Totally 3rd Grade Blog

Share your views about teaching 3rd grade

• About this site
• Music Site
• Contact

This video (with English subtitles) is a parody of Helpdesk support back in the middle ages. I’ve included it here because the humor in it helps ease the troubling truth that we need to do a much better job integrating technology into our everyday lives.

American culture is especially guilty of assuming that it is “leading the way” around the world when in reality, that was last true over 40 years ago.  It’s time to re-assume our leadership role by equipping our populous with the real tools we’ll need for the future and stop wasting time teaching kids how to fill in little bubbles with a No. 2 pencil.

Original taken from the show “Øystein og jeg” on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK)in 2001. With Øystein Backe (helper)and Rune Gokstad (desperate monk). Written by Knut Nærum.

Their hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do…baby-sit!

I would give them $3.00 dollars an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time.

That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 AM to 4:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now, how many do they teach in a day…maybe 30?

So that’s 19.5 X 30 = $585.00 a day. But remember they only work 180 days a year!

I’m not going to pay them for any vacations.

Let’s see…that’s $585 x 180 = $105,300 per year.

(Hold on! My calculator must need batteries!)

What about those special teachers or the ones with master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair, round it off to $7.00 an hour.

That would be $7 times 6-1/2 hours times 30 children times 180 days =$245,700.00 per year.

Wait a minute, there is something wrong here!

There sure is, duh!

My wife left the house at 6:00 am today to conduct a fieldtrip to the Omaha Zoo. 

Two chartered busses, 17 adults, nearly 60 third graders and 4 coolers loaded with bottled water and snacks are now en route for an exciting 15 hour day.

And so it goes.

Monday was a full school day with an awards banquet in the evening. Arrival at home: nearly 9:00 pm.

Tuesday was another full school day with a parent meeting at days’ end.  Arrival at home: 7:30 pm.

Thursday night has some other kind of function I’ve lost track of and Saturday promises a 6-7 hour identification card event.

Thank God she got into teaching so that she’d only have to work from 8:30 am- 3:30 pm like her paycheck indicates.