Something about teacher's pay...

mcgruff10 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

mcgruff10 said:

"my kids, grades 5 and 8, get zero homework. their teachers are leaving at 3:15 when the bell rings and they ain't doing a fucking thing on their own time. "
Hugh, 
1.  How do you know those teachers aren't doing anything on their own time?
2.  What is wrong with leaving at 3:15 when they can contractually leave at that time? 
3.  Not too many people give homework anymore, in fact we can't even grade it because you don't know who is actually doing it.  I give zero homework except to study for a test.  

"once you've done it a year or two, if you don't have it down to a day or two science, you're not doing it right."
I like you Hugh but this is just an ignorant statement.  Good teachers are constantly planning and changing things up.  Teaching isn't a science, it is an art.  

Think of teachers as artists and their students as canvases, a pile of different materials or blocks of clay. Some of that will become masterpieces, a small percentage, auctioned at Christies, some will be shown and exhibited in trendy art galleries, some will end up in the Crate & Barrel catalog and others will remain half finished or in the dumpster. Teachers, like artists, need time off to recharge, regain their energy and creativity, to mold and create, hopefully masterpieces but what most artists end up creating, average works that look just fine to somebody sitting in the corner, hanging on their wall, adding value to their everyday. A classroom of 25 to 35, 3rd to 12th graders is hardly a cookie cutter approach for a teacher as is a room full of disparate materials and mediums are for an artist. I'd love to see anyone in here who is not a teacher spend a year in a teacher's shoes and then see whether they complain about the pay and the summer's off, etc., etc.

I think we are now BFF s.  

cincybearcat said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

mcgruff10 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

mcgruff10 said:

"my kids, grades 5 and 8, get zero homework. their teachers are leaving at 3:15 when the bell rings and they ain't doing a fucking thing on their own time. "
Hugh, 
1.  How do you know those teachers aren't doing anything on their own time?
2.  What is wrong with leaving at 3:15 when they can contractually leave at that time? 
3.  Not too many people give homework anymore, in fact we can't even grade it because you don't know who is actually doing it.  I give zero homework except to study for a test.  

"once you've done it a year or two, if you don't have it down to a day or two science, you're not doing it right."
I like you Hugh but this is just an ignorant statement.  Good teachers are constantly planning and changing things up.  Teaching isn't a science, it is an art.  

Think of teachers as artists and their students as canvases, a pile of different materials or blocks of clay. Some of that will become masterpieces, a small percentage, auctioned at Christies, some will be shown and exhibited in trendy art galleries, some will end up in the Crate & Barrel catalog and others will remain half finished or in the dumpster. Teachers, like artists, need time off to recharge, regain their energy and creativity, to mold and create, hopefully masterpieces but what most artists end up creating, average works that look just fine to somebody sitting in the corner, hanging on their wall, adding value to their everyday. A classroom of 25 to 35, 3rd to 12th graders is hardly a cookie cutter approach for a teacher as is a room full of disparate materials and mediums are for an artist. I'd love to see anyone in here who is not a teacher spend a year in a teacher's shoes and then see whether they complain about the pay and the summer's off, etc., etc.

I think we are now BFF s.  

I'll bring the ice. Or maybe on your underpaid salary, the wine?

The good news is you can catch all the early bird specials since he's done at 2 every day. 

HughFreakingDillon said:

what dreams said:

pjhawks said:

brianlux said:

Why do some of you folks have such strong negative feelings for teachers?  Did you have a shitty teacher when you were a kid?  We're you abused by a teacher?  I don't understand the hate.

hate really? discussing their schedule is hate? why do people react so irrationally when bringing up a teacher schedule and days off? what other professions do people get so damn defensive about? and this thread is proof of the defensiveness.

NOBODY obsesses about anybody else's work schedule the way they obsess about teachers. When was the last time you read a post on the AMT:  "Mechanics are Never There on Sundays."  "My Doctors Take Every Friday Off."  "Cleaning Ladies are Never On Time." I simply just don't understand the obsession. This thread was dead for over a YEAR, and all of a sudden, it's President's Day and you have some thorn up your ass again about teachers. And another by the way -- MY SCHOOL DIVISION WAS OPEN ON PRESIDENT'S DAY.

honestly I think you have it backwards. in my experience, not once has an argument about how good teachers had it started with a non-teacher. it's always, 100%, a teacher complaining about difficult how they have it. and maybe they do. it's obviously not a universal truth; some have it horribly, some have it fabulous. most have it somewhere in between, is my guess. however, the topic of time off and pay:

Winnipeg teachers:
8 weeks off at summer
2 weeks off at christmas
1 week off at spring break (in BC they get two weeks off, but not sure about the other time periods)

my kids, grades 5 and 8, get zero homework. their teachers are leaving at 3:15 when the bell rings and they ain't doing a fucking thing on their own time. 

and i hear about their hardship about not being able to choose their holidays. you have more than double what I have. and you get it from year one. I have built up to 5 weeks holidays over 20 years of service. my first 5 years I had 2 paid weeks.

or how they can only go on vacation during peak times making it super expensive. for fucks sakes, "I get double or triple or quadruple your vacation time, I know, but YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHEN YOU TAKE IT". that's the argument? I'd GLADLY SWITCH WITH ANYONE THAT WANTS TO. 

now, that being said, I know that those 8 weeks in summer isn't always the full 8 weeks. some go in the last week of summer break to prepare, but honestly, once you've done it a year or two, if you don't have it down to a day or two science, you're not doing it right. it still amounts to at least 80% of the summer is your own time. 

and don't even ask me about the salaries of these folks. They all make a LOT more than the average canadian. I think they start off at the average canadian income. and it only increases substantially from there. 

is it a stressful profession? no doubt about it. at least two of the several teachers I know have gone on stress leave at some point. I don't know how much of that is job related, mental health related, or a combination. I think I've mentioned this before, but I do know that it's GOT to suck seeing a group of asshole kids coming up, knowing you get a full 9 months with them with no escape. That's got to be shitty. But there are stressful pitfalls to any job. I wonder what my life would be like if my coworkers and/or my boss would move along after a year. could make things interesting. or incredibly unstable. who knows. 

summation: canadian teachers, to my knowledge, get paid well. the stress level can be high (but isn't, necessarily). they get a lot of time off that is in fact TIME OFF. 

mcgruff10 said:

2:07 and I m still in school. Fml

mcgruff10 said:

@Halifax2TheMax is this enough ice for you?  I m ready for a glass of red!

mcgruff10 said:

@Halifax2TheMax is this enough ice for you?  I m ready for a glass of red!

ecdanc said:

PJPOWER said:

ecdanc said:

I'm a college professor, so this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, but nonetheless:

I'm on a nine-month contract. I get paid for nine months of the year. If I only worked during those nine months, I would have been fired years ago, because there simply would not be time to do all the work. I average over 40 hours of work per week....52 weeks of the year! Yes, I work fewer hours during the summer, but I'd estimate, on average, I put in about 30 hours a week during the 3 months I'm not being paid. 

If I was on a 9 month contract, I would set boundaries and only work what I am getting paid to work.  If I couldn’t do the work during that time, I would renegotiate my contract or find a new job.  If my employer expected me to work more days than my contract stated, then I would renegotiate my contract or find a new job.  I feel like teachers or teacher unions may have enabled unfair employment practices...and in my opinion, that’s where the ball is being dropped.  Individuals have no leverage because everyone else is enabling unfair practices by essentially choosing to work for free outside of their contracts and making others feel obligated to do the same.

I guess I choose not to be a teacher because I refuse to work for an employer that expects me to work for free three months out of the year.

A lot of what you say here falls under the thread's overall theme: working conditions are often terrible for teachers, yet somehow people (including posters on this thread) think they have it good/easy. 

With that said--and with the caveat/reminder that I teach at the college level, so much of what I will say might not apply to K-12 teachers--a few thoughts on your take:

1) "If I was on a 9 month contract, I would set boundaries and only work what I am getting paid to work." If a tenure-track professor were to do this, they would most likely be "non-reappointed." In other words, they'd be fired. Period. 

2) "If I couldn’t do the work during that time, I would renegotiate my contract." The terms of my contract are set by the state (I work at a public university), yet the expectations for my productivity are set by disciplinary norms and my department's/college's/university's faculty. There is no meaningful way to "renegotiate [the] contract" itself and the actual work I'm asked to produce is designed to measure my fitness as a professor, NOT the extent to which I meet my contract. 

3) "If my employer expected me to work more days than my contract stated, then I would renegotiate my contract or find a new job." I've already addressed the renegotiation part, so I'll address the "find a new job" part here. In many (most?--I'm not entirely sure) disciplines, this is simply not how things work. If you leave a job before receiving tenure, you're borderline unhireable. If you leave after tenure, no one will hire you, because they can't afford to hire associate professors.

For better or worse, the higher education job market operates NOTHING like other job markets, so what you're describing here is not a solution to individual's situations, but a further reminder of the systemic problems that create those situations. 

Clearly, you recognize that the issue is systemic and you're certainly not wrong to point the finger--to some extent--at teachers and unions. But VERY few faculty are unionized. I was unionized as a graduate student, and we went on strike for better conditions. Now, I teach in a right-to-work state, with an extremely timid faculty who do precisely what you suggest ("enabl[e] unfair practices)."

But, and this is the crucial part, you're ignoring the simultaneous, much more significant factor: the dearth of funding. This is certainly true of almost all public higher education in the US, and I believe it's true for a lot of public K-12 districts, as well: teachers are paid what they are paid, and their working conditions are what they are largely because education is underfunded in this country. Why can't most faculty renegotiate or simply find another teaching job? Because there are no jobs. They've been cut as state higher-education budgets have plummeted. 

That's why I read your post as more a recognition of the problem than anything else. You say "If I were in this situation, here's what I would do." You wouldn't do most of the things you describe. Instead, if you were in my situation, you'd be faced with the choice to deal with a broken system or to leave it entirely. Ultimately, then, when you explain why you choose not to be a teacher, you're really implying that NO ONE should be a teacher. That's not actually a solution--so how do you propose we make the job such that people want to do it?