LocostUSA.com

there is a job advertised with my local school district

para educator 1,.

welding and draughting

requirements; high school diploma and an aa degree

9 months contract

7 hours per day

pay $8.00 per hour

is this what other areas of the country are paying?

if it is, then this course will be closed because there will be no one with the skills to teach it who can afford to apply
are skills only being passed on by luck on the part of the student, knowing someone who can put a bead of weld on a joint, with no knowledge of the true strength of it and calling themselves a welder.

this has nothing to do with "no child left behind" but more "a country left behind"

there is a topic on this forum dealing with age, did the younger contributors learn there skills at school or at college, or as i did as an aprentice, then advanced to higher levels.

these are skills we as a nation will need for a long time to come, is this truly where we are heading?

_________________
this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

That pay is pretty bad, could almost make as much working at a gas station....

It is probably just for a high school class. High school in general is useless for everything except amassing general information and trying stuff out. The students who go to a class like this won't be welding anything important and probably don't even have access to a welder outside of the school shop, but they may find it interesting and decide to go to a vocational school or even college in a related field. At least your district has a welding class, the town I grew up in had 4 schools and none of them had a shop of any type.

I worked with my father for 7 summers and some winter breaks in residential construction and learned enough during that time that I can build a house from the ground up, and I value that knowledge more than anything I learned in high school and if I hadn't worked with him I would have no 'work with your hands' skills at all and would probably never have been able to build or even considered building a car. Working with your hands is becomeing almost taboo though unfortunatly, but that is due primarily to the value that society places on different skillsets. As much as I liked working with my father and learning from him, I hated the work and the pay. I went to college for something completly different and am makeing 4 times what he makes in a year, I get to sit in an office and don't have to freeze in the winter, roast in the summer, and break my back every day. The only way I would consider going back to construction is if the pay were reversed, but that is never going to happen because society and business thinks that someone who writes software should make 4x more than the guy who builds their homes.

There will always be craftsmen, everything finds an equilibrium. Just after I started going to college there was a huge influx of computer science students nationwide, within 2 years the average pay for programming jobs dropped by almost 40% just in anticipation of the huge flood of incomeing workers. If there is ever a shortage in skilled welders the pay will go up a little, schools will push it for a few years and a big group of people who can weld will hit the markey a few years later.

john hennessy,

I don't know what other areas are paying but that is pretty much a sit down job. I took three years of welding in high school but we did not play around like we could have. Right next door they had carpentry and all they did was shelves and a few cabinets and such, no house building. In our welding class we pretty much had a job when we graduated if we wanted it. I'd say about a third of our graduating class went on to be welders. I took a job as a union Boilermaker and basically used my welding as a side thing on the job. I didn't do much welding because the union welders sometimes got pi$$ed thinking I was doing thier work. You have to understand this type of thing if your in the union.
My Dad had a shop and owned Pearce Marine Services and I welded for his business so he wouldn't have to hire some jack leg. Good teachers are hard to come by these days and sometimes the reward isn't always in the pay. On the other hand I can tell you if your regular pay scale is usually higher I wouldn't take a low paying job. Low paying jobs just look bad on a resume and makes a person look desperate. $8.00 and hour is what the fast food places pay around here. It's hard teaching kids that don't want to learn. Sometimes you can motivate em, get em interested and just maybe make welders out of some. Build some Go Karts, mini bikes or ATV's. If you want to have some fun and help some kids, who cares what it pays.
So so many ways to look at this deal. If the welding class is possibly going to close down, I think I would do it. I just try to help my community kids if I can. Who knows, one day one of your students just might help you out. What goes around comes around, it true. And you will be doing your Karma a whole buch of good.


Mark.......

My experience has been almost EXACTLY the same as Daed's. I'm 27, learned to weld because my parents own an RV appliance repair shop and I occasionally did some welding growing up. In high school took a welding class that was great, however you got out what you put in. I had a spare beside the class and behaved / got along with the teacher enough that we made the entire afternoon welding class. I worked with my dad summers & evenings through high school and then went to school to be a software developer... Reasons were probably the same as Daed, pay, environment. I would have taken over the family business if I maybe didn't constantly see my father working himself ragged and after 25 years of owning the business its not much bigger than when he started. I like working with my hands and miss it... Sometimes I still think about taking it over.


Don't forget also that a welding class is a VERY expensive class to provide at a high school level. Between consumables and metal alone. Let alone insurance, and what would happen if a kid happened to get a hot ember through their shoe?? Instead of some hopping and repetitive strong words(we've all been there) they would probably sue because it was a traumatic experience and now they can't walk...

Dilbert,

I have four cousins that are engineers. All of them worked hard as youngans and now they all say they have "Golden Handcuffs" on em. They say they can't afford to quit or loose their jobs or go back to working with their hands. But they all say they would just love getting dirty again just for a while. They say they would not change anything in their past because they liked doing the simple dirty stuff. I really hope things don't get any worse because they have some pretty large house notes that I don't have. I enjoy going to visit and it's a lot of fun sucking up thier A/C.


Mark....

You've got to be joking. $8 per hour? For a Shop Teacher with Degree? Must be a misprint. I wouldn't do that job for minimum wage. You could get paid more working nowhere near as hard as a (good) teacher. I wouldn't do it for $8/hr. I'd go back to industry. Karma's gonna git me I guess.

_________________
The Lethal Locost
The Lethal Locost 2 - Even More Lethalerer

Just checked our local School District up here - starting salary for a teacher is about $45,000 CDN (this is all in the public record).

_________________
The Lethal Locost
The Lethal Locost 2 - Even More Lethalerer

I took my bell housing to a retired School Shop Teacher who became a Machinist at GM because of the pay and retired at 55. He just bought a complete Wood Shop of equipment for $2100. The most beautiful almost unused eq. Because they were shutting down the shops at the INDY school system. They have one of the worst records for achievement in the nation and a new school super every few years.
Because of shop, metal wood, craft and mech drawing I was able to get into the IBEW now retired and finished teaching myself to weld better I was able to get jobs from California to Indiana. I was able to pass a little on to many others.
In most countries Teaching is a very honored profession and its a privilege to be able to be taught.
OH ya I might be a little opinionated as my youngest Daughter is graduating from IU to be a teacher. You know she gonna' get rich. Sorry form the rant but I didn't start this topic.

That's exactly it. Even if I could afford it, it would have to be a hell of a job for me to literally half my pay. In the long run there is probably more ability for higher earnings with your own business, but I can't afford to wait 5-10 years to be there...

dilbert,

Yes, I have made more money mowing lawns. It would be a good job for a retired person. Monday - Friday ain't bad and the hollidays off. If obama gets in another four years that job will be a well sought after one. I try not to think of it as below me because a lot of people are unemployed and would be very thankfull for this position right now. If I had to put a roof over my families head I would do it in a second. I have not forgotten where I come from and I have been very lucky in life, I also thank God for every single thing I have. But that's just me. I bet the hourly thing is a missprint because most teaching jobs are salaried positions.
I have heard of $80,000.00 teaching positions depending on location.

Mark.

dudes thats not a misprint, its posted on the kingman unified school district web site here in arizona

starting pay for a teacher here is around $27000 p.a.

one county in arizona has shut the door on 26, thats right twentysix schools

i gess its because all the illegals are going back to mexico to build chevrolet trucks and taking there kids with them, cos there's no work here.

_________________
this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

john,
Man that's bad news when the illegals are leaving. Maybe we need to head south too. But if they are going back to Mexico that's great. When the going gets tough they get going back home. One thing for sure, I'm not teaching anything to any illegal that doesn't even care about learning English.



Markkkkkkk

i did not say i was pleased the illegals were going home because i don' t like illegals, to the contrary, they are just trying to do the best they can .

it was more a comment about the wages in general, meaning they can get more for their money in mexico and a job with g.m.

how can an educator try to teach a student when he or she knows the student will not benifit from the skills taught because the teacher and student can only earn minimum wage or just above, it creats a self forefilling situation, if wages are low in a particular field, young people will not persue that career so there will be less training dollars available, ask anyone in adult education, it's bums on seats that is the main financial motivation for colleges.

the future of america folks

_________________
this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

Horrible but not atypical. I spent four years teaching similar blue collar skills (motorcycle and small engine repair in my case).

> I bet the hourly thing is a missprint because most teaching jobs are salaried positions.

Most are, but many voc ed jobs are not. It's bad enough being a regular schoolteacher, being a contract teacher is even worse.

> requirements; high school diploma and an aa degree.

And not just any aa (Associate of Arts) degree either, I'll bet they want an aa in education. Which means committing time and money to the job before you get it. And hopefully, they also want you to be a qualified (or at least an experienced) welder and drafter.

> That pay is pretty bad, could almost make as much working at a gas station....

Starting gas pumper pay in Oregon is $8.40 an hour, and motorists are not allowed to pump their own gas. An off-the-main-sequence vocational education teaching job commits you to a full school year with no raises available 'till your second year (if available at all), unlike the pump jockey job which could give you a merit pay bump any time you and your boss think it's appropriate.

> It is probably just for a high school class <snip> The students who go to a class like this won't be welding anything important

According to Uncle Ron, over a thousand high school students have built Locosts in welding and shop classes. When I was teaching motorcycle repair, we built road racers. There's no reason not to do "something important" or at least something attention-grabbing.

> If you want to have some fun and help some kids, who cares what it pays.

Uhh...your landlord? The guy who sells you groceries? Your own kids? It's a travesty that vocational educators are so disrespected in the US that they're expected to either get a second job or live at poverty level. There are full time voc ed teachers with jobs like the one described, whose own kids are living off food stamps. That job pays a little over $10,000 a year, and that...
> 7 hours per day
...is a simple scam to keep the pay even lower--whoever has that job will be doing more than an hour a day at home doing paperwork.

> Don't forget also that a welding class is a VERY expensive class to provide at a high school level

If so, then all the more reason to encourage top teachers by providing a decent wage, particularly since the teacher is going to be the one scrambling for donated materials from the community...or donating them himself. In the US, that's so commonplace that the IRS acknowledges it, and even grade school teachers are allowed to deduct for the cost of providing their own materials so they can do their job when their classes' allotment of paper and paste is used up. Grrr.

> Monday - Friday ain't bad and the hollidays off.

I used to hear that all the time, "Ooh, you get summer vacation! I wish my job would give me three months off every year." Not if they quit paying you, you wouldn't.

One problem with these jobs is it discourages kids from following up on the skills being taught--they have a living example before them of what happens to those who pursue the craft.

_________________
Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

Jack,

My wife is a teacher and she loves it and goes to work every day with enthusiasm for her job. But I understand not all people are like my wife and have a passion for what they do.
The thing that gets me, since I am a craftsman, is what do we do if we don't pass it along? What are we as a country headed for? Are we going in the same direction as the Romans and is it that our time is just up? When everyone goes broke and can't pay the lawn man anymore what do we have to fall back on. Someone sooner or later is gonna have to step outta the office and get dirty. Are we simply becoming a nation of Stock Brokers and Healthcare Providers. America is loosing it's industrial companies on a daily bassis. All our craft jobs are going to mexico or elsewhere. Where does this leave the American craftsman? If I didn't really enjoy being a welder I don't think I would have persued it as a craft. What do American kids these days have to look forward too? The more we become and rely on the service industries the more we as a nation become weak. I took Sociology in college and all my instructors have said we really don't know where we are headed beyond the Industrial age. No empire has ever lasted much longer than where we are presently at. Basically, someone has to get dirty and sweaty or the whole buch gets thrown out with the wash bucket.



Markkk.