Hugs and kisses to my fellow teachers and teacher defenders!
I don't bust my ass working 60 hour weeks (I'm an English teacher) to have people sneer at "how little work teachers do." Jesus Christ. Even in the relatively wealthy school district that I hope to score a job in, the pay scale MAXES OUT at about 70K for a teacher with 23 years IN DISTRICT experience and a freakin' Ph.D. Those who do not have a Ph.D. but the same amount of experience in district will make less. Me, with my M.Ed., might make around 36K to start. Whoo-hoo. It's not like we lounge around, eating grapes all day, rolling in the dough, and laughing about how we've scammed all the taxpayers to land this totally sweet gig.
I want to put my foot in the ass of anybody who a) says teachers are OVERpaid, and/or b) actually believes teaching is an EASY job. Why don't you try it yourself, jackass, and tell me how "easy" teaching is?? The sheer number of things you need to constantly keep in mind while teaching, as well as the amount of time put into planning lessons, is absolutely staggering. I hate how many members of the general public seems to think, "Well, I went to school k-12, and so therefore I must know everything there is to know about teaching." HA! Not even close. It's an awesome job, being around the kiddos, but it's very demanding.
EDIT: 69 tiny cans! Woot!