Reply to Teacher workdays/school planning are ridiculous!

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Reply to "Teacher workdays/school planning are ridiculous!"

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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][quote=Anonymous]I’m of two thoughts:

Yes, the calendar is too disjointed and it needs to be fixed.

But teachers need work days. If we want teachers to stay in the profession, they need to be granted time during the work week (even just occasionally) to get their work done. It shouldn’t be the expectation that nights and weekends belong to their jobs, too. [/quote]

I have a demanding job. It has me on calls for a good portion of the day. This means I have to work outside of work hours to get my work done.

Teachers need to also use their time more efficiently. FCPS ES and MS have very little grading to do. [/quote]

You sound ignorant. You don't have a clue what's asked of teachers. Also school isn't daycare figure out your parenting.[/quote]

Shouldn’t you be grading some papers instead of arguing with parents on here? Since you’re so overloaded and all?[/quote]

I'm a DP, but I am also a teacher.

Let's be honest: if you don't teach, you ARE ignorant of the demands of teaching. That's not an insult. Ignorance is literally defined as lacking knowledge or awareness about a particular subject. [b]Therefore, if you haven't taught you DON'T actually know what is demanded of teachers. And again: that's not an insul[/b]t.

But is IS insulting when you come here and belittle a job you know little about.

So when teachers try to explain to you why we need planning time, this is an opportunity for you to learn about something you're unfamiliar with. Unfortunately, posters on this site label comments from teachers as "complaining" or "arguing" when it's simply "explaining." I see it all the time. It's why teachers become defensive, because their words are misconstrued and dismissed at almost every turn by people who are ignorant. (Again: not an insult.)

So, I'll take your advice and go grade papers. That's far more productive than posting here considering these trends.[/quote]

And yet you show no eagerness to learn about subjects about which you are ignorant— for example what it is like to be in a demanding job that [b]isn’t[/b] teaching while also being a parent.

Perhaps if you showed more willingness to learn— embrace the opportunity as you put it— then parent frustration wouldn’t reach the level of needing to advocate to the board to make changes that teachers could’ve made themselves.[/quote]

DP. She doesn’t need to learn about how tough your life is due to your career and family choices. She is not your hired help. Get that through your skull and maybe you’ll be less frustrated.[/quote]

She seems very interested in telling us how difficult her life is as a teacher, and why that means we should accept additional teacher planning days in a terrible calendar. But really there’s no need for us to accept that, just to make her life and her choices easier.[/quote]

DP. I’m a parent who actually respects teachers. Do I think all of my kids’ teachers are excellent? No but I think they have a tough job and the majority do their best with the hand they are dealt. Attitudes like yours is why teachers leave the profession. If you treat teachers in real life like you do online, you are making it more difficult for teachers to educate students. If you have a demanding job as you describe with commensurate pay and you are so disgruntled with the calendar and teacher prep time, then private school is where your family belongs.[/quote]

Teachers leave the profession because they absorb very entitled attitudes from toxic older teachers and then are frustrated when those entitlements never get fulfilled.  If teachers were told: this is a hard job. You will work nights and weekends in your early years as you develop your plans. You will get some incredible perks. Remember that schools serve students NOT teachers. And internalized that message, they wouldn’t be playing the victim constantly. Constantly feeling victimized leads to burnout.

So high teacher turnover isn’t a bad thing, and if realistic expectations leads to turnover than we’re losing the right teachers.[/quote]

Are you a teacher? Because, to be honest, what you wrote sounds like fiction. It doesn't sound like you have direct, personal experience with teaching. Instead, it reads like a script for a teacher-focused movie... full of stereotypes and assumptions. It's like when I watch Abbott Elementary. That's not remotely how a school operates. How do those teachers have all that time to sit around and talk?

Since I posted about ignorance above, at least two posters have made assumptions about me. One accused me of being ignorant of other jobs. That's true. I don't know what it's like to be a doctor, a lawyer, a fed. But I'm also not online making blanket assumptions about these jobs and assuming my ignorance is more valuable than their expertise. I read posts about these jobs here on DCUM and ***I DO NOT COMMENT*** because my uninformed opinion would not support the thread's purpose. So there's the difference: I fix ignorance my listening, not by screaming louder than those who know. [/quote]

Close family member of a successful public school teacher. My views are informed by her frustrations with her entitled colleagues and their unrealistic expectations.

Your acknowledged ignorance about other professions seems to have missed the intersection with your own. The current calendar creates burdens on working parents in other professions which you clearly do not understand. Those burdens outweigh potential benefits of this calendar because they take resources away from students.[/quote]

Once again: you fail to see the teacher’s experience, clearly assuming yours is paramount.

I am a working parent, just like you. The calendar is a burden for me, as well. I have my own childcare struggles, as I often have to stay at school and my DH has to take leave to get our children.

I did not create the calendar. I deal with its challenges, too.

[b]So what’s the difference between us?[/b] I seem to consider other perspectives, and I also am able to extend grace. I know it isn’t easy. But I’m not going to throw wild, ignorant accusations at people in a misguided attempt to make my own life better.

[/quote]

The difference is that the calendar is meant to serve you, and not other working parents, and the calendar which serves you diminishes the resources available to the children public schools are intended to serve. A kid left alone on a TW day is a worse outcome than you grading during your lunch.

As you say, you’re ignorant of what it is like for other professions. Focus on this opportunity to learn. [/quote]

Your attempts to “educate” me continue to fall flat. Do you really want a calendar that serves children? Then we should be advocating for year-round schooling, which eliminates the summer brain-drain and provides the routine/consistency you are screaming for. Eight weeks off in the summer is considerably more disruptive than a random Monday. I’m happy to fight along with you.

And let me put your ignorance argument to rest: I am a career changer. Teaching is my 2nd profession. And, as someone who values education, I take every opportunity to learn. I now challenge you to do the same. Not once have I seen you reconsider your myopic views. You still condemn teachers for something that isn’t their fault. You also refuse to acknowledge that teachers are working parents with the same challenges you have (which kind of negates all your “teacher benefit” arguments. How does the calendar serve me when my DH has to burn leave and my children are aimlessly at home?)

So, once again: I recommend that you stop telling me to “learn” when you fail to open your own eyes. [/quote]

Alas, you’re still wrong. Summer is the time when students fulfill needs that schools don’t meet, like time outdoors, language enrichment, focused hobbies and camps.

The solution isn’t more school. It’s school in the model where it doesn’t take twenty extra days than it did ten years ago to get to the bare minimum which is what we have now. But I’m glad you agree what we have now doesn’t serve students. You clearly still have plenty to learn.[/quote]

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