Teachers - How Hard is Your Job, Really?

[Anonymous]

^^ sorry hit submit too soon. If teachers are perceived to be running around with poster board and glitter and doing rote multiple choice test grading for hours it will remain a job that expects people to do that kind of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the extra work teachers say they do sounds low level and that is probably why the barrier to entry and the pay is low. Making copies? Buying supplies? Someone said they spent 3 weeks I. August setting up their room. Grading papers takes 1 minute per student according to one poster.
There is no higher level higher paid job that expects people to do that. Seems like a lot of organizational and time management things that they do, aka busy work, that could be handled by someone without a degree and free up teachers to teach.

I do my own copies.

I think that you are confusing cause and effect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we assume the best and the brightest are not becoming teachers (generally, although there will always be exceptions), we will never improve public schools until and unless the qualification and compensation for teacher is increased. All the standardized testing and tinkering with curriculum will have minimal effect if at all.

We don't need the best and the brightest to become teachers. The best and the brightest got us into Vietnam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest

What we do need, is for the teachers we have to be good teachers, and for people who would be good teachers to go into teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the extra work teachers say they do sounds low level and that is probably why the barrier to entry and the pay is low. Making copies? Buying supplies? Someone said they spent 3 weeks I. August setting up their room. Grading papers takes 1 minute per student according to one poster.
There is no higher level higher paid job that expects people to do that. Seems like a lot of organizational and time management things that they do, aka busy work, that could be handled by someone without a degree and free up teachers to teach.

I do my own copies.

I think that you are confusing cause and effect.

You are not claiming you spend hours outside of your regular and paid hours to do menial tasks like this. That is what I'm talking about. If you re read the thread, many of the things teachers have to do out of work hours are not high level skilled things.

I agree with you on whether it's a cause or effect situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the extra work teachers say they do sounds low level and that is probably why the barrier to entry and the pay is low. Making copies? Buying supplies? Someone said they spent 3 weeks I. August setting up their room. Grading papers takes 1 minute per student according to one poster.
There is no higher level higher paid job that expects people to do that. Seems like a lot of organizational and time management things that they do, aka busy work, that could be handled by someone without a degree and free up teachers to teach.

And many teachers would love this, but society as a whole and probably most of the non-teacher posters on DCUM would be loathe to pay the taxes required to support this. Same problem with extending the school year so teachers don't have 9 weeks furloughed and students don't lose skills over the summer. Same with doing what happens in most other developed countries and providing teachers with more planning hours during the actual day and decreasing the contact hours to around 4.5 rather than 6 in most elementary buildings by hiring additional specials staff to free up that extra lesson planning time. The US is never going to consent to pay for that though so instead we spend billions to test prep companies, textbook multinationals, and my new favorite phrase "the school failure industry" and we'll never, ever get better because good teaching doesn't get dictated.

[Anonymous]

I posted this before, but it still stands.

I was a teacher for 6 years before leaving the profession to pursue medicine. It's strange because there are parallels to the fields, but I found a massive amount of disrespect for the importance of good pedagogy and achieving real learning outcomes (instead of generic test based outcomes). I also felt a huge lack of respect personally. I found it frustrating because we don't want seasoned teachers. We want cheap ones who will shut up and teach from the outline. And will be at-will employees (even though the hiring timeline for teachers runs once a year).

I got into teaching because I love childhood development, learning, and science. I found fostering these connections to be my true calling. After spending so much time, money and energy on my students, I realized that my passion doesn't matter because my classrooms aren't funded enough, my leaders (i.e. principal) do not have an interest in anything beyond beating last year's numbers, and my kids, who were from FARMS households, didn't have a framework to support their success beyond the bare walls of my classroom. I don't even think the school was invested beyond not getting shut down. The main goal was just to get above the minimum required passing rate. So, rote memorization took the day. And my county really didn't care about this population, so I gave up. Because I'm rational and realized that pushing a boulder up a hill over and over isn't a life.

No one blames me if a patient of mine who I've spent years counseling (along with their caregivers) develops a condition like type 2 diabetes. There is a sense of personal accountability in medicine (since no one wants to die), which doesn't apply to teaching (since lots of people hate learning difficult things).

Teaching is just so different. Outcomes, many of which are beyond your control, are your responsibility. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you don't have that support, it's a house of cards. And when I read threads like this, I just want to send each of my children's teacher an amazon gift card for supplies. Because I know how hard it is and how absolutely frustrating it is to work in a profession that is viewed in such an unfair manner.

At conferences, I hear doctors complain about the state of medicine and the decline of respect for our field. It takes a lot for me not to laugh. Yes, insurers are terrible. Negotiated rates hurt. And coming up with ways to make a decent living while not working insane amounts is hard. Yeah. It's bad, but man, I've had it worse.

I don't pay for medical supplies. I am compensated fairly and my clinical judgment is given some form of deference (even though parents still second guess me). I do a decent amount of medicine in the Medicaid space. I feel a similar burn to churn through but people tend to give me a bit more room (including insurers) when I give a medical justification. There was no parallel when I was teaching. No reason, no matter how evidence based, mattered if it went against the fiat of numbers above all else.

I think people give me this space because they don't think they could be a doctor. I think no one bothered when I was a teacher because they felt any idiot could teach. The truth is, there are a lot of idiot physicians out there. And there are many, many teachers who are so good at what they do, they should bottle it. But only the physician is given that respect as a default.

I actually work less as a MD. And I make a multiple of my previous salary.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, 15:58.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some teachers work harder than others. My DD's 2nd grade teacher taught my DS when he was in 3rd grade. She literally did the exact same projects for DD's class, and used the same curriculum except used the 2nd grade level books. I did not feel she put in tons of effort. She retired two years after teaching DD.

DD's current teacher, however, will look things up with DD when she asks questions about things not being taught, designs interesting extra credit, etc. She taught the entire class N'Sync's Bye, Bye, Bye dance and related it to a math lesson. She busts her ass.

Isn't this true of every profession?

[Anonymous]

I don't know why everyone keeps talking about grading papers or making copies being the reason why teaching takes so long. The grading and copying takes time, but it's not the main thing. The main thing is the lesson planning - figuring out what to teach tomorrow and how to teach it. And if you are an elementary teacher, that's what and how to teach not one subject, but 5 subjects. At multiple levels of ability. That's what takes a long time.

Anyone who doesn't understand has simply never planned a lesson or taught anything at all. Then after you plan it, you have to prepare all the materials you will need for each of those 5 lessons and organize them so that they are ready to go at the very moment they are needed (3rd graders don't do well with waiting around for the teacher to set something up).

In college they calculate your hours worked based on "contact" classroom time plus prep time. Prep time, which means planning and grading, is generally calculated at 50% to 100% of contact time, depending on the school. This is so accepted that the government actually issued a rule that when calculating hours for adjuncts for the purposes of health care regulations, schools are required to include these prep hours.

But when I taught in elementary school, I taught for 6 solid hours with no prep time at all. The time before and after school was taken up with other required duties (including standing in the hall telling kids not to run). After that I had hours - really, hours - of required meetings, beyond my contracted hours, at least twice a week, usually more. Do the math - guess when the prep happened? Either I give up my entire life to get my job done or I just do a lousy job teaching.

And that's why I don't teach in K-12 anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ranking of different majors by SAT scores (total, reading, math, writing).

Education is pretty much in the last place right above various vocational trades and technicians.

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-sat-score-for-every-college-major-2014-10

This would be meaningful if

1. the only way (or even the primary way) to become a teacher was to major in education as an undergraduate -- but it isn't
2. SAT scores had any relationship to any real-life factor, let alone teaching ability -- but they don't

We are discussing mostly education majors and not career switchers. Career switchers tend to be former attorneys, former scientists, former mathematicians etc. etc. The point was raised that it was relatively easier to become a teacher (major in education) compared to other majors meaning they had lower HS gpa, lower sat scores, reputation of college doesn't really matter, college gpa is lower etc.

There was no assertion that sat/gpa had any relationship to teaching ability. One can have low gpa/low sat scores and be a good teacher or vice versa. The point was that students with lower gpa, lower sat tended to major in education.

Assuming this is true, it might explain why there is such turnover in the profession. People go into it thinking that it's easy and then realize that it's way harder than they expect.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/31/four-in-10-new-teachers-quit-within-a-year

[Anonymous]

Maybe so, but great majority of elementary/middle school teachers (aside from career switchers) majored in education. There may be some specialized programs out there but I think most elementary/middle school teachers were education majors whether (math education, English education, primary education, special education, ESOL, physical education etc.).

This is not true in VA. As I pointed out before, most VA colleges and universities no longer have an undergraduate degree in education. Teachers have to major in a content area, then get a masters in education.

[Anonymous]

Maybe we teachers "whine" so much because we're repeatedly subjected to threads like this? We get paid lip service a lot more often than actual respect. Maybe if my salary wasn't a tenth of what my students' parents earn, they'd be less inclined to treat me like the "hired help."

-- a teacher with 3 degrees and excellent SATs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think teachers work hard
I don't think they are under appreciated or undervalued, most professions don't get lauded nearly as much.
I think they pay is solidly middle class and I don't know what's so bad about that.
I'm sorry you can't pee whenever you want, that sucks.
I think teacher whine the most of any profession. Is whining contagious? Did they get it from the students?

I agree with this. I taught for 2 years. Hated it. For all the negative reasons people complain about. That being said, there were some really nice parts of the job and great perks- built in vacations/summer, etc.

I think teachers are maybe the most appreciated profession I know. People constantly talk about how wonderful teachers are all the time. The pay is ok, but honestly, if I were still teaching I would be making more money than I do in my office job...

I think its a tough job, you bet. But my job can be tough too.

You idiot. You taught for TWO years.

If you couldn't hack it after 20 months, you made the right decision to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the extra work teachers say they do sounds low level and that is probably why the barrier to entry and the pay is low. Making copies? Buying supplies? Someone said they spent 3 weeks I. August setting up their room. Grading papers takes 1 minute per student according to one poster.
There is no higher level higher paid job that expects people to do that. Seems like a lot of organizational and time management things that they do, aka busy work, that could be handled by someone without a degree and free up teachers to teach.

And many teachers would love this, but society as a whole and probably most of the non-teacher posters on DCUM would be loathe to pay the taxes required to support this. Same problem with extending the school year so teachers don't have 9 weeks furloughed and students don't lose skills over the summer. Same with doing what happens in most other developed countries and providing teachers with more planning hours during the actual day and decreasing the contact hours to around 4.5 rather than 6 in most elementary buildings by hiring additional specials staff to free up that extra lesson planning time. The US is never going to consent to pay for that though so instead we spend billions to test prep companies, textbook multinationals, and my new favorite phrase "the school failure industry" and we'll never, ever get better because good teaching doesn't get dictated.

Depends on the paper. I give a quick check every other day and a quiz every 4 days on average. The quick checks are usually on a quarter or half sheet of paper (because my school runs out of paper midway through the first quarter and I have to buy the rest out of my own pocket) so those are pretty fast to grade. The quizzes might take me anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes per student if there is a paragraph section. The 2-3 essays and 2-3 projects every marking period take about 10 minutes per student to grade.

But sure, I'd love for someone else to:
--stand in front of the copy machine every day
--laminate my reusable materials
--inventory my textbooks twice a school year
--enter my grades into the computer program
--and do all of the other tasks that don't require a graduate degree in education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can think of a hundred jobs where people stand on their feet all day and can't pee on a whim. Geez

How many of these 100's of these standing jobs without bathroom breaks require a college education and often a master's degree? I can't think of them.

Well, surgeons. But they get paid a lot, and people respect them.

Okay, now PP only has to give me 99 more.

Stop with the no bathroom breaks. You get a lunch break and planning periods. Yes I understand you have to work through them but that 3 opportunities to go. Before and after the kids leave that is 5 times in a 7 hour day. I'm sure if you need more than that you could get a doctors note and accommodation.
Love all your nursing friends who don't get that or people die