On a boat ride in Bruges, Belgium, I heard a boat operator/philosopher expound on why it was so that teachers were paid so little, rockstars like Ozzy Osbourne were rich, and famous composers like Mozart died broke.
He said it was a question of network effects and impact. Mozart died broke because of poor money management and the inability to reach a worldwide audience.
An elementary school teacher is only paid a small amount relative to most celebrities because their impact is small. They cannot reach more 10-30 students at a time.
A baseball player is paid millions because he (through cable TV) can impact/entertain many more anonymous people indirectly.
Is it fair? Probably not but there aren't incentive systems in place to pay good teachers according to their impact.
Clive James had a fascinating BBC documentary a while back, a multi-part series "Fame in the 20th Century". It's pre-Internet but I believe still very relevant.
That's an awfully long way to reach for an explanation of why teachers don't make money, when "supply and demand" was sitting right in front of you. There are lots of teachers. It's not very hard, not particularly more so than many other careers. There aren't a lot of top celebrities, since that works on the competition model (like sports).
If it makes you "feel" any better, there are lots of computer programmers, too. Saying there is a lot of something doesn't have to mean it's "easy", just... that there's a lot of it.
I'm not seeing where some sort of complicated explanation is necessary.
Again, why do I have to reach farther than "the nature of the Gaussian distribution says there will be outliers"?
(Also... "there was only one Mozart" is rather more hero worship than truth. There are many factors that coincided to make Mozart, and I fully expect there have been multiple people since then that have been every bit as talented, but didn't have the same factors coming together. Going into that would be a long, long post about music theory and music history, though.)
The ones who can successfully argue that they're unique do make a lot of money. The ones whose fame rests completely on the soapbox provided by others don't.
> An elementary school teacher is only paid a small amount relative to most celebrities because their impact is small. They cannot reach more 10-30 students at a time. A baseball player is paid millions because he (through cable TV) can impact/entertain many more anonymous people indirectly. Is it fair?
I would say it is fair, if you define fair to mean that what someone gets paid should roughly reflect the utility they create for others. Rockstars and baseball players can reach a large audience and give pleasure to them.
If a teacher is only helping c. 30 students, then even if each one of them gains far more utility from him than from a rockstar, the total amount of utility the teacher is creating isn't going to be as much, because of the smaller audience.
To put it another way: some jobs aren't scalable, some jobs are (e.g. musicians, sports stars), and the top people in the jobs that're scalable are going to create a lot more utility, and in a market economy earn a lot more money, than the top people in the unscalable jobs.
Not really, to have an impact a teacher needs 1-on-1 time with a student, otherwise the kid might as well use electronic material without any teacher at all.
Sure, but the bigger differences are usually made while people are younger. It gives them more time to take advantage of them and grow with them.
*addendum: In short, if they can appreciate the university lecture, odds are they've already had some good teachers, and/or managed to work around the poor ones.
Yes, compared to early life 1-on-1 teachers online university lecturers make a small difference. Compared to baseball players they make a large difference.
also, the impact of a teacher on a single child can be a lot greater than the impact of a celebrity on a single person. this is not to say that the reverse is not also true, especially if the celebrity is inspiring a young musician or sports star. ultimately, this is entirely subjective. what does "impact" mean, anyway ;-)
"'The very experts who could kind of inform everyone else don't. They actually keep feeding them the information they already know because that helps establish a connection,' Fast says."
This is a very good description of a lot of online communication, including many HN discussion threads. But I don't have to tell you that, because you already know it. I guess this generalizes to saying that it feels like swimming upstream sometimes to add significant amounts of new information to an online discussion among casual participants who may not know one another in real life. I find it easier to dig out my references and really lay out a lot of new information in some online networks I participate in with other members of a membership organization. Many of us have met one another in real life, and have already established emotional bonds over a meal or a beer, so on those networks I feel more comfortable challenging conventional wisdom. That CAN happen here on HN, of course, but it feels considerably less natural.
FWIW, you're one of my favorite posters and commenters. Your posts often feel as a new idea.
Perhaps your beliefs and views are different enough enough from the established practice (of education or other) that what is old information to you sounds like new information to others (me). You may feel as though you're swimming upstream, but I simply find a new idea to play with.
I actually find it interesting that among geek circles, invoking obscure knowledge, including obscure 'celebrities', can build one's credibility. Hence, aren't you more likely to encounter stuff (and people) you didn't know beforehand when talking to hackers - and pretend you knew it all along? It's also a meritocracy, generally smart hackers get famous because they do smart things, not because they release a sex tape.
Makes sense. This is why Michael Jackson's death practically brought down the Internet, right? Irrespective of how many people actually cared about the man or his music, he was somebody that everybody knew of. Similar with Princess Diana's death - even people who didn't care about her rang around their friends saying "Did you hear... ?"
He said it was a question of network effects and impact. Mozart died broke because of poor money management and the inability to reach a worldwide audience.
An elementary school teacher is only paid a small amount relative to most celebrities because their impact is small. They cannot reach more 10-30 students at a time.
A baseball player is paid millions because he (through cable TV) can impact/entertain many more anonymous people indirectly.
Is it fair? Probably not but there aren't incentive systems in place to pay good teachers according to their impact.
Clive James had a fascinating BBC documentary a while back, a multi-part series "Fame in the 20th Century". It's pre-Internet but I believe still very relevant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fame_in_the_20th_Century