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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now on this last day of midwinter recess, Presidents' Week in most of our local public-school districts, we will end today with a temperature check for teachers before you have to go back on Monday. How are you doing? What's the hardest part and most rewarding part of teaching in 2024? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Teachers, you know we love to do some call-ins for you specifically on days and weeks, and in the summer when school is out. How are you doing? What's the hardest part and most rewarding part of teaching in 2024? 212-433-WNYC.

I realized that's a very general question. You can take it anywhere you want for the last 17 minutes or so of the show today. Teachers, the lines are yours. A more specific question might have to do with whether you are considering leaving the teaching profession or recently have. Specifically, the education news site, Chalkbeat, recently reported that more than 8%, 8% of New York City's teachers left the education department between the fall of 2021 and the fall of 2022.

Now that was at the height of the pandemic or starting to recover from the pandemic when things were particularly hard for teachers and students, higher than usual, but the teaching profession always has a retention problem. A discouraging percentage, and I don't have this number in front of me, but we've done segments on it before, a discouraging percentage of new teachers quit in the first five years.

If you're on the cusp of leaving, talk it out with us. What are you finding especially different about, or difficult, I should say, about this year, and what might make you stay? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Give us a call. Or any teacher thinking of leaving or not, how are you doing? What's the hardest part and most rewarding part of teaching at any level of let's say, Pre-K-12 in 2024? 212-433-9692, call or text.

I think we've all gained this appreciation, especially in the last few years, of just how hard your jobs can be. I hope we have. I know a lot of people haven't. I know you take a lot of-- there's a word that begins with s and a word that begins with c that I won't say, that you take all the time. I can think back to the financial crisis in 2008, 2009, 2010 around there. People used to say, "Wall Street crashed the economy, but the country took it out on teachers."

Did you live through some of that where with so many states facing fiscal crises after the Great Recession started, there was a lot of focus-- the Republican governor of Wisconsin was at the leading edge of this and other people were too. "Why are we paying teachers so much? Why are they getting so many benefits? Why don't they have to work also?" All of that stuff. Wall Street crashed the economy, and we took it out on the teachers. That was then. What about now in this post-pandemic world? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

For any teacher thinking of leaving the profession or any teacher even not thinking of leaving the profession, how are you doing? What makes you on the cusp of leaving, if you're considering that? What's the hardest part and most rewarding part of teaching in Pre-K-12, even 3-K-12, in 2024? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

I'll throw one other iron on the fire here, teachers. If you've been a teacher for a while, and you're staying in the profession, and you know you are, how about some advice to younger teachers who may be thinking, "I don't know if I can do this for my whole life. I don't know if this is for me." How about some advice on surviving and thriving as a teacher for your whole career? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or younger teachers who want to solicit advice like that. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to the phones and calls from teachers in the audience on this last day of February break. We're checking in on all you teachers. How are you doing? Megan in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Megan. Thanks for calling.

Megan: Hey. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: You want to talk about some of the current challenges?

Megan: Sure. I have been a high school teacher for 11 years. At times, it's incredibly rewarding. It is so exciting when something clicks for kids, and they can really step into their power and step into some new understanding. It has been a little challenging, the past stretch. I actually was lucky enough to work with my principal to create a full-time mindfulness program for ninth grade students. They had a mindfulness class every single day for all of ninth grade. It was truly a dream come true and honor. If I won the lottery, I still would have done the job.

Brian Lehrer: What do you do in a mindfulness class?

Megan: Well, it's a lot of social and emotional instruction. It's a bunch of different topics. There's a growth mindset, and learning to deal with difficult emotions, and thinking about responsible decision-making, and effective communication, and things like that. It spirals through a lot of different topics. It's all founded in mindfulness. It was truly a dream come true.

My role has shifted. I'm in a different school now. I continue to love teaching. I really love my colleagues, love the school leaders. It's hard at times as we see the teen mental health crisis. I have a teen myself. I'm really exploding. It's just kids are really not in a good place. They're really suffering.

Due to really structural and resource challenges, we as a system, I can't speak for the whole system, but I'll say from my own perspective, it seems that we have some ideas about what can really impact kids, what can really help them to heal from whatever they've encountered up until this point, and then really think about what they need to put in place to be their full potential, to be their full self, to give to themselves and to the world all that they have to offer.

It's very hard given the current state of things. You can't just throw it on, on top of everything else. In my opinion, what's required right now is a really strategic, intentional approach that takes children through a process where they can heal and really step up.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for being so thoughtful about all that and starting off this call-in, Megan. Thank you very much. Oh, this could be interesting. Here's Joy in Manhattan who teaches in Canada, but is here in New York City, I think, to do an education doctorate. Joy, do I have that right? Hi, you're on WNYC.

Joy: Yes. Hi. You do. You have that correct. Boy, I got a couple of points because our systems-- now, of course, our system is province-directed, similar to here in the US, how it is by each state. No, actually, I'm wrong, because you guys have a national education thing, but anyways. In Canada, we invest heavily into public education, and this makes significant differences. One of them is that we as teachers are very well paid. Well, very well.

My starting salary was quite high 25 years ago. At this moment right now, after 25 years of teaching, I would be sitting at about $100,000 a year in income and that is standard. As a result, it is not uncommon that in Canada we have people who are career teachers. This provides a tremendous amount of stability. We are only allowed to retire or leave our jobs at certain periods of the year, which are aligned with the school schedules, like in the end of December, the end of our spring break, and at the end of the school year.

Two other points I'd just like to make is that one of the problems is that in general, the structures of education in North America are based on an industrial model. That is when public education became a thing. We still have that industrial model in place. I am referring to ratios, numbers of children to students, things like that, so society has changed. This has been building for a long time and it needs to, teachers are required to attend to so many individual needs and requirements, which is where we are in society now. It is very difficult to do that times 30.

The amount of pressure that teachers are under on a daily basis is immense. The demands that are made upon them and because these are children, you can't ignore them. You're not diligent in your job.

Brian Lehrer: Joy, I am going to leave it there so I can get some other folks on, but I appreciate all those points and the cross-cultural comparison is very interesting. I think the UFT would want to pipe up and say, "Hey, when you get to 25 years in the New York City school system, you're at six figures also, in many cases." I think that's the case but we do know that around the country, teacher pay is much, much worse than it is in New York City. That's not to say it's so great here either on that many levels but there's so much variability in the United States, shockingly so regarding teacher pay.

Patrick, in Norwood, New Jersey today but who teaches in the city. Patrick, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Patrick: Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. How are you doing?

Patrick: I'm all right. Last day of break, so I can't complain. I've been a DOE teacher for the past 11 years in the Bronx. I've taught high school math that whole time. The class that I've taught the most is Algebra 2. Algebra 2 students this year are struggling. A lot of my students just don't have the prerequisite skills from previous grades, either because they were learning it during the height of the pandemic or they never learned it in the first place because their teachers didn't cover it. On top of that, the city is rolling out a new math curriculum called Illustrative Math that isn't really clicking for a lot of my students, I got to say.

Brian Lehrer: Give me the 22nd version of what illustrative Math is compared to other ways to teach.

Patrick: Before Illustrative Math, every math teacher in the city made their own curriculum, basically. Now the city is trying to say that we all need to follow it. The Algebra 1 teacher at my school has a coach come in and check off what day they are at the calendar. It's trying to be very industrialized as the previous caller said.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. All right. We talk so much about the reading curriculum and how they're going back to a phonic space approach after the whole language approach was deemed too much of a failure. Maybe we need to do segments on the math curriculum. We're going to look into Illustrative math further. Gia in Ridgewood, Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Gia.

Gia: Hi. Thank you so much, Brian, for having us on. I've been a New York City public school special education teacher for about 24 years. In my experience, since Meral control, we've experienced a lot of top-down decision-making. I really feel like I've lost a lot of teacher friends, folks who are related service providers, and the schools supporting students with special needs, who've left because of burnout. There's very little space under Meral control for educators who are actually working with students to talk about what's needed, to talk about how we're teaching to students, and not to standardize tests. With every mayor comes sweeping changes. It's treated almost like a corporation that really pushes out educators who've been doing this work for a long time.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think it would be different if there was local or district-level control?

Gia: Absolutely. I think there were spaces where there was actual input from educators and families, and students about curriculum, about pedagogy, about how to teach, and what's important, what needs to be prioritized instead of decisions being made completely top-down with zero input, I think would make all the difference.

Brian Lehrer: Gia, thank you very much. Let's get one in here. One more in here. Onika in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Onika, we've got 30 seconds for you. Hi.

Onika: Oh, hi. I've been a special education teacher for eight years. As a Black educator, my experience in navigating is one of the more segregating school systems and the country has its own challenges. Conversations about addressing inequity has truly been surface-level. The previous guest spoke about racial, how poverty is racialized in the city in this country. It's really evident in the education system, especially in the special education system and to teachers who are navigating that.

Brian Lehrer: Real quick, what's the one biggest change that would help? 10 seconds.

Onika: Initially, tutoring. Equity in tutoring for Black and Brown underprivileged communities.

Brian Lehrer: Equity in tutoring. Onika, I apologize for cutting you off. We're fresh out of time but equity in tutoring are the last words on the show for today in this week. Teachers, good luck as you go back to school on Monday.

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