I guess you can try floating this mismash if it makes you feel good but to me, it reads like the descriptions of swordfishing in "The Perfect Storm." In that novel-based-on-real-events, every mishap in swordboat history happened to the crew of the "Andrea Gail" on that single trip. Your description of "planning" periods sounds like every activity that ever happened in any planning period at any time are all crammed in every day for every teacher. My credulity does not extend that far.
I was a teacher for nearly ten years. I taught in both the United States and Australia. Teachers weren't so much different in either place. Yes, sometimes we spent planning time doing actual teaching work, but not always -- hence the ping-pong table in the teacher area in Australia. When I taught, teachers arrived about a half hour before students and spent most of that time chatting with peers. Almost all left within fifteen minutes of the students.
In private industry, my average starting time is 6:30 am and quitting time is around 7:00pm. I eat lunch at my desk. Since May 12, I have been away from home on a project. I will return home on June 20. Work is seven days a week. I was at my post this morning at 6am. It is now 10:40 and I won't be in bed until after midnight. Yesterday my schedule was the same. Monday, my day was 5am to 2am.
My main activity on this project is the create, validate, execute, and communicate the results of computer simulations of the activity we are charged with completing. The value of this activity to the company is more than $7 billion dollars. I have two master's degrees and, if you believe the teacher salaries I saw posted here, make much less than at least some teachers.
I am not here to teacher bash, but neither am I interested in this woe is us crap teachers seem to spin every time their pay or hours are brought up. I left teaching in the late seventies for one reason. The collectivists in the NEA and their cohorts at Columbia Teachers College and other graduate schools of education were executing a plan that has gotten us just where we are today. Schools with little hope of educating students because they consist of an environment hostile to learning.
I am, in principle, in favor of public school education. There is something quintessentially American about all of us having the same opportunity, no special breaks for some, no crappy end of the stick for others.
If I were put in charge, the best teacher would be the highest paid individual in the system. Guidance counselors, because they are essentially useless, would be paid the least. About 75% of the non-classroom staff would be eliminated.
Get real, I didn't say everyone did all those things every day. And, I'll bet the gym teachers don't grade many papers.
Work is seven days a week. I was at my post this morning at 6am. It is now 10:40 and I won't be in bed until after midnight.
But you're spending part of that time FReeping, not working. ;-)
I have two master's degrees and, if you believe the teacher salaries I saw posted here, make much less than at least some teachers.
I have only one master's degree, but if you believe the teacher salaries posted here, I make less than half what some teachers make. I must be in the wrong state, huh?
If I were put in charge, the best teacher would be the highest paid individual in the system. Guidance counselors, because they are essentially useless, would be paid the least. About 75% of the non-classroom staff would be eliminated.
I can't argue with any of that.