Teachers

[TridenT]

This is something people don't think about that adds quite a few hours to what teachers do. Every school my wife has taught at has required teachers do extra curriculars at no pay. A lot of nights during the year with the parent-teacher stuff, dances, year book supervisor, etc.

The chaperoning the dances part is the worst though, because I inevitability get dragged along with my wife. Nothing worse than watching 14-16 year olds grind on each other for 3 hours in a dark gym while the teachers struggle to get them off each other. One dance we did we noticed a big group of kids gathered in a circle in the middle of the floor blocking our view. My wife rushes over there, and in the middle of the circle was a boy sitting in a chair, and one of the girls is trying to give him a lap dance. That was a fun one to break up.

lol. You guys must be putting on good dances. Budget cuts haven't hit that hard then. Unless it's a private school I suppose.

 

[Capt Caveman]

I'd like to see these studies.

Just do the math.
Guy working 40 hours a week, 2 weeks vacation, 10 paid holidays or 48 weeks or 240 days of work
1920 hours.

Average school year is around 180 days. Let's say a week of work before, after and a week worth of teacher workshops for another 15 days. That brings us to 195 days of work a year.
That means a teacher would have to work 9.8 hours for every day of work for the entire year to average what an 8 hour a day employee makes.

7am-445pm everyday!

Students are in school for around 7 hours a day. So teachers are spending almost 3 hours a day without students in front of them grading home work and tests??

Wow, you are moron outside of P&N too. Where is the time allocated to grading 150 papers? 25 hours right there if only 10 minutes is spent on each paper reviewing, commenting, etc. Meeting with parents? After school functions? etc...

 

[Bateluer]

I think its either severely overworked and underpaid, or severely underworked and overpaid, with little in the middle.

 

[gothamhunter]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/06/living/teachers-want-to-tell-parents/index.html

A quote I felt accurately describes some situations teachers get into

For starters, we are educators, not nannies. We are educated professionals who work with kids every day and often see your child in a different light than you do. If we give you advice, don't fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don't want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you're willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future.

Trust us. At times when I tell parents that their child has been a behavior problem, I can almost see the hairs rise on their backs. They are ready to fight and defend their child, and it is exhausting. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I tell a mom something her son did and she turns, looks at him and asks, "Is that true?" Well, of course it's true. I just told you. And please don't ask whether a classmate can confirm what happened or whether another teacher might have been present. It only demeans teachers and weakens the partnership between teacher and parent.

I feel so sorry for administrators and teachers these days whose hands are completely tied. In many ways, we live in fear of what will happen next. We walk on eggshells in a watered-down education system where teachers lack the courage to be honest and speak their minds. If they make a slight mistake, it can become a major disaster.
My mom just told me a child at a local school wrote on his face with a permanent marker. The teacher tried to get it off with a wash cloth, and it left a red mark on the side of his face. The parent called the media, and the teacher lost her job. My mom, my very own mother, said, "Can you believe that woman did that?"
I felt hit in the gut. I honestly would have probably tried to get the mark off as well. To think that we might lose our jobs over something so minor is scary. Why would anyone want to enter our profession? If our teachers continue to feel threatened and scared, you will rob our schools of our best and handcuff our efforts to recruit tomorrow's outstanding educators.