That’s pretty much it. They’re legally two people and can get certified for things independently. They both have a driver’s license for example. However, as teachers they can only teach one class at a time. It’s all just the nature of their problem. Though I will say it seems like the college probably could have worked with them a little bit given their unique situation.
No offense but… What? Are you asking if I’d rather be healthy and live like these two women than have my condition?
If so, then… no. Partially because by my understanding they are not, and cannot, be healthy. They each have control of only one leg and arm. They have reduced lung capacity, and one has pretty severe scoliosis. I think they live in a not insignificant amount of pain.
Even if they were healthy, no. I enjoy my privacy too much, and I can’t even imagine what my childhood would have been like. Mine sucked, don’t get me wrong, but.. as much as I resent how much my body and mind have been shaped by my condition, this would be on another level.
I'm chronically ill and very disabled! I'd say that given the option, I would not share my body with someone to have a healthy body. My health is horrible and I can't walk without a wheelchair or cane, but having independence is something I have to work so hard to maintain. Giving it up for a working body would give up on one of the only things that keeps me going.
I have experience with both. university trying to accommodate to health conditions and at the same time doing actions that can go with the tag: "fuck the handicapped".
To be fair, they only have one body to feed and one house to rent.
They also have the benefit of having two husbands living with them, sleeping either side of them iirc.
So it's like four people to one house. Three salaries. If anything it's a benefit.
It's also one airline seat I'd imagine?
Actually I don't know, maybe two. But they take up one seat. If they make obese people pay for two seats, surely these should pay for one? But I don't know, they're two people. Hmm. Maybe just cover the second head with a hood or bag and fly as one.
I feel like it must be a relationship with both, but anti-polygamy laws means on paper he can only marry one. It would be impossible to have any intimate or private moment while totally ignoring one person. Every memory you make together is with both.
So which one is getting paid on paper? If they both have SSN they should both be getting paid, if not then the second one not getting paid is an unpaid laborer which is against the law 😂
Yeah, saying they deserve one pay because they have one body sound like they think short people should make half as much as tall people.
Plenty of jobs have people team up on a single task and they still each get their own paycheck. Just because they teach the same class doesn't mean they can only focus on one student at a time, or that they can't discuss lesson plans or how to handle situations. It's the same as getting an opinion or help from any other coworker.
They were originally getting two different but related degrees (both to do with teaching I believe) and some of the courses overlapped but were only charged once for those credit hours. It’s just a meme Reddit loves to repost
started with same major and different minors but they gave up on doing different minors because there wasn't enough time in the day to get them to both sets of classes and do their homework. not sure if they went with the same minor or bailed on minors. https://youtu.be/M36jxR_6lIE?feature=shared&t=184
I saw a documentary on this a while back. People say they get one salary but that’s not exactly correct. They each have a contract and each get paid, but neither of them get paid what a normal teacher makes.
Their situation definitely does lend itself to some very interesting questions. I’m not sure what would happen in practice, but I suspect the other twin would get charged as a coconspirator.
One of them controls the left leg and arm, the other the right leg and arm. It’d be literally impossible to commit a crime like that without the other being complicit.
If they're legally two people then they must both be getting paid to go to work, otherwise that would violate labor laws? And if they're getting paid a half salary each you'd think that would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
I mean, they’re taking the same classes getting the same degree, and taking up one desk. It seems like a college could get some good press by working with them, but what do I know.
Two hands is the main issue, not the minds; very few business models where this is an inherent advantage.
If they got into software engineering, mathematician, etc. and actively used their two minds to scale off each other... potentially could see two paychecks; pair programming is a very common thing and having that extra pair of eyes really does improve the overall quality of the delivered product.
Throw "them" onto a sustainment team and they'll easily run the show (barring both have the skills for it).
The other question I have is... do they both share in sensation? do they both operate the limbs? or is one a talking head and the other has actual bodily control.
That plays a factor into things as well... if only one can control the body... it lowers the value even more.
co teaching is a thing too, we just don't value teachers or teaching like we do programmers so it happens less cuz who wants to pay two teachers in one room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-teaching
Though I will say it seems like the college probably could have worked with them a little bit given their unique situation.
How do we know they didn't? Maybe they were charged independently for brain stuff but jointly for body stuff. Like, maybe charged 2 tuitions since theres two brains. But only charged 1 dorm room since they only occupy 1 bed. Only charged 1 meal plan. Etc.
If they're two different people, but are only being paid as one, what's stopping them from only having one of them officially employed? The other could not pay back her loans. Hell take more out and go into more debt. Nothing to garnish, but she'd still be able to live her life off her sister's paycheck, still be in the classroom all day and get to help kids.
Also, I'm now curious if you could jail them if only one committed a crime.
The problem them going to college though, is the workload the teachers put in to get their degrees is the same as any other 2 students. They both individually take tests that both need grading. They are both getting their own diplomas. Would be different if only 1 of them was taking it and the other was just along for the ride.
If they both had to be qualified for the job on their individual merit, if both have to invest into the job mentally as individuals, they both should get paid separately. Especially giving consent as individuals, which as far as I know they have no issues with that. Also not considering the physical coordination it takes to do this job bc both twin controls her own side, such as in driving. Unless one of the twins takes a more passive role willingly bc she’s not into it.
People can say they’re doing the job of 1 teacher, but actually, from reading more into the story, they’re essentially doing the job of 2 teachers:
Abby told the BBC: “Obviously right away we understand that we are going to get one salary because we’re doing the job of one person.
“As maybe experience comes in we’d like to negotiate a little bit, considering we have two degrees and because we are able to give two different perspectives or teach in two different ways.”
Brittany also added: “One can be teaching and one can be monitoring and answering questions. So in that sense we can do more than one person.”
I think when they say they’re doing the job of 1 teacher, they mean they’re fulfilling the single teaching position for their class, which is common in elementary school. Because they go show what fulfilling that role actually means and what they bring to table, which is being able to have 2x the teaching skills and higher ability to multi-task than 1 solo teacher.
But if you’re solo teacher of 1 grade (unless it’s very small) doing all their academic subjects with diligence and care, you’re already being underpaid + doing the work of more than 1 teacher. People need to remember that Abby and Brittany teach a whole grade (or a section of that 5th grade), not just a single subject.
There will be somebody that says the school should accomadate them with like a divider in the middle of the room so that they can teach two classes at one like Michael and Pichael
In elementary school I had a blind teacher. She had a help (which not just helped her, but also supervised us). They got two salaries for one job. This is kinda the same for me oO
tbf there are technically jobs that they could have worked separately. for example, they could hypothetically work on separate tasks on separate computers...
I read something about them recently and I'm pretty sure they did most if not all of it separately. Their brains are separate and they each control an arm so they can read and write separately but at the same time. They are able to coordinate to type.
I wonder how much they're able to read each other's thoughts. Being able to type sentences with their two separately controlled hands requires more than physical coordination. They seem like lovely people and I'm not trying to be rude but having watched the documentary it did kind of seem like one of them is more in charge and the other is following her lead (don't remember which is which).
If two separate people were teaching together they would not get the same paycheck. It's the same thing here, they do not share a mind. They probably even teach different subjects, take turns. Teaching involves lectures, they are not speaking in unison
Yeah, but as someone who has co-taught middle school, two teachers who can never be on different sides of the room would not address the needs of those classes. They are both doing work, but from the perspective of a school, they are not filling two roles. Most schools don’t have an extra salary laying around unaccounted for that they can afford to pay out.
Then they need to hire one teacher. They chose to hire two. So they need to pay both. Simple as that. It should not be between no job and getting fucked over
That literally happens ALL the time! There are tons of classrooms with two teachers who share the workload, I was literally in one lol. We both got paid
Yes, plenty of one armed people have desk jobs, they can type just fine.
As for the phone situation, I think it would be a reasonable accomidation that they'd have to be on the same team, working on the same projects. Meaning they go to all the same meetings and are in all the same phonecalls. If one or the other needs to make calls for clarification on something they know how to take turns, probably better than most. Or another reasonable accomidation would be that unless it's super urgent, they should receive emails, not phonecalls.
Two PCs at one desk and they can have the full output of two people.
Society isn’t designed to have qualifications as a shared certificate. Each degree requires a seperate student, you can’t have multiple people on a single law degree.
They probably got a family discount though and contributed to diversity stats, got extra assistance through student services for practical and defensible reasons.
But unless you’re asking for a company to spend twice as much on half the staff, they’d only ever get one salary as they can only ever complete one role at a time. They can’t go to two meetings at once, can’t independently move and most likely take leave at the same time.
I wouldn’t expect a company to pay 2x for each piece of work unless the quality was 2x as well. Would two people output more work than one? Not sure.
There are certainly companies that would pay an individual financial arrangement or private contract to have her on staff more than a normal worker just to publicise the moral benefit of hiring someone, but at that stage, you’re basically getting paid more just so you can be a show-pony for the company and some people with personal circumstances loathe the idea of being treated differently - even if preferentially - just because of that difference.
For instance, many people with autism refuse to tell work they have autism even though many workplaces have preferential hiring options and adjustments for people with neurodiversity. But the flip side is obvious that a policy doesn’t stop people from ignoring the policy and the policy only exists to the level of protecting the company from legal issues rather than protecting a worker from silent discrimination.
Taking a single salary would not only be less of a burden to justify less work for more expense, but also most likely reduce discrimination from peers that if they found out she got paid more, would treat her differently.
Abby’s “strong points” were math and science, while "Brittany is more focused on the language arts, reading—stuff like that,” they shared on an episode of Abby & Brittany, per E! News.
Feels like two brains are being used there. They should at least get 1.5x pay!
From the documentary I saw the way their bodies work, 1 person has control of 1 side while the other controls the remaining limbs. They function independently but in unison when walking. So theoretically, they could do 2 jobs at the same time so long as it could be done in the same proximity.
I doubt it was that well thought out. More like, when someone wants money from you, they want you to pay as much as they can get. When someone is paying you, they want to pay as little as possible.
And while they have 2 brains, they do everything together and finish each other’s sentences, so it’s not clear what the difference is. And what if one didn’t want to go to college? They’d still have to go to all the classes. Would they still insist on charging 2 tuitions?
And when they’re working, you could argue that they’re bringing twice the brainpower to their work.
They have one ass, so they're taking up one seat. They also can't possibly take tests separately, so it's one paper to mark. Unless they're in different classes for everything, which seems unlikely because that's twice the lectures they'd then have to attend.
They could be commodities traders, only need one hand and a brain while the other half sleeps. One trades like 8am to 5pm and the other trades like 8pm to 5am, massive command center with two PC rigs and a dozen monitors just scalping the shit out of gold or crude or whatever.
exactly. they can only teach one class at a time. if they chose to pursue a career they could do at a computer that requires a brain they could’ve obtained separate jobs.
It's a lie, kind of. They paid 1.5 times normal tuition and get paid 1.5 times standard salary since they can't really do the jobs of 2 teachers at once, what with one sister controlling their own side of the body and all, but can do more than a single person on their own.
Probably two tuitions so each would get a degree but the college could have made an exception. It’s not like they used two seats, dorm rooms, or could take separate classes.
Honestly they chose shit degrees if they were unable to get jobs where they parallelize.
Digital art or graphic design would be slower with one arm each, but they could do nearly twice as much working simultaneously with two tablets.
Medical coding. HR. Insurance adjustment. Accounting. Database management. Sales. Writing.
Literally anything you can do with one arm that doesn't require you to be in a specific physical location at all times would have enabled them to basically double their salary.
You have one body and two brains. Ffs, pick a job that relies on your brains, not one that is dependent on where your body is!
I read in the people article about where they are ten years from now that they have separate teaching contracts yet agreed to share/split a single salary
Interesting, but also a fucked up loophole for the federal government to yet again underpay their public school teachers in the most ironic way
But still. They only took up one spot in the classroom right?
Having them pay double just because they're "2 brains learning" makes as little sense as having them recieve 2 salaires because they're "2 brains working"
I’d say that’s unfair. It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to be a teacher. Even physically, I remember hearing how it took coordinated effort to drive bc each twin separately controls her side. Which shows the individuality and independence of the twins even on a physical level, although they’re obviously still conjoined in ways. So, unless one of the twins takes a more passive role willingly bc she’s not into it, I’d reasonably assume both of them invest mental, emotional and physical reserves into teaching. Such as conflict resolution or preparing lesson plans for the next day, which both require a mix of physical and psychological effort.
They’re likely getting used, especially if both were required to be qualified educators there on their individual merits. Especially because they bring 2x the teaching skills and the ability to diversify and be efficient. They should have separate contracts, separate benefits, etc. The most important thing is their abilities to give consent as individuals, which AFAIK they both have no problems being able to do that
I was thinking about that, but they both think and control one arm independently so they could do the work of two people at the same time. Making lesson plans and grading papers. They could also be helping two students at a time. So really, the work of two people gets done even though they’re in the same body.
I had a class with them in college. IIRC they were originally getting two separate degrees, but eventually decided to pursue a teaching degree specializing in math; which I want to say was more aligned with Abby’s first choice
Bethel was most known for their religious culture so I imagine their decision to go there was more motivated by that rather than the outright cost (its cost, for most people, was commensurate with a nice private school then).
Somewhat related: I’m not religious anymore but the old joke was that it was a place where some girls went to in order to get their MRS degree… (to become a Mrs. To get married)
Considering they wouldn't ever be able to take classes separately the college is pretty fucked up for forcing them to pay twice, especially with the hindsight that no one will pay them two salaries.
The college literally made them pay extra because of their physical condition. Imagine if the college forced every parapelegic student to pay extra because they're the only reason they had to install ramps.
I was thinking that, too, but for a job like teaching, which is more relevant? I’d think the two brains thing. They may play distinct roles in the classroom even if they can’t do those things in two places at once
If they sued both the college for charging them twice and then sued the school for paying them once, I will use the same logic as they did, only the opposite, to award them twice.
Yes however the University should not have done that knowing they would only be able to work one job and not two separate jobs. It should have been treated as one loan and not two separate loans.
I would think one teacher with 4 eyes and two brains watching the children would make for excellent attention to details, hopefully they get paid more. They Definitely bring something to the table the other teachers don’t.
What if one wanted to be a teacher and the other didn't want to learn anything? They would still make them pay double for school I'm sure. They were forced to compromise on a degree, pay twice, and who gets the grade? They don't share a brain, but it seems pretty easy to cheat when you are attached.
The only reason I can understand receiving one salary is because they probably only need to eat for one stomach, their bills aren't doubled unless one of them decides she wants to subscribe to other streaming channels or something and the other doesn't. It could get complicated when trying to promote them since they have their own personalities and one could be qualified and the other is not. That would make career advancement a challenge.
They could get a double salary if they worked at a call center. Otherwise, not too many other jobs that would work out for the benefit of the employer.
But that's saying that one brain teaches and the other one.........what, does nothing? They've 100% hired 2 teachers to do 1 job. They're getting fucked.
Wonder if they were forced to have a roommate in college. Would they count as each other’s roommate? Did the college ignore the fact they are two people when it was convenient for them?
The reason was they were following more classes because they both wanted to pursue different majors but ended up dropping that due to the high course load
They can only work 1 job at a time so they only make 1 salary
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u/JF-San 1d ago
Maybe the reasoning was this...?
They have two brains so they're two students learning.
They have one body so it's just one working