Turns out that outside of Silicon Valley people hate robots&AI. They like to have fun with it but they truly hate them in any kind of people-facing situation. So, teaching should be fine. Also, “you care so little about your customers you’ll delegate to AI” is not the sales pitch some think it is.
This is an example from Salesforce.
Don’t be so sure: What Happens When Teachers Are Replaced With AI? The Alpha School Is Finding Out - Newsweek
The days of dodging class or suffering from a lack of motivation appear to be a thing of the past at Alpha School, a private pre-K through eighth grade institution that utilizes personalized artificial intelligence to teach an entire day of core academic lessons in just two hours.
The tech-savvy students then spend their afternoons working on non-academic critical life skills like public speaking, financial literacy or even how to ride a bike. Staff — known here as “guides” rather than teachers — say they strive to facilitate a sense of independence into each child while overseeing a supportive, nurturing environment like any attentive teacher in any solid school district in America.
Alpha School is a national chain of AI-based private schools.
In my area there was a crush of private schools in the mid 20-teens boasting of their innovative online approach to learning (i.e. yesterday’s AI).
The flood of students into those schools was surpassed by the flood of kids being yanked from those schools after a few years.
They don’t go public with their data, but based on word of mouth- these programs were terrific for strong, highly motivated kids. (the same population that private schools love in general- easy to teach, easy to manage, fun for the teachers and administrators). These programs were either terrible or just mediocre for kids with learning issues, behavioral issues, etc. And the vast “average kid” was either left uninspired and bored, or chugged along at a slow pace. So– lessons learned? Teaching is hard. Alert the media. Kids in a classroom have different needs. Alert the media. Parents don’t always have realistic expectations of what a school can deliver. Lather, rinse, repeat. Any parent who thinks their disengaged kid who struggles in math is going to be transformed by AI, a Zoom curriculum, an online platform, etc. without human intervention of some kind is a little delusional IMHO.
Not just junior analysts. We are looking at replacing certain jobs, I guess maybe similar in function (basically, spreadsheet manipulation plus basic interpretation of the results) for routine work with AI. You still need someone to check the results and refine the interpretation, but the AI not only saves time and money but takes out the human error aspect with data manipulation.
And I agree that a teacher is for the most part not replaceable by AI. Teaching is not just transferring of knowledge. It’s nurturing, motivating, inspiring, figuring out issues and how to work through them. To add to what blossom said, there is no way my 2E kid would have made it successfully through high school with an AI interface, and that had nothing to do with what needed to be learnt in terms of subject matter. The human beings at the school are what made all the difference.
The AI conversation is interesting but might be better moved to the Will AI Automate Most White-Collar Jobs thread.
Both my kids are teachers and they make the finances work. One is single and lives in a lwer cost area. The other is married and lives in the DC area. Her husband is a historical interpreter so neither of them is particularly well paid.
I a firm believer in getting paid to follow your passion
As long as they have realistic expectations as to the possible financial limitations of their passion.
I have several artists and musicians in my family. One of them was able to parlay his talent into a financially successful career, playing in bands for grammy-winning artists as well as headlining in small jazz clubs throughout the world. In his retirement, he teaches music at a public high school in NYC. Another, who is also talented, has a primary job as a physician and plays at small music festivals in his spare time.
My niece is a multimedia artist, educated at a top art school; she also knits beautiful and intricate clothing. I think she is very talented, but she will likely have to spend a good chunk of her 20’s and possibly beyond, scraping to get by in order to fund her life in NYC, which she is dedicated to making work. She does some commissioned pieces (I’m not sure how much each sells for) and markets a lot of her knitted clothing to the dance world (individual pieces usually sell for around $100 ea). She has to have an additional non-art-related job to make ends meet (and my sister-in-law also supplements her). In her corner of the art world, it’s a lot of who you know and who knows your art. She can’t just walk into a gallery and ask if they will show her pieces. Studio space and art supplies are expensive as well.
I’m not saying musicians and artists shouldn’t pursue a career (and I have no doubt there are stories of successful musicians and artists in the CC world and those who are happy living a modest life while they pursue their art), just that they should go in with their eyes wide open.
But schoolteachers don’t scramble. They have jobs with health insurance, there is career progression if that’s what someone wants, many school systems encourage and will subsidize additional training and certifications.
Teaching 7th grade Language Arts is nothing like trying to make it as a fiber artist….
But they do, in some cities/states, especially when they are starting out and/or if they don’t have a master’s degree. Average teacher starting salary in over half the states is less than $50K. I am not comparing that to a fiber artist, but that is lower than average for a college grad. And in some of the cities in the states with relatively low pay, there won’t be much, if any, excess money after rent, food, maybe a student loan or car payment, and other necessities.
Yes and …
This student doesn’t have to work in Oklahoma, or one of the other states where teacher salaries leave them scrambling. It won’t take a savvy college student ten minutes to compile a list of desirable school systems where the compensation, benefits and commute lead to a nice lifestyle.
There’s a suburban town near me with one acre zoning, high teacher pay, and almost no teachers living in town. Every effort to build more density, lower priced apartments, etc gets a massive hue and cry.
So the teachers live in surrounding towns which have more modest housing options. And they drive 10 minutes to work.
Really, adults figure this out. School system offers summer work at the district office for additional pay but a teacher can make more tutoring for SAT’s? School system offers extra pay for chaperoning the debate team, model UN, math league weekend competitions? Do it or not.
But school systems which pay well are not mysterious about it …
Agreed, and jobs in those schools are highly competitive. Also, districts that pay well tend to be in higher COL cities. Some don’t even take new grads. Many teachers in my former affluent suburban Chicago area district that pays teachers among the highest salaries in the land, live far more than 10 minutes away from work, unless they have an SO/spouse who was the bread winner.
Yes, health insurance and a 401K are huge considerations in the overall decision to pursue a passion. Add dancing and acting into the “art” category where near constant scrambling is necessary.
I agree with what someone said upstream - you have to do what you like.
And plenty of people in higher paying job lose their job, so you just never know.
If you like what you do, you are more likely to be “successful”.
Even in the most competitive districts there are “hard to fill” slots. Schools in the less affluent part of the city/town. HS science teachers. ESL middle school teachers. Special Ed K-3 teachers. Boarding schools or prep schools are great places for newbie teachers who want to position themselves for a competitive, well paying district down the line. Our public school system has a lot of teachers who started out at boarding school (free rent! 3 meals a day!) and then pivoted once they finished their Master’s and got certified.
It is irksome when folks assume that becoming a teacher means living in poverty. No, you aren’t making hedge fund salaries teaching K-12. But the country is filled with teachers who seem to eat, keep a roof over their head, and even manage to have children. And they aren’t on public assistance although if they’re lucky, they are eligible for some of the “we lend you the down payment programs” that some cities have for public employees.
My neighbor retired at 60 with an astonishing pension and spends his life traveling, working out, volunteering, serving on a few civic boards. His post-retirement lifestyle is more lush than many of the folks with “more prestigious/higher paying” jobs who have no pension except for what they contributed to a 401K.
This is worth repeating:
One of my kids teaches in a very large, urban district.
She has been working for 7 years and has a pension, free health insurance, reimbursement for her commute, and opportunities to earn extra money (she used to tell me about emails she received regarding tutoring through the district for $90 an hour). She also won 2 awards through the district- I believe each award was $3000. Her base salary is currently in the six figures, and she has summers off to earn extra money.
My other kid did Teach for America in the same district. She taught science and earned extra money (salary) for science credits above a certain number. I mentioned that she also earned an extra $14,000 a year to teach during her prep. She is no longer teaching, but her salary at the age of 22 was in the mid 80s (without the masters) and TFA paid for most of her masters.
There are districts that pay well.
As an aside, boarding schools are aiming to hire the “best and the brightest” and they are influenced by the selectivity of the applicant’s college. So it is not a path for everyone (similarly, not everyone wants to live in a dorm and work from 8 am until 11 pm, including weekends, most days during the school year. That said, the starting salary including benefits, is around $75,000. Of that, $45,000 would be salary.
I think you bring up a great point of trade offs. A better salary might mean longer hours. Benefits might include housing that is communal rather than solo living.
How flexible one is willing to be is part of the calculus in what kind of jobs might work when starting salaries are lower.
Two other benefits of my husband’s teaching career were much appreciated once we had kids.
In our district, at least back when my husband was hired, medical benefits covered the entire family.
Also, once our kids were school age (and because my husband worked in the same district as their schools) they all had matching days off. I never needed to scramble for childcare or rides to various camps and activities when school was out. My husband got to be the activity director and taxi driver. He loved it. 
And as always, I can add the flip side of the pay scale. H retired after 32 years of teaching marking less than$65K. That was with a Bachelors degree. A PhD would have made him less than $5K a year more. He was a elem PE teacher but he was on the same scale as all regular classroom teachers.
Health insurance for the family cost over $2000 a month for a mediocre plan not counting vision of dental. Even in the mid 1990s it was unaffordable. It cost $800/ month and he only made $25K a year. And the plan didn’t cover any well visits, nor did those cost go to the deductible.
He does get a pension which would have been close to 50% of the average of his highest 3 years, but I will get 50% survivorship so it’s less than that now. Edit - he contributed a mandatory 5% of his salary toward the pension the last 10-15 years. It was free, but after 3-5 years of zero raises and zero step ups, they gave them a 5 percent raise, only to make them contribute 5% to the retirement. Fun times
No retiree health insurance, but they give him $100/month to buy it elsewhere. Yeah - doesn’t go far but better than nothing.
So yes, there is a very wide variety of pay salaries and benefits out there. Ours is typical of our region. Actually we pay better than most around us. Our district is poor with lots of challenges.
were you tied to your area for any reason?