This is a response to Ben Harvey’s article in The West Australian on the 28th of July 2011 and can be found at:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/benharvey/post/22/comment/1
I have grown accustomed to weathering a deluge of abuse from non-teaching folk about just how easy I have it. It’s become so in vogue of late that even the West’s State Political Editor Ben Harvey and Cameron Diaz are joining the chorus besmirching the reputation of the humble classroom teacher.
Here goes: Journalists should stop writing naive complaints about how other professions don’t deserve the incomes they receive.
I could spend my time pointing out that the vast majority of those $100,000 earners will disappear by the time this pay deal is over due to the fact that a significant proportion of teachers are nearing retirement. I could spend my time reminding Mr. Harvey that many thousands of teachers have decent degrees at respected universities and THEN sacrificed potential earnings by staying at university even longer to obtain a graduate diploma in education. I could spend my time saying that I earn nearly $15,000 less than the average man in WA. I could spend my time detailing how many teachers like myself have a HECS debt much larger than any nurse will ever have in the history of the universe. I could spend my time endeavouring to explain the mind-bendingly difficult task it is to adequately cater for the needs of a classroom of 32 students whose abilities range from the functionally illiterate to those that will no doubt be more successful (and far better paid) than me. But I won’t; that would sound too much like the whinging and complaining that Mr Harvey is so sick and tired of.
It’s grubby journalism to judge a class of people by focussing on the worst members of it. Would it be fair to judge all Germans based on the merits of Adolf Hitler? Would it be fair to judge all journalists on the body of work produced by Ben Harvey? This writer humbly submits no and writes the following as proof:
I had an epiphany about how grossly overrated and overpaid journalists are. I then did some hard hitting investigative journalism (I googled “journalist average income in Australia”) and discovered a whole 5 seconds later that the average income of journalists as of March 2011 was $93,061. I am astounded at this gargantuan figure for this so called “profession”.
Journalists are expected to be highly literate individuals. Ben Harvey presumably agrees given he takes delight in criticising Sharon O’Neill for her mastery of the English language. Yet how do you explain the grievous errors of spelling and grammar proudly on display at thewest.com.au almost on a daily basis? How do you explain the inability of cadet after cadet to pass a basic shorthand course in the time it would take a woman to go from conception to motherhood? How do you explain Ben Harvey’s penchant for writing one sentence paragraphs as if all of his words between each period are so profound that they must stand alone? Unfortunately it seems that journalists have failed to prove they are good at the one and only thing they should be good at.
Journalists are also overpaid because their entrance requirements are appalling. Ben Harvey has pointed out that “you don’t have to be very smart to qualify” to become a teacher. He again uses his hard hitting journalistic skill to cite the entrance requirements for a teaching degree at Edith Cowan University as proof. But at least these barely literate people are required to stand in front of a classroom and teach kids for 10 consecutive weeks to a satisfactory standard (after 4 years of study to improve their poor literacy) before any of them are permitted to enter the profession. Journalists on the other hand don’t need ANY qualifications at all! Perhaps this explains why people like Derrin Hinch and the phone hackers from News of the World were able to enter the industry. In short journalists should be very careful belittling the entry standards of one profession when their own professions standards are far worse.
See how easy it is to build a straw man and set it on fire? I just did a better job of it than Ben Harvey did and all before 7AM, for free. I have to stop writing now because I have to prepare for the classes I have to teach today. If you want to talk about the merits of the teaching profession and the incomes they receive then be prepared to look at all the information. Don’t childishly poke a hornet’s nest hoping for a reaction; it’s beneath you and your profession.