The Teacher Shortage Crisis
Even before the pandemic lock-downs, American teachers from sea to shining sea reported a critical shortage of teachers within their ranks, and have watched in horror at the crippling levels of greed, arrogance, apathy, and ignorance at every level of K-12 educational governance.While embattled teachers have continued to try in vain to draw attention to the issues, our leaders have failed to acknowledge the problems at all. But since covid, the nation’s teachers have borne witness to a break neck hastening pace of this downward spiral–and a total avoidance of a conversation from our leaders.
This a-political podcast, created and produced exclusively by teachers, gets into the nitty gritty details of why teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and uncovers huge contributing structural problems baked into the teaching profession which are not discussed or understood even within the K-12 educational world, which also explain why so much of what is done in K-12 is ineffective. These desperate, passionate, highly qualified teachers use this podcast series to insert teachers forcefully into the national conversation about the critical issues plaguing K-12 education, because no one else was letting them in–a fact which belies a central thesis about the roots of the problems discussed throughout the episodes. Listeners will be gripped by the reality that without substantial reforms which empower teachers to lead the work, the inevitable result is a collapse of our very ability to effectively self-govern–a process which they argue is already well underway.
Listen as they describe the problems in teacher pay, teacher preparation requirements, special education, climate and culture, reading instruction, the false promise of existing DEI based frameworks in K-12, and the problems inherent in outsourced canned curriculums. Become a part of the solution as they outline a framework to authentically fix these problems, which require all hands on deck from both inside and outside of K-12 education.
The Teacher Shortage Crisis
4. Take This Mess and Shove It! A Discussion with a New Teacher Who Chose to Leave the Profession
In this episode, Amanda and Trina interview Kelvin Mak, a UC Berkeley and Standford educated teacher who quit the profession after only two years due to the oppressive pay system in place in our nation's schools. He reacts to the revelation he learned while listening to the previous epsiode that teachers are only paid a fraction of a complete salary due to the system sexism baked into our profession. Both Amanda and Trina struggle with his decision to leave feeling simulataneously happy for him, and sad for their profession at the loss of exciting new talent.
Visit teachershortagecrisis.com to join the movement of teachers speaking up about the mess in K-12 Education in the United States.
www.teachershortagecrisis.com
Petition to Save K-12 Schooling and our Precious Democracy!
This is a conversation after the episode, post episode one, about the oppressive teacher pay system that occurs in America, the United States, and I know there's a lot of teachers that are listening that actually are in many different countries. And in this conversation, we're going to be, Trina and I are bringing on Kelvin Mack.
Kelvin is a recently resigned high school English teacher based in the Bay Area. Prior to teaching, he had experience working as a college consultant, where he helped hundreds of students stay on track to graduate, brainstorm, and edit college essays, and guided them through the dizzying college application process.
Afterward, he pursued a teaching credential and eventually taught English at the public high school level. Despite his love of teaching and the wonderful relationships he built with his students, he experienced a high level of burnout and made the difficult decision to leave the teaching profession in search of other opportunities.
He earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley and a master's degree in education from Stanford University. We really want. To bring in many, many voices, uh, many different types of teachers, teachers that are from many backgrounds and teachers who are brand new teachers who have been in the profession for many years.
We just, we really want to hear from you because the main message that we are trying to send the public about the teacher shortage crisis is that teachers, their experiences, And perspectives matter.
So, Kelvin, can you tell us a little bit about yourself before we start kind of diving into your reaction to the episode?
Yeah, sure. So, my name is Kelvin Mak. I was a high school English teacher for two years, and I have recently resigned, and for the meantime, do not plan on returning to teaching.
Becoming a teacher is a lot of work.
So, I'm really curious. Why did you decide to become a teacher in the first place? I mean, I know you're leaving and that's really, really sad and unfortunate that you did all of that work to become a teacher only to decide two years later that you're not coming back. So why did you become a teacher in the first place?
Yeah. I think that my motivation for becoming a teacher actually started when I was in high school. I remember. Observing my teachers. and thinking, they have this curriculum that seems to have nothing to do with what my future will look like, right? Just like, for example, like my, my English curriculum was like pure literature.
I love literature, but also felt, what am I going to do with this? I actually am not sure the purpose of this class and the work I do seems so abstract and removed from real life. So I remember thinking, you know, if I were to ever become a teacher one day, I think I would have some pretty good ideas.
Uh, I kind of just like kept that, stowed away in my subconscious for a very long time. After I graduated with a degree in English, I worked as a private college consultant. So I was helping. Kids apply to college, helping them with their essays, brainstorming, which colleges they want to apply to.
And after a while I felt, I think I could really, really enjoy working and mentoring, kids. So then I had this idea that. You know, I think the teaching profession is calling to me a little bit. Uh, you know, so I did the whole credentialing and master's program combination thing went into teaching, and realized that it would be very hard to make a difference in this very strange and, like you said, Trina, oppressive system.
I think I kind of just saw that Uh, this might not be for me, with the things that I've encountered in, in teaching, so.
Kelvin, your experiences with this very oppressive profession are so valuable to us, because I believe in my heart, and I know for a fact, that it's gotten more oppressive for the younger group that's coming up.
Like, I'm, you know, Gen X, And I got into the profession late. It's a second profession, but I've been in it, for 10 years now. It is only getting worse, isn't it? Do you want to react to some of the things that came up for you in the episode? Like, what was something you hadn't considered or what was something that you've been experiencing that just felt really great to hear someone else say?
What do you think other teachers might not agree with, or maybe things you didn't agree with, with us, please?
There were a couple things that were extremely validating. I think it was Trina's quote, around like the 20, 21 minute mark where you might have said, young, educated, self possessed people are not going to start a job that gives you a fraction of a full salary.
And I'll be honest, uh, that same exact thought had been running through my mind for Since I started, uh, when I thought about, wow, I'm working so much it's I'm working you know, during the school day, I am doing planning after hours. And it's not even just the labor, but it's like the emotional energy that it took and that it continues to take, even when you're done, even when you're off.
At night, like after dinner, I'd be thinking before I go to sleep. Oh man, how's tomorrow going to go? Uh, what do I need to do to talk to this kid about this thing? What's my, what's my late policy for this assignment? Do I need to change up my classroom management? I felt I was doing a lot, a lot of labor.
And I am, I think, yeah, I just, I recently turned 29. I'm looking at my friends. Who are in other jobs in other sectors, lots of like, uh, software engineers, people who work in marketing, et cetera. You know, they're also extremely busy, but they can negotiate salaries. They have unlimited PTO. Uh, we have summers, but it's not quite the same.
And, uh, but I'm watching all my friends basically save enough money to have a life. And I'm just here. I feel like not being fairly compensated for my labor. So, uh, really, really, listen to that quote, validated me. I think I'd rather just do less and get paid a fair amount. I guess like one more, one more thought about this quote.
I think there's been kind of like a shift in attitude. I would say especially for, uh, millennials onward. Where life is no longer about working. It's like you work to live, you don't live to work. And I think that like Puritan, like Christian attitude that has influenced American attitudes towards labor, you know, where the more you work, the harder you work, the more prosperous you'll be and you'll get what is fair.
That's kind of going away. I think that mentality is going away. And People in my generation, and I think from now on, like onwards, realize you, you work to live like clock in clock out, just give me my paycheck and I can do the things I really want to do outside of, whereas I think like the previous generation was very much like.
This is your life. Your work is your life.
I think those are incredibly important insights. It's, it's absolutely essential that teachers who have been in the profession for a long time hear honestly what a younger teacher has experienced. And for me going into the profession, I was always like just flabbergasted by the reaction of baby boomers.
They had just had a very different experience with climate and culture. Of their campuses, a very different experience with the amount of debt they had to take on to become a teacher. And you know, not only was cost of living more affordable, child care, education, health care, all of that was more affordable then.
And it was less debt to become a teacher there. They were compensated more fairly. And so it wasn't great. I'm not saying it was great, but it was better then. Right. And Your experience with why you departed from the profession is going to intersect with a number of the topics we're going to be discussing.
Can curriculum and school cultures are definitely a part of why you departed, not just the pay and the preparation process. So we're going to hear from you, thankfully react to a number of our episodes. But I think the term that I use, which is really revolutionary of considering teacher pay is incomplete.
Until you top out is an important term because it names the thing for what it really is, because in education and, you know, in society, we like to play around with labels to cover up realities and truths. There are not other professions that pay you out like this. And I mean, when I talk about other professions, having considered it, you know.
Nurses, the nursing industry considered it, and again, a female dominated field considered paying a one specific union fought back against this idea of step and column for their nursing staff, because the idea of. Some nurses making a lot more money because they've been in the profession longer was insulting to them.
And their education and their professionalism. I just, this is making me remember how much I got paid my first year of teaching in Salt Lake City. And I think you'll be shocked. I mean, the number is still in my head. And like, at the time I thought, wow, cause I was just out of college and I was like so poor and like relying on my parents a lot.
I think it was 32, 000. In Salt Lake City, Utah, 32, 000, my first year teaching. And my husband was in grad school getting paid to get his PhD, which is like completely unfair, but cause he's a scientist. But I do. I don't know. I feel like I never really questioned the salary because I was so excited about having a salary, you know, like, wow, this is cool.
I'm a grown up now. And I also think that some people don't really, especially someone who might be married and like has a second income might not be as impacted. By all of this as someone who is single going into, I know that for a fact.
That's the structural sexism bit. Because this, this whole profession was built up around the idea that there's these married women who have husbands with money.
Yeah, what did you think of that, Kelvin? Like that part, was that surprising? Like the history of it all, or? Yeah,
it's I did not know that, that that's how Horace Mann, this guy who thought, who had such noble ideas, right? Like, make education accessible to all. Could also, you know, have this insanely sexist, like, teaching income policy.
I really did not know that. And it appears that this attitude just remained for some reason in the teaching profession. It made me think a lot about, like, why is it then that? I think in the previous episode it was mentioned unions fight to increase the salary at each step on the pay scale but why not just like do away with this and allow teachers to negotiate salaries or allow teachers even just like pay teachers a full income.
I found it incredibly ridiculous. I remember when I first looked at my first You know, salary schedule thinking it tops out at 120, 000 or so after 25 years, I think someone outside of the education sector can get there in five years, six years, maybe if they worked really hard and like jumped companies and negotiated as well.
They could get there in six years. I, I, it's, it's such a bad deal economically to, uh, be a teacher. And it's so sad to say, cause I love this job, but
I know hearing your reaction is so validating for me too, because I was thinking about you and your generation when we were talking because also like I'm whatever halfway through it.
And I know I'm not set up in the way I need to be to provide just the basics for my aging parents, my son. And we don't have any wealth. We don't own home. So I was, I was thinking like, why would any young person want to do this? It's only getting worse. It's only getting more expensive to become a teacher and to live.
But you also talked about, like, this work life balance that your generation is so, like, wonderfully and beautifully considering, and you're right, it is, like, very, like, white, puritanical, this idea that we're supposed to sacrifice so much, but the deal here is that, like, yeah, a lot of us, me included, you know, signed on for a job which we knew we weren't going to necessarily get a ton of money, I remember my family.
very first class in my credential to become a teacher. It was a boomer. And she said, you're never going to be rich, but you're always going to be able to own a home, take vacations and provide for your family. That was the promise that they were given. That's not the promise now, but you, and then you get into the profession.
You realize I'm broke. I'm in debt. I'm never going to get ahead. But this job is meaningful and important and then you see all the social justice problems in our society mirrored and exacerbated in our classrooms and nothing that you are able to do makes anything better like we are literally forced to tie our hands behind our back because they don't listen to us or respect our experience or expertise when we give them real good solutions to making our school safer and more equitable.
It's all baloney.
I think I often felt that there was no avenue for me to ever, you know, speak up or, you know, provide constructive criticism. I felt like it was very hard to communicate like, Hey, I think this thing could be improved. I'm noticing this. What can we do about it? Like the systems to give Good criticism to improve our schools didn't seem to be very present.
It felt like everyone is kind of siloed away or just very, very busy. Like people don't have the time or energy. It was just like, just put your heads down and, you know, do what you can for the kids. But yeah, it seemed very hard to create any like structural change. There was no outlet. For for me, I often felt.
Yeah, so the sort of unseen compensation of knowing you're doing something that's good and important. It isn't there. One of the things we're going to talk about in another episode is, you know, if you're really, really good teacher and you put your head down and you do what you're told, you can impact the lives of dozens of individual students.
Or if you're a school leader, dozens of teachers and families. Which is awesome, but it's not enough. You need to change the system. And if you are a person who is super self possessed around actually changing this and making it like, Getting us away from the school to prison pipeline, for example, or just making our schools safe and producing human beings that can compete in the world economy, right, that are well trained, which our schools are not even doing that right now.
If you're a person who insists on that it is crazy making. So there isn't that that feel good benefit of knowing that you're having an important impact on the world because you're not because our schools don't let us do that. So like, what is that? What is the point? That's what I feel so much of the time.
Yeah, no, I wanna, I wanna echo that. I came in with so much idealism thinking like, well, I think I could really make a difference. And. I think emotionally, I did. I think I was there for my kids. I really enjoyed building, uh, relationships with them. But curriculum wise, skills wise, I felt, you know, like, wow, I'm not sure why.
Again, like, as someone that loves literature, well, I really don't, sometimes don't know why we're teaching, like, how to analyze a book when we could be analyzing, for example, the rhetoric of a presidential speech, or more like, uh, rhetorical analysis type of, uh, skills that, uh, Are based in real life. Those are the things that those skills I think that you need to be an informed citizen and to participate in our civic life.
But I wasn't sure like how do I talk about this? How do I say this? Who do I talk to? I don't know. And I was so busy eventually that I was just like, like, I guess I'll just let it pass for now. But, you know, it stays with you. Uh, you just, you know, eventually feel like, huh, there doesn't seem to be a point in what I'm doing.
I came up against that a lot. So
We're going to talk a lot more about why you experienced your school culture and the educational system at large this way. Because it has been set up to exclude teacher voice. There is a strong vibe that I actually studied in my master's program, which is regarding a term you may have heard of known as neoliberalism.
It is opening up our profession to the capitalistic marketplace with this idea that someone else other than us, other than the people inside of our schools who work there, know more about... what we need to teach and how we need to address the kids and how to fix our problems than we do because they're the school districts are able to buy these can content, this can count can content and purchase this these consultants, cheaper than asking us to do the work. And there's no expectation that anything they do is actually effective because people move on so quickly from their positions of leadership that nobody's actually going in and authentically investigating the efficacy. And just wait until we talk about reading education.
I don't want to reveal that we are doing a very poor job of teaching our kids the very most, arguably the most important thing, which is how to read.
Kelvin, I really, really, really appreciate you coming on today and responding and reacting to episode one and come at your invited back for all the other episodes, whatever you have time for.
And I have, I don't know, I, I got goosebumps many times listening to you talk and I, I know that you are going to impact young people's lives and be able to. Because you just seem like such, such a caring, warm, just authentic person. I know that kids were connected to you, you know, like, and I feel like that is what teaching is about, is connecting with your students.
And I know that new teachers feel like they have to kind of follow all the rules and follow the, the canned curriculum and, and do what they're told. But like I'm saying, I'm just gonna say this right now. I mean, we have a teacher shortage, and I know it's risky to do things that maybe your team isn't doing or what you're, you know, like kind of going off and being a rebel.
But like, that's what I was. I was such a rebel. Like, even my first year of teaching, and I'll probably, I think I talk about it in the CAN curriculum, where I was just like, Teaching from a script and same thing. Like I want to teach kids how to be a human in this world. You know, like I want to teach life skills, like how to communicate with people in that you're in relationship with, how to critically analyze, like.
The news and all of the information coming at us, how to de stress, you know, those are all like such valuable skills that we should all be teaching in our schools. That's the canned curriculum episode. We're getting ahead of ourselves. Well, I know, but I'm just, I'm just wrapping this up and just saying.
Yeah. That I'm just, any new teachers who might be listening, there are ways, like, Kelvin, I wish you had taught, you know, what you're talking about, like, analyzing a presidential speech, and, and just doing away with whatever you were supposed to be doing that week, and like, hey, let's analyze this speech together.
And I ended up doing that too in my last year I did like an entire unit on chat GPT and I was like, let's analyze like the history of this. Let's talk about how like AI has come about the final task of this unit is a Socratic seminar. Let's also like teach you how to use this effectively. Also like what are the implications of these technologies, you know?
And I think near the end, I really went off script because I kind of knew that I wasn't going to return. And I was like, Like, screw it, I think I'm actually just going to teach what I myself think is incredibly important, and I ended up leaving that unit with with everyone at my, at my school, and
Sorry you're leaving too soon!
Amanda, that's my, that's my feeling, is I'm feeling very, very polar opposite feelings about Calvin leaving, is that like, Darn it! We need you! But like, run for the hills, Kelvin! Get out! We love you! You deserve better! But wait, we want you! No, get away! No, we want you!
Well, you could write curriculum, too, you know, and sell it on Teachers Pay Teachers or these, you know, platforms that allow you to Become an entrepreneur.
I mean, that's what I've been doing. But yeah, we should probably wrap this conversation up. Is there anything else that either of you want to say?
There was one thing that I did want to mention, and this, this, this is kind of stayed with me. My mentor teacher told me this really great quote saying that teaching is one of the few professions that rewards idealism.
And I think that that's exactly What allows the system to prey on teachers? I don't disagree with my mentor teacher. I 100 percent agree. Like, truly, truly, I have never felt so connected to people in my, in a job as teaching. But also, I think that's exactly why the system is so difficult to change.
Because all these teachers, they show up for their kids. They show up for the profession because they love it. And I think the system, not individuals, but like the system's purpose. We'll pray like on quote unquote, the weakest link and that's maybe, uh, what makes us most vulnerable is that we love and we love our kids and we love our job.
So that's, that's all I wanted to say.
That was beautiful. I got chills. I feel like our love and compassion is exploited.
Yes. Yes.
Absolutely. And, and then we're not able to do anything with the knowledge we gain as we go to make things better. Not really and truly. It is absolutely infuriating, honestly.
Yeah. To watch all of society's problems coalesce in front of you. Know what you need to do to start making it better, not fix it and then not be able to do it. It is demoralizing.
Well, I..
100 percent agree.
...so value and appreciate being able to talk to people who understand. And yeah, and I've gotten all the chills this, this whole entire conversation.
And I really I really hope the people who are listening, the teachers who are listening, feel the same and feel connected to us through this. Conversation because we are thinking about all of the many thousands of teachers out there being impacted by this. So thank you so much for listening and please, please, please share this with a colleague or two or ten or twenty and administrators and and your governor Okay, bye.