"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!"

I saw this phrase on a bumper sticker today and it evoked the question "Am I socially outraged enough?" The answer: Hell yeah!!!

Here are a few things I'm outraged about (and am taking action on):
  1. I'm outraged that there has been so much loss of life in Iraq. See this and this. Whether you think this is a justified situation or not, this type of loss of life just shouldn't be. Utopian thinking? Doesn't matter. This shouldn't be.
  2. I'm outraged that many American school teachers need government assistance to support themselves & their families because the same government pays them just above minimum wage and still expects them to be well enough educated to educate our young people.
  3. I'm outraged that countless women in the eastern Congo are brutally raped, beaten and/or murdered every day, have next to zero support or protection to fall back on and nobody seems to be paying attention. See this.
  4. I'm outraged that my fear is coming true that the prairie dog colony I've been protecting is in fact becoming unnaturally out of balance since the wildlife up the food chain have been chased off by irresponsible land development.
  5. I'm outraged that adequate monitoring of greyhound racing kennel practices is not in place to prevent irresponsible breeding and unimagineable neglect of greyhounds. Not all greyhound racing kennels are evil, but enough are.
The above might sound negative to some people and it's certainly a bummer to think about things like this, but I believe good things often come out of being outraged and taking action on those feelings. Not being socially responsible by not taking action because one thinks they can't make a difference is...

...outrageous.

Posted on: Aug 10, 2005

Posted by: lskrocki

Category: Random Thoughts

Tags: none

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Comments:

Hmmm, average teacher salary (in 2003) was $45,771. That's about 30% more than the U.S. average salary in the same year, and about four times the minimum wage. Also, note average starting salaries (which would be the lowest) are $29,564. That's about three times the minimum wage. These are averages. Some places the pay is much less, some places it is more. I agree teachers should have the opportunity to make higher salaries, but like any job, it should be based on the quality of their product.

Posted by 153.26.176.34 on August 11, 2005 at 03:29 AM MDT #

Fair enough. $29k for an average starting teaching salary is fairly more than minimum wage, but it's still unreasonable for the job at hand. The survey apparently doesn't include other educators that fall outside of the classroom teacher role, such as school librarians who also have full classrooms of students in the library for full periods at a time with no teacher present and are responsible for preparing and executing lessons during those periods. This is on top of their day job of maintaining a library. I know this because I am a volunteer elementary school librarian and I can tell you librarians make significantly less than the $29k average starting teachers salary. The hourly rate for a school librarian in my region is $9.70-$13.43.

Posted by Skrocki on August 11, 2005 at 07:37 AM MDT #

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