how many hours a week do you put in as a teacher?

[Anonymous]

I teach and have small kids and this year anticipate going about three hours beyond contract per week on average. There is a diminishing rate of return working tons of extra hours, and it takes a toll on sleep or relationships or health. I find that I need to be very organized and boundaried about my work. I am mindful about what I volunteer for, I plan assignments with a clear rubric to facilitate immediate feedback, and I don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good in my lesson plans.

Here's the bottom line for me: if I'm up until 2 am tonight working, I will not be emotionally prepared to build positive relationships with my students tomorrow, to say nothing of my own family.

If a school leader is pressuring you to work beyond the contact, I would call the union directly before going to my school rep. Sometimes school reps are close to administration or (weirdly) in school leadership.

You sound dedicated and amazing OP. I wish you the best.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read every post but honestly my biggest complaint is coworkers in schools. There's a cultural issue when you're working with a bunch of overworked and underpaid individuals. So much gossip and backstabbing. I didn't experience this in the field I used to work in. I ended up leaving and didn't encounter that level of petty behavior at my new job either. It's a shame and symptomatic of people feeling powerless and taken advantage of and judged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read every post but honestly my biggest complaint is coworkers in schools. There's a cultural issue when you're working with a bunch of overworked and underpaid individuals. So much gossip and backstabbing. I didn't experience this in the field I used to work in. I ended up leaving and didn't encounter that level of petty behavior at my new job either. It's a shame and symptomatic of people feeling powerless and taken advantage of and judged.

Mmm, this is why I left Head Start years ago. The teachers were just bitter, passive-aggressive, and flat out trashy (especially the principal). There's lots of nonsense in the public schools, but even with the same population of kids, it's about 50x more professional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"But you don't get to do lots of useless extra work and then complain about how little family time you have or talk about wanting PT hours while wanting the security of FT pay."

Excuse me? Useless extra work?

None of what you do is actually necessary, but you choose to do it because it has more value to you than the additional time you could spend with your family.

Why is it so hard to own that?

There you go, teachers.

Stop doing the extras. They are "useless" anyway. Work your contracted hours and what doesn't get done just... doesn't. Parents will have to pay someone else for what you normally do.

Sure, I'll just tell the students and parents that the extras are useless. That will go over well.

According to a PP, they are.

I suspect that PP would only consider them useless until they aren't done. Then that person would be amongst those complaining the most.

"That PP" here. Considering I agree with the Finnish educational system that homework should be limited to a few minutes in elementary school and no more than half an hour in high school, I wouldn't count on it.

Two teacher household here. One primary elementary and the other upper elementary. Small amounts of hw in the elementary school doesn't seem to be uncommon. Most teachers in our schools don't give much homework and sometimes we assign none at all.

[Anonymous]

ChristinaBarry wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There you go, teachers.

Stop doing the extras. They are "useless" anyway. Work your contracted hours and what doesn't get done just... doesn't. Parents will have to pay someone else for what you normally do.

When I put in twelve-hour days as a teacher, none of what drove my time was "extra." My first priority was developing interesting, developmentally appropriate lesson plans. My textbooks were so dated and difficult to adapt for LD kids that if I just "taught from the book," too many of my students would fall behind and my classroom management would suffer as the children became bored and frustrated. My second priority was frequent assessment and feedback. Without it, teachers and parents get unpleasant surprises when students earn low marks on summative assessments. It takes a lot of time to design, administer, and score formative assessments, though. Then I would have an average of two emails or phone calls to families per day. Some were brief reminders about missing homework or similar administrative items. (These could, however, develop into complex back-and-forths at times.) Others were longer, sensitive documentations of ongoing social, academic, or behavioral challenges. If I skimped on these, I could damage parent relationships with me and my school. Skipping this "extra" work only amounted to much more work and stress later. In addition to the day-to-day workload, I was also required to write 60+ report card comments four times per year. At just ten minutes per comment, I needed to find between ten and eleven extra hours at the end of every reporting period. Usually this meant giving up the better part of a weekend.

With competition for enrollment between schools, even public schools, administrators are under pressure to deliver extracurriculars and supervised study halls to families. If one teacher opts out of doing her share to provide these extras, it just burdens others teachers. Declining additional duties may work for a time, but being a team player is critical to maintaining professional relationships and career advancement.

What did you teach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That was my starting pay in a law firm, so I'd have to guess a ton of people work for that amount and put in long hours.

And do you make that much as a veteran lawyer? If not, it's not a fair comparison.

Veteran lawyers in public interest probably make around that, yes. Starting salary for public interest lawyer jobs when I graduated from law school in 2003 was around $37,500...in NYC!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, as a teacher, my biggest issues aren't related to money--they're related to the systematic deprofessionalization of the career. Teachers in Finland don't get paid much more than we do here, but morale there is much, much higher because they have far more autonomy in the classroom and respect out of it. I'd gladly trade my salary increases besides COL adjustments for the rest of my career if I got to teach exactly the way I wanted to every day of the year--no assessments, no evaluations, no observations, my own schedule...oh, I'd better stop now before the white coats get here.

What is this person talking about? Teachers co teach and collaborate in Finland. There is only one national curriculum in the country. Also, Finland does have tests. Not as many country wide ones, but kids in school take tests. Finland also has evaluations. According to an article from the NEA, "In high-ranking Finland, the national ministry of education plays no role in teacher evaluation. Instead, broad policies are defined in the contract with the teachers’ union. Teachers are then typically appraised against the national core curriculum and the school development plan"

[Anonymous]

I wonder what would have happened if...

On Back to School Night, I announced to one period's parents that I was planning to not do any extras for those students to see if it actually really makes a difference for the kids?

In my interview, I told the principal and department head that I'm so efficient in lesson planning and grading that I can get everything done between 7:50 and 3:20?

Do you imagine either of those statements going over well?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what would have happened if...

On Back to School Night, I announced to one period's parents that I was planning to not do any extras for those students to see if it actually really makes a difference for the kids?

In my interview, I told the principal and department head that I'm so efficient in lesson planning and grading that I can get everything done between 7:50 and 3:20?

Do you imagine either of those statements going over well?

You act like you work for the private sector. Who cares what the principal thinks??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, as a teacher, my biggest issues aren't related to money--they're related to the systematic deprofessionalization of the career. Teachers in Finland don't get paid much more than we do here, but morale there is much, much higher because they have far more autonomy in the classroom and respect out of it. I'd gladly trade my salary increases besides COL adjustments for the rest of my career if I got to teach exactly the way I wanted to every day of the year--no assessments, no evaluations, no observations, my own schedule...oh, I'd better stop now before the white coats get here.

What is this person talking about? Teachers co teach and collaborate in Finland. There is only one national curriculum in the country. Also, Finland does have tests. Not as many country wide ones, but kids in school take tests. Finland also has evaluations. According to an article from the NEA, "In high-ranking Finland, the national ministry of education plays no role in teacher evaluation. Instead, broad policies are defined in the contract with the teachers’ union. Teachers are then typically appraised against the national core curriculum and the school development plan"

Who said teachers in Finland didn't co-teach or collaborate? The post said that teachers in Finland had much more autonomy than those here, as well as far more respect by others for the profession. This shows up in pretty much every single article about teaching in Finland vs teaching in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what would have happened if...

On Back to School Night, I announced to one period's parents that I was planning to not do any extras for those students to see if it actually really makes a difference for the kids?

In my interview, I told the principal and department head that I'm so efficient in lesson planning and grading that I can get everything done between 7:50 and 3:20?

Do you imagine either of those statements going over well?

Why would you tell the principal and department head that? Would you tell them how much you weighed and how many years you had left on your mortgage too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what would have happened if...

On Back to School Night, I announced to one period's parents that I was planning to not do any extras for those students to see if it actually really makes a difference for the kids?

In my interview, I told the principal and department head that I'm so efficient in lesson planning and grading that I can get everything done between 7:50 and 3:20?

Do you imagine either of those statements going over well?

You act like you work for the private sector. Who cares what the principal thinks??

Seeing as they are your boss and they do your annual performance evaluation....a whole lot?

[Anonymous]

I don't think my principal cares if I work just the duty day. I do think she cares immensely if I am cutting corners in order to restrict my working hours.

[Anonymous]

So I am a soon to be divorced mom, thinking of changing my preschool teaching career to a FCPS teaching career so I can support my children.

I’m reading all your notes about how much time/little pay there is for teachers here, so I’m wondering if this is a smart move for me, as a soon to be single mom? Has a

Many Thanks!!

[Anonymous]

BLS data suggests that the average teacher works 40hrs/week. So I think the teachers claiming to always work 60 hours/week are outliers.

https://stats.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf