Jan 26, 2018

What If We Treated Teachers the Way We Treat Professional Athletes

pro athletes vs teachers_cover_Bored Teachers

The average salary per year of an NBA player is $5.15 million, $3.2 million for an MLB player, $2.4 million for an NHL player, and $1.9 million for an NFL player, according to Forbes. In contrast, teachers — the profession that creates all other professions — make well-below six figure salaries. But we get it. We understand the concept of supply & demand, and the fact that pro athletes generate millions of dollars in revenues via ticket sales and merchandise. That all makes complete sense to explain the difference in pay. However, in addition to the extravagant amount of money they make, professional athletes are idolized and admired for the amazing skills they possess, that the rest of us mere mortals do not.

Society praises a human for being able to slam dunk a basketball, throw a 50 yard touchdown, or smack a curveball out of the park, but what about praising a teacher for teaching 40 children from different family backgrounds how to read and write, for putting 50+ hours/week into making sure no paper is left ungraded and no child is left behind? Teachers definitely deserve a big raise on their paychecks, but more importantly, they deserve a lot more praise than they get.

Thanks to this hilarious video from attn:, we can imagine what it would look like if teachers were treated the way we treat professional athletes.

Enjoy!