Posted on 06/28/2017 5:32:28 AM PDT by simpson96
I’m on the road, traveling out West, doing a little hiking, a little sightseeing, a lot of thinking.
I just sat down with my laptop and a cup of coffee under the blue skies of Wyoming, thinking about how much I will learn in these 4½ weeks. That’s the same chunk of the school calendar reflected on our students’ progress reports. Just over four weeks — about 23 days, almost a month.(snip)
One of the first questions people on the road ask is about your occupation. That’s always an easy ice-breaker. I reckon I don’t yet look retirement age, so they ask, “What do you do that allows you to have the time to drive from Georgia to Wyoming?” I proudly proclaim I teach.
I’m learning more and more about how the education profession is one of the most rewarding. Of course, I would love the salary of a doctor or the hours of a banker, but there’s no complaint about having the summers off, guaranteed holidays free, and weekends off.
Then I realize, we don’t really have these days off.
Scattered throughout my days on the road, I try and squish together some time to create a lesson on close reading. Somewhere in between hikes, I am planning a unit on The Invisible Man. When I can find Wi-Fi, I’m sharing ideas with a coworker on how to teach writing.
If teachers aren’t grading papers on the weekend, they are planning for the week. If teachers aren’t baking cookies on Christmas break, they’re eating them as they grade essays. If teachers aren’t lying on the beach in the summer, they are reading teacher books to make them better at their job.
So, I don’t feel guilty anymore when people make judgments about teachers having the summer off.
(Excerpt) Read more at ledger-enquirer.com ...
Trigger warnings are for special snowflakes.
I’m in IT and I work nights, weekends, holidays and on vacation. But that is my decision. I don’t like to have problems fester. Handle it quickly and people are satisfied.
Satisfied! Oh look, I made a funny.
Nobody is asking her to feel guilty, are they?
The problem many teachers have is understanding that the things that are often complained about - work at night, work on the weekends, and whatever else it takes to get the job done is part and parcel of being a professional.
Some teachers act like technicians - rigidly follow the curriculum, expect little of students that may infringe upon their “me time”.
Others, probably most, just do what it takes like the professionals they are.
The defensiveness comes in when they are unable, because of heavy unionization, to drive the lazy and shiftless among them out of the profession - that sullies the professionals.
Unionization is another aspect. No professional should willingly be part of a union (my opinion). The constantly expressed “struggle against ‘the man’” is tiresome when it comes from a so-called professional.
The reflexive (union-driven) complaint about measuring performance of kids (and indirectly the performance of the teacher) to help accountability is another aspect that drives defensiveness.
Take the time off. Be a professional. Quit whining - or just quit and do something else.
Amen!
Every job has something to complain about.
Firefighters have to run into burning buildings.
Police officers get shot at.
Doctors struggle with life and death.
Struggling actors get rejected on a daily basis.
Teachers have their struggles too — but they seem to be more eager to play the Victim Card than any other profession.
And don’t forget, most of our jobs don’t include corrupting the fabric of the Republic.
Amen, my FRiend. We work when the systems can be shut down without impacting the business, and plan our lives accordingly.
The pay is OK, but the big plus is that there is no way to automate the job, or outsource it to India. If you are good, and can stomach the kids, you will have a job.
Will the “underpaid/overworked” teacher crowd ever stop whining??? These “educators” have contributed greatly to the current state of affairs in which scores are down, students are dumbed-down and our country suffers. Public schools have failed the country. Teachers’ unions are a pox upon education. If “educators” are so overworked and underpaid, quit and find a better job. They aren’t and they don’t.
She shouldn’t feel guilty about her summer time off. She also shouldn’t feel guilty for the 5-6 times during the school year when she gets a 5 day weekend, example: Wednesday night parent/teacher conferences with Thursday & Friday teacher “in-service” days immediately proceeding a Monday school holiday like MLK day or President’s Day. The “in-service” typically means work from home, and the parking lot is empty except for the janitors.
In general, teachers aren’t over-worked. Nor are they over-paid.
Wonder how much it costs to “travel out west” for 23 days?
Those are school days in that amount of time
Do you get paid $42K/year plus benefits in which you pay copays and deductibles? Retirement bennies come out of that $42K salary. Insurance comes out of that $42K salary and went up steeply thanks to Obamacare. Do you teach at least ten out of 25 students, probably more, who have no copay and whose parents do not have any cost for insurance? I have teacher friends who make about $36K and some who make around $45K. Depending on what their husbands do, they may or may not take their own children to the doctor when they probably would if they were on Medicaid.
My husband works in IT. He has only worked one job that was paid what I would consider low for what he had to do. The benefits made up for the low pay. Well, except for the retirement which was taken out of his paltry salary. He worked for a state government at that time.
He probably continually bellyaches about his low pay. Wah.
boo-hoo.
I presume the author is talking about 23 weekdays off.
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Bingo...... you are the winner.
He was 55
His pension was based on the years he worked and how much he made his last 3 years.
Those last 3 years he took EVERY opportunity to work extracurricular things.
Blew his base pay out of the water.
When he retired, his pension was set at over $115k a year
How many TAXPAYERS are able to get a pension or retirement account, that they don't have to pay into themselves, that pays like that?
She’s only counting week days, but neglecting to mention it. Probably a writing teacher.
The peninsula that separates the Green Bay from the rest of Lake Michigan is called “Door County”.
It’s where lots of well-to-do people have vacation homes.
Many of those “well-to-do” homeowners are retired Chicago government school teachers.
“Hey honey, try doing a turn in IT”
Bravo. I worked IT at a School System for years and you are right. People have no clue about what it takes to keep it all working. On call, all nighters, drop everything put out the fires all the while putting up with entitled teaches saying “why is it so slow?”. It’s the job so that’s fine but so many teachers are just superior rars brainwashing kids it drove me crazy at times.
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