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+--- Thread: Teachers (/showthread.php?tid=1469)
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Teachers - renegadebuddhacoach - 10-10-2007
Any one on this board teaching in Puna. If so lets talk story. I am looking into moving to the big island to teach. Any advice how do you like it.
RE: Teachers - Greta - 10-11-2007
From personal experience I wouldn't recommend it.
RE: Teachers - Kahunascott - 10-11-2007
make sure you don't smoke weed
RE: Teachers - renegadebuddhacoach - 10-12-2007
Gretta can you tell me why you say that?
RE: Teachers - malolo - 10-14-2007
Personally, I'm not a teacher here, however I do have some extremely good friends in the profession.
As with everything, there's the good and the bad.
If you're a pre-school special ed teacher for example, you could very well end up with a class of two (no joke!)...and an EA...an educational assistant to make things go more smoothly for all concerned.
If you're a sixth grade teacher, you'll most likely end up with a classful of 34+, with myriad standards to meet, no help, and directives stating that you are not allowed under any circumstances to write disciplinary referrals to the office unless four zillion hoops have been hurdled first.
And high school?
Well that's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish entirely.
Again, there's the good and the bad.
In all cases though, you'll make the same...very very little. Plenty for a single person perhaps, but not nearly enough for a family.
This isn't to say that it can't be good for you, great in fact, and that your efforts won't be appreciated. There are heaps of bashed-n-battered extremely-needy ultra-worthy children out there (in addition to the ones who's parents actually give a rip about education). It just takes a very special person.
Good luck to you, whatever you decide.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edited by - malolo on 10/14/2007 14:34:38
RE: Teachers - Kelena - 10-14-2007
Are the schools well funded?
RE: Teachers - JerryCarr - 10-14-2007
Glen, if you just simply look at the amount of money being spent, you might think the schools are well-funded. But if you look closer and see what they spend it on, look out! Facilities construction and maintenance costs are artificially high due to a number of factors, including, but not limited to, byzantine bidding procedures, requirements that contractors pay union scale wages even if not unionized, occasional bid rigging, sometimes corruption, and other good old boy techniques. Teacher pay is barely adequate for singles, and, as others have noted, not really sufficient to raise a family.
There are no local school boards, and the economies of scale that one might expect from such a centralized arrangement are lost due to inept long-distance management from Honolulu. The charter schools, which have shown some promising results, are not funded to the same extent as the poorer performing regular schools. (Success and innovation must be punished and suppressed at all costs, being threats to the bureaucratic norm.) In addition to a lower funding formula, the number of charter schools and public-to-charter conversions is restricted to a level far short of the demand.
Add to all the above a reputation for racial discord and hooliganism in some of the East Hawaii schools (Kea'au High has had some particularly nasty incidents,) and you don't get a pretty picture.
Other people have less negative opinions, but that's mine based on conversations with educators and postings here on Punaweb.
Not so cheerful on this subject,
Jerry
Edited by - JerryCarr on 10/14/2007 15:35:40
RE: Teachers - Tolleys - 10-14-2007
I am not a teacher. However, a punaweb member handle: Lynn T is a teacher. She just started this fall as a speech & audiology teacher for the puna area. I forget where she is originally from, but it is the mainland. I am not sure how often she checks the board, but you can email her via the member list.
From what I have read in the papers the state needs teachers. Good-luck.
Susan
RE: Teachers - missydog1 - 10-14-2007
Do the schools in East Hawai`i have the infamous "Kill a Haole" day? And I thought Kea`au was the good school district in Puna?
I sure wouldn't want a good teacher to not come here, but neither would I want to see anyone come and be unhappy.
I think good teachers are saintlike beings possessed of patience I could not imagine.
People sometimes ask me why I don't try teaching junior high or high school because I have the educational qualification.
Um, because it's my idea of what hell might be like? It takes more than education to make a good teacher, for sure.
Re the public vs private -- I have a friend who was willing to spend an ungodly amount on tuition to send her kids to HPA after Kona schools had them headed for a life of delinquency. I think it's roughly 15,000 a year per kid, and she's not wealthy. Neither is she a snob, and her kids are not haole. (hapa) Just a mother feeling that her kids were lost in a system. She is not a big fan of the "no child left behind" policy and thinks it creates problems rather than helping.
I don't understand how this program works exactly, but I know that as an intelligent parent she thought the implementation is making a mess of things.
RE: Teachers - carmel123 - 10-22-2007
I am a teacher in Puna. I would never advise any teacher from the mainland to come here and attempt to teach. Kids are a pain, admin is worthless and fellow teachers have their own little world and never come out to see what is going on.