Anonymous
Post 01/02/2021 08:53     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Anonymous wrote:I don’t know what planning is at middle school but planning time is much longer for high school from elementary. My sister taught elementary and other than short specials had no planning. In my high school I have a built in period off, 90 minutes, plus lunch each day.

While subject areas could differ it depends on the teacher. I’m a high school special education teacher and rate myself as a solid B teacher, and have never aspired to be an A. I value my work life balance. If I was an A teacher I could spend much more time planning. However, I thankfully have been in the profession for almost 15 years. I have watched many of the A level teachers burn out and leave the profession. I believe my experience and B level effort is better than a new teacher who works themselves into burnout and leaving at A level effort.


It concerns me that we think A teachers can’t have work-life balance. If that is true, teachers should be paid five, six times what they currently earn.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 16:28     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:HAH. As a middle school math teacher, I can say it’s not math.
+1 And I work with a highly functioning team. The elephant in the room is that the administration is always coming down hard on math. We have many more hoops to jump through and what we have to do at my school for lesson plans is ludicrous. Math teachers at my school are actively either leaving teaching or getting new endorsements so that they can leave math.


+100
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 16:27     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Anonymous wrote:I’d think math would be the quickest to plan and grade. Unlike in English class, there is no subjectivity.


I taught middle school math for years. It can sometimes take a long time to grade test depending on the content, and whether or not you are giving a test that requires a student show a lot of work.

I will warn you though, math appears to be the subject where both administration and parents are putting in a lot of focus. Parents are constantly reaching out to you when their student is struggling or they want extra challenge, and administration always is looking at test scores. All of that adds an extra layer of work, time and stress.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 14:53     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Anonymous wrote:HAH. As a middle school math teacher, I can say it’s not math.
+1 And I work with a highly functioning team. The elephant in the room is that the administration is always coming down hard on math. We have many more hoops to jump through and what we have to do at my school for lesson plans is ludicrous. Math teachers at my school are actively either leaving teaching or getting new endorsements so that they can leave math.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 14:17     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
HAH. As a middle school math teacher, I can say it’s not math.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 14:08     Subject: Re:Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
It also depends how many students you have and how many preps. I know some middle school teachers who only teach one prep (7th grade math or science) all day long. That seems pretty easy to me. Prep for AP HS courses is incredibly time consuming especially the first 3 years
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 13:47     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Planning time for math varies greatly. You could work 80 hours a week while planning new courses from scratch for a charter school that requires multiple handouts per day. Or you could plan for maybe an hour per day while teaching the same curriculum you’ve taught for years. In that case, much of the work would be writing and grading tests.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 13:34     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
I don’t know what planning is at middle school but planning time is much longer for high school from elementary. My sister taught elementary and other than short specials had no planning. In my high school I have a built in period off, 90 minutes, plus lunch each day.

While subject areas could differ it depends on the teacher. I’m a high school special education teacher and rate myself as a solid B teacher, and have never aspired to be an A. I value my work life balance. If I was an A teacher I could spend much more time planning. However, I thankfully have been in the profession for almost 15 years. I have watched many of the A level teachers burn out and leave the profession. I believe my experience and B level effort is better than a new teacher who works themselves into burnout and leaving at A level effort.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 12:53     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Definitely math. I have no idea how ELA teachers survive all that grading.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 12:04     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Not social studies, at least not how it’s taught now which is basically ELA with a social studies focus. I have graded all day long all winter break except 12/24, 12/25, and today. I’ll be grading all weekend.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 11:55     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
I’d think math would be the quickest to plan and grade. Unlike in English class, there is no subjectivity.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 11:50     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It really depends on how much you're putting into it. Some math teachers take as much time to grade tests as English teachers take to grade essays - the math teachers are not just checking for right answers, they are going over all of the work the students have shown. They will mark something like "This is where you went wrong - 7x2 is 14, not 16" or something.

Some science teachers do interactive notebooks and take forever to grade those.

Some English teachers don't give detailed feedback on their students' writing and so it doesn't take that long.



I guess I’m most interested in the amount of time it takes to plan lessons.


Math
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 11:38     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Anonymous wrote:It really depends on how much you're putting into it. Some math teachers take as much time to grade tests as English teachers take to grade essays - the math teachers are not just checking for right answers, they are going over all of the work the students have shown. They will mark something like "This is where you went wrong - 7x2 is 14, not 16" or something.

Some science teachers do interactive notebooks and take forever to grade those.

Some English teachers don't give detailed feedback on their students' writing and so it doesn't take that long.



I guess I’m most interested in the amount of time it takes to plan lessons.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 11:35     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
It really depends on how much you're putting into it. Some math teachers take as much time to grade tests as English teachers take to grade essays - the math teachers are not just checking for right answers, they are going over all of the work the students have shown. They will mark something like "This is where you went wrong - 7x2 is 14, not 16" or something.

Some science teachers do interactive notebooks and take forever to grade those.

Some English teachers don't give detailed feedback on their students' writing and so it doesn't take that long.
Anonymous
Post 01/01/2021 11:32     Subject: Which subject area teachers have the most reasonable work load?
Not including PE, music, etc. But out of the four core subject areas, which subject do you think is the least time consuming to plan for and grade?
I just recently moved from elementary to middle school math, and while I still work 60+ hours a week, it’s no where near as much as I worked while teaching elementary.