Reply to NY times op ed on the teacher crisis

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The difference is that if one of your clients became violent, you could call a security guard or the police to have them removed. If one of my students becomes violent, nobody comes. I’m told I am a bad teacher. I will finish up this year and you can take my place. I cannot work in a place where I do not feel safe. A student threw a spiral notebook at me a few weeks ago and the scratch on my face is still there. Nothing happened to that student but I was told not to place any demands on him. So he sleeps through a few classes and I hope to God nothing wakes him up again. [/quote]

And the other difference is that lawyers aren't in the courtroom in front of a judge 30 hours a week.  They get time to plan.  Even when they complain that it's not enough, they get more time to plan that most teachers.  My brother does corporate training, where he presents the same exact thing over and over again, using a scripted curriculum, to adults, none of whom are learning English and have IEPs, and he has a much higher ratio of planning time to instructional time than I do.

I've been hurt by students including a broken bone.  That's not what makes me consider leaving.  The thing that makes me consider leaving is that the workload is such that I can put in 80 hour weeks, and still feel like I am failing kids due to not having enough time.  And failing kids is what I can't tolerate.  But I'm a special educator, a position that has been hit particularly hard by this crisis.[/quote]

Sorry, more ignorance of the legal profession expressed here. You might be thinking of corporate lawyers? Public defenders and prosecutors often spend most of every work day in the courtroom in routine hearings, and if it's rural America they may spend several hours each week traveling to and from various courthouses because maybe PDs cover multiple courts. Then have to spend more hours back in the office doing the casework. As a public defender and prosecutor my typical work week was 60 hours, and if I was in trial prep or trial, easily 70-90. And I barely had the ability to take my two weeks' vacation, I often didn't because coming back from a vacation would be such a nightmare of piled up work that it destroyed any positive benefit from taking time off. No such thing as two solid months off for mental health break.[/quote]

To be clear I'm not trying to win an one-upmanship contest or anything, just establishing that overwork is a very common thing in other professions too. It especially affects those of us who tend toward perfectionism and aren't comfortable giving just 85%, which many people do. I felt such a strong ethical obligation as both a PD and a prosecutor because I had other peoples' liberty in my hands, and there was always more work. Always. I routinely spent 6 days/week at my workplace, usually 10-12 hour days, and even half a day on Sunday when my caseload was particularly egregious. And the cases were always in my head, I was always thinking of the clients or the cases 24/7/365.

This is why I feel I am going to be able to deal with the stress of teaching, even if it is not right or ideal that the situation is this way. Given my prior work history, it will be freaking amazing to have several weeks off every year to recharge my batteries - I recognize that I am lucky to be going to teach in a state where my salary will be enough to live on fairly comfortably without needing to take a summer job as many of the friends who teach in the worst states do. [/quote]

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