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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Teachers are people and people complain.

There are very few other options if you want to work 200 days per year and be paid a professional salary.

Right now I think we’re still seeing a COVID correction. Early weeks oF COVID was everyone saying teachers were heroes and shaming parents for wanting school. Teachers who absorber that attitude are finding it hard right now. [/quote]

I didn’t go into this profession thinking I only wanted to work 200 days a year. That’s a TERRIBLE reason to pick education, especially since you’ll work weekends and summer anyway… simply to prepare for those 200 days.

We need teachers who want to teach for the sake of teaching, not because they erroneously think it’s an easy field with tons of free time. [/quote]

That’s good for you? Plenty of teachers go into the field because it’s a profession that will let them spend summers with their kids. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s also why teachers complain more than you would expect: there isn’t another job out there for most teachers that will give them that schedule. [/quote]

As someone who has been in the profession for over 25 years, I don’t see it as the family-friendly field that many think it is.

My afternoons are spent running clubs while I pay for childcare for my own kids. My nights are spent grading. My weekends are spent grading. My summers are spent prepping for the next year, attending recertification courses, and attending conferences/trainings to keep my extra credentials. My kids are growing up watching me work around the clock.

And yet I hear how family-friendly this field is, which I’ve never experienced.

I’m sure there are teachers somewhere with better schedules and fewer responsibilities, but I don’t personally know any.

[b]And I’ll do the work without complaint [/b]because I signed up for it. I just wish others didn’t assume I have it so, so easy.[/quote]

What would you call the three proceeding paragraphs and the final sentence….[/quote]

That isn’t complaining.

I guess when you deal with children all day you know what complaining actually sounds like.

Somebody expressing an opinion and/or explaining a situation isn’t a complaint to me.

[/quote]

Oh, if a parent says “my kids are growing up watching me work around the clock” thats typically considered a complaint. If its just your choice than thats fine, enjoy your selected activities.[/quote]

No. A complaint would be: "Ugh! I am so sick of this job! I can't get a moment's peace. Why the heck do I have to work all the time? These kids are so demanding! And the parents! Why don't they stop pestering me about getting my grades done. The more they complain, the less I'm going to work."
An explanation would be: "My kids are growing up watching me work around the clock." That is a clear explanation of how often I have to work.

As for my selected activity: have you seen the many, many, many DCUM threads about how long it takes for teachers to provide feedback? Have you seen how teachers are verbally **destroyed** on those threads? Here I am doing the work to provide consistent, timely feedback. It's what teachers have to do. Is acknowledging that a complaint? 
[/quote]

So are you working full time because you're grading or because of these clubs you're choosing to run? [/quote]

Are these comments even from real humans with kids? There are dozens of clubs at every school—before, during, and after school—which are important for the kids. Each club requires a teacher to supervise or sponsor and some require more hands-on than others. You're really singling this out as if the teacher is holding the kids hostage because the teacher really wants to force some activity on them? Contractual or not, be grateful.[/quote]

The teacher is saying her children never see her. Clubs are voluntary assignments for the teachers I know, so if this teacher can’t do her grading maybe she should deprioritize clubs.[/quote]

I’m the teacher. It’s in our contract to take a role running after school clubs and tutoring. In any case, that’s 2-3 hours a week. Grading is what drowns most teachers.

I am grateful for the posters here who have read what I’ve said and commiserated and been kind. That’s rare on this site. More often, teachers are told what they are doing wrong by posters who don’t know the conditions in which we work.

I like my job. Yes, it’s a huge sacrifice. But I’m not the only teacher sacrificing; there are hundreds of thousands of us. Regarding my own children: I know their teachers are making the same sacrifices I do and I am grateful for what they provide. If we all quit working off hours, schools would grind to a halt: no lessons would be planned, no papers would be graded, no letters of recommendation would be written. And yes, it’s a huge problem that schools operate because of teacher sacrifice. That’s why I speak up about it. People should know. [/quote]

I realize that grading is what gets shoved into your off hours but "Grading is what drowns most teachers" makes it sound like the reason stuff is broken now is due to grading. That can't be possible. Teachers have always graded. What needs fixed and pushed back on are whatever all the NEW things are that schools have started to make teachers do that they didn't need to 10/15/20 years ago. The core parts of the job (which grading is) still need captured but surely there's a zillion other things eating time that need to get shoved back off teachers' plates.  [/quote]

Sure, *the reason* grading is done at night and on weekends is because of tons of other factors. But that doesn’t change the fact the grading itself is the reason I’ll quit.

- [b]I used to have smaller classes, so I used to grade 100 papers. Now I grade in stacks of 150.

- I used to be able to grade holistically, leaving tons of comments and a number at the top (like my teachers did for me). Now I have to leave tons of comments and align them to a complicated rubric, which takes extra time. And, I suspect, the number would be the same without the wordy rubric.

- I put grades into the system, wait 20 minutes, and then check my email. The parents and students asking for more points start to roll in, taking even more time as I have to justify grades (again) in email after email. [/b]

And, of course, this all happens at home because of the team meetings, the sub duty, the cafeteria duty, the data meetings, the IEP/504 meetings, the disciplinary reports, and the mandatory tutoring/office hours.

So grading is why I’m dusting off my resume. It’s what eats up my off hours.[/quote]

My experience exactly. [/quote]

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