Occupations in the Wall Street Journal

Over the last 2 days, the Wall Street Journal has published two articles which are particularly dumb. Both seem to have the same aim, and both make the kinds of logical leaps that offend people who think.

The first article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203733504577026212798573518.html?mod=googlenews_wsj is entitled "Generation Jobless: Students Pick Easier Majors Despite Less Pay". It goes on to explain how students are shying away from Science, Tech, Engineering and Math (STEM) majors because of the difficulty of their courses, and opting for social science courses even though jobs in fields which those majors traditionally populate pay less. Insulting on many, many levels. Let's walk through the basic problem.

Who is to say that certain majors are "easier"? The article looks at the number of hours used for studying and GPA's to support that a Psych major is easier. Hogwash. Maybe it has to do with the nature of the topic. Maybe it has to do with the natural skill of the students. Maybe it has to do with the attitude of the professor. To generalize this as an inherent quality of the discipline is ridiculous. You take someone who has been studying the hard sciences for a few years, and ask him to write a 3-5 page paper in an hour and he'll balk. He'll need a lot more time and find it really tough. I'll be done with half an hour to spare. Does that make it "easier"? Or maybe it makes it "more along the lines of what I should be doing". And science is what he is hard wired for, so it is "easier." When I was a cosci major (for that glorious semester) and I spent hours in the computer lab writing programs, I found the work easier than my history course, because it made more sense without as much thought. More hours did not reflect "difficulty". An artist can spend days in the studio perfecting a piece but that doesn't make his work easy or hard.

Maybe, just maybe, not as many people are cut out for the hard sciences but have historically been toughing it out due to external pressure or the lure of better salaries. Many have reported their majors harder because they were, academically, swimming upstream. Maybe, if we rewarded people for doing what they love, there would be fewer people in the STEM fields, but they would be the right ones. Same with law. Same with medicine. Same with education. Instead, people get in to fields for all the wrong reasons and then we have these false conclusions about what is tough and what is easy.

The article further relates that the Georgia Institute of Technology split its computer science courses up and made one section more about practical applications than about theory. More people passed and this is supposed to be about "ease." Maybe, just maybe, the goal of education is about the practical application and memorization of the arcane not only takes more hours of study, but is harder to accomplish -- and yet, not nearly as important in the actual world. So the "easy" was actually code for "more authentic and useful." More people passed because the class was designed to tap into a way of learning which unlocked potential more effectively.

The second article in entitled "Public School Teachers Aren't Underpaid." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504576655352353046120.html?mod=googlenews_wsj This article attempts at one point to take salary and correlate it to educational background to normalize salaries for comparison. It does other things, like look at days off, and considers he summer, when teachers can take longer vacations and make extra money at another job -- this is foolishness for a few reasons, detailed below. But back to education. The article states "Education is widely regarded by researchers and college students alike as one of the easiest fields of study..."

Really? I found my courses in English really easy. My siblings breezed through some science courses. My Ed. classes included psych (so i guess psych is an easy field of study). I don't know who the researchers are who think education courses or programs are easy, but maybe (yes, just maybe) the people who go in to it are a self selecting lot who are cut out for education so they find the course work straightforward. Some of the "course work" is actually being in front of a class -- teachers generally don't find actual teaching to be "easy" so I'm not sure this was included.

Or maybe, just maybe, more mediocre students think they can be good teachers and go through and do well in the classes, but make for miserable teachers because the course work is not an accurate preparation for teaching (thus the high turn over and all the criticism of teachers). Is taking notes in an organic chemistry class a good indicator of who will make an effective surgeon? Maybe taking notes and passing a memorization test is easy, therefore doctors are paid too much? Or maybe, salary is based on the ability to do the job, not just pass the class.

As to the question of teaching days and trying to equate salaries by taking out summer time and normalizing that way, that's ridiculous. A teacher gets paid for the year. During the summer there is an expectation that the teacher prepares for the school year. Why does the teacher take another job? Because often, the salaries are so woefully low. Why does the teacher take vacation over the summer? Because during the school year, the stress level of dealing with 150 students every day and being accountable to parents, bosses, board members, kids and the media is demanding, especially considering the salary.

The article does say that it speaks of averages not the exceptional teacher, but I think that the conclusions drawn about the "average" teacher, and the formulas used to equate salaries to "private sector" jobs are just plain nuts. I think that one of the best ways to make this case is to have the authors stop burying their heads in their math books and try to teach a class for a year. Meet the expectations of external tests. Keep the students engaged. Satisfy the expectations of parents and bosses. Prepare, execute and assess constantly. Do all that and look at the salary. Then decide how the entire experience stacks up against a random "private sector" job in terms of demand and salary.

I dare you.

No one has ever taken me up on that dare. No one ever will. No one who doesn't already want to teach, wants to teach. And only a small percentage of those who do teach, do it well. The WSJ has done a disservice to educators who put their all into a career with daily, serious real world implications. It has demeaned a profession, minimized a struggle and poisoned the well of public opinion by wallowing in ignorance.