Teachers - How Hard is Your Job, Really?
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Anonymous
Amen! I totally felt this way when I taught.... Soo much time spent doing non instructional stuff- super time suck... Even taking attendance takes too much time away - teachers need an assistant to do all that little "1 minute" here and there stuff, because it adds up. |
Anonymous
http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMy1kZTMwNWIwOTg5OTVkNmYx |
Anonymous
Not the PP but I'd really love to know what schools have planning periods (plural!) At the elementary level we'd have lunch and recess duty (rotating). Planning periods were cut down to 30 minutes a day (often less by the time all the kids left for specials and often they'd come back 5 minutes early and if there was a special event or a school play coming up we'd lose our prep time altogether). The 45 minutes before students arrived for the day were mandatory meetings, not planning time. After school there was bus duty, which frequently went past the regular contract time and I'd have to go back to my classroom afterwards to clean up and set up for the following day. During prep I'd have just enough time to pee, set up for the afternoon, and sometimes write in student log books then the kids would be coming back down the hallway. That still left emails, copies, laminating, lesson plans, student concern meetings, writing IEPs, prep/planning for future days/activities, doing progress reports/report cards, creating or completing student behavior charts, data collection, completing induction requirements, submitting work orders for the things that were always breaking down, running to the book room to get materials, running to the office/storage rooms to get materials, DHS calls and follow ups (they were frequent), etc... I'd frequently have a 1-2 page to do list every single day and would only get through a very small portion of it. Yes, nurses have difficult jobs too, but I rarely see people pissing on nurses and I rarely see so many misconceptions about nurses. |
Anonymous
When I check FB at the end of the day my family and friends who are nurses have been on and off posting things during their shifts. Guess lots of people are dying. |
Anonymous
This whole 12 page thread has been teachers posting. Most of the forums for schools are filled with teachers posting. I agree, something is off |
Anonymous
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I taught for 5 years before going back to school to pursue a different career. I taught middle school at a private school. Frankly, it was a pretty cushy job. I got to work at about 7:30 and left by 4:15 every day, except for the one day a week I had dismissal duty and left around 4:30ish. I almost always had time to get my planning done during the day during free periods. Most days, I actually taught 4-5 class periods, leaving at least a couple hours for getting other work done. I had lunch duty once a week but the other days I was free at lunch time, except that I was expected to stay on campus. I took work home only occasionally.
The pay was terrible, but I had the summers off (and I was really off - did ZERO work for at least 8 weeks), winter break, spring break, all the holidays... It was a pretty sweet lifestyle. |
Anonymous
Let me guess - textbooks and worksheets? You only taught 4-5 class periods? I've never taught middle school, only elementary, but that does not sound typical to me. |
Anonymous
Private school is an entirely different ball of wax. Work load is generally much less. -- someone who has taught both, |
Anonymous
Um no. I suspect a lot, like myself, are former teachers. Used to teach K-12, now teach part-time adjunct college evenings. But good effort there. |
Anonymous
Nope, very little use of textbooks. Taught multiple subjects so I had multiple preps. But honestly, I had several free hours each day at school for planning/grading. Even on days when I taught 5 50-minute classes (my heavy days - totaling just over 4 hours of actual instructional time), I still had 4 hours or so free to get stuff done during the school day. |
Anonymous
 That's like saying that moms shouldn't be on DCUM because it proves that SAHM are lazy and the WOHM really don't work that hard because really good moms wouldn't have time for DCUM.
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Anonymous
OMG! Most public school teachers would kill for that light of a workload. |
Anonymous
I taught in both private and public and I can say that my experience teaching in a private school was very similar to the PP. The school day was longer but I had plenty of planning time during the day. When I taught in public, my school day was shorter. I was only required to be at the school from 8-2:30, except for the one day each week I had coach class and stayed until 3:30. I usually arrived at 7:30. The entire day was instructional time except for one 50-minute prep and one 30-minute lunch. The prep period often ended up being used for meetings, and I often had students in my classroom at lunch time. Still, at the public school, I was only there 7 hours/day, and at the private school, I was there 8.5-9 hours. So while I did more work at home at the public, the actual hours per day of work was fairly comparable. The public school was WAY more stressful though. I'm sure some of this is because I taught in a rough, urban school with horrible administration. But it was also nice at the private to not worry about assessments, writing objectives on the board, submitting properly formatted lesson plans, updating my bulletin board according to whatever schedule they came up with, and all the other garbage public school teachers have to put up with. Private was a HUGE pay cut though. I went from making $50k at the public school to starting in the mid-30s at the private school. |
Anonymous
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I simply don't understand these threads about how easy/hard teachers' jobs are. What is this about? I don't see similar threads about other professions.
In any profession, aren't there people who work incredibly hard and others who do the bare minimum. What am I missing? |
Anonymous
Teachers are very public about wanting raises. That is all. They are constantly talking about how hard their job is and why they need a raise. I agree it is though, but what I've never understood is why they don't fight for better working conditions. It's always about money rather than improved working conditions. |