Sometimes I feel like a glorified babysitter. Because some students (depending on which classes you're teaching) don't care about learning. They either put their head down and sleep, or draw, or read a book while you're trying to teach them. My colleagues and I have discussed this notion, and we did some math. When I was in high school and took babysitting jobs for extra money, I'd earn about $5 per hour per child. My class sizes average around 35 students, and I teach 5 classes, each roughly one hour long ... so:

As teachers, we're required to work 183.5 school days per year (this is how our annual salary is calculated). At the rate above, teachers should be making $160,562 per year. Salary schedules in Sacramento County range from $35,000 to $85,000 based on the number of units you've acquired through universities and number of years of experience. But it's not like we're just "babysitting," we're educating these students. We're giving them the most powerful tool they could ever hope to have: KNOWLEDGE. We are educating future presidents, vice presidents, CEOs of large corporations, engineers, teachers, firefighters, policemen, and the list goes on and on...

Parents are entrusting their sons/daughters to educators on a daily basis. In fact, we are legally responsible for every student that is physically present in our class during the time they are required to be in our class. If we break down the average teacher salary in Sacramento County (roughly $60,000), let's see how much each student and their education is valued while being entrusted in our care:

AREN'T OUR STUDENTS, OUR FUTURE GENERATIONS WORTH MORE THAN THAT?