of the average of my last three years pay. Without having to pay into the retirement system (16%) and having to pay state taxes (5.9%), I take home more retired than I did working. I currently pay $145/month for health insurance and the school district pays the rest, but that could change with each new contract. I don't get social security, but my wife will. All in all, a pretty good deal since I'm 57.
Administrators: The best place to be in education is in the classroom. The further removed from the kids one gets, the more aggravation one has and the less reward. But if you want more pay, you have to get into administration. It shouldn't be that way.
Respect: Any teacher who looks to the general public for respect is wasting his time. You get your respect from the kids in front of you every day, from their parents when you see them in the supermarket, from your former students who buy you a beer in a bar or stop by to say hello in a restaurant or fix your plumbing or do electrical work and just charge for the parts. But that's evidentally a difficult concept for many in our materialistic, money-grubbing society to grasp.
Anyway, we may not be millionnaires, but with the pension and our 403b money, we can pretend we are.
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