Teachers are lazy wankers

[Charlie Tan]

After working as a journalist for 20 years and then not working for about two years, I had to start thinking about what to do with the rest of my life. A lot of people told me that I should work as a teacher. So after considering this for a long time, I decided to switch jobs.
I like teaching.
That doesn't mean that I love schools. But I realize that part of me becoming a reporter was that I enjoy telling stories, that I enjoy sharing knowledge.

Coming fall, I'll be starting University again, to get my degree as a teacher, which will take a year. But as I'm currently "between jobs" (sarcasm directed towards self), I checked out if there was any temp job I could get. I found one, and I got it. Yay me.

Now, for the following part, I'm sure there are difs between countries, but as I've been to college in the US and Sweden, and lived with a college teacher in Spain, I think I can say that the details might change, but in general, the job stays the same.

So I asked the prinipal about my working hours. It's a part time job (75%). Here it is:
Monday:
8-10 a.m. available in case students need to talk to me about... (whatever)
2-4 p.m. Talk with other teachers about the students.
Tuesday:
8-10 a.m. actual teaching
Wednesday:
8-11 a.m. actual teaching
Thursday:
8-11.30 actual teaching
11.30 -12.10 lunch
12.10 - 3 p.m. actual teaching
Friday:
8-11 actual teacing

Back to the title of the OP.
When I talked to the principal about my working hours, she commented " well, I see that Thursdays are gonna be tough. Long day. You start at eight and work to three with only half an hour of lunch."
Long day?
WTF.

This is a 75% job. It looks to me more like less than half time.

Oh, and I met another teacher, with tenure, today. He was complaining about the heavy workload.

note: each school year has the following breaks:

Spring break: 1 week
Easter break: 1 week
Summer Break: 10 weeks
Halloween/fal break: 1 week
Christmas/New Year break: 2 weeks

That's 15 weeks of paid vacation for a teacher with tenure.

I'm happy for myself. I'm not getting a great pay check, but I'm getting a lot of freedom, a decent pay check, and the benefit of picking my own working hours.

And my coworkers complaint about how tough life as a teacher is...?

[Scribble]

I would bet that being a teacher involves a lot more time and effort than you think. IANA teacher, but IAA TA. I've found that, for many of the courses I've taught, the time I spend on them outside the classroom (or lab, in my case) often way, way, way exceeds the time I spend actually teaching students during their lab period.

The schedule you've seen accounts only for your scheduled time on campus or in the school. There's lots of other work to be done, but there's no set time or place it has to happen in, though I'd guess that there are deadlines you'll have to meet. There's grading, making lesson plans, meeting with parents, meeting individually with students, any lab or other prep work, etc. And teaching for several hours straight can be really exhausting. That light 8 to 3 day on Thursdays will feel much, much heavier after you've gone through it a few times. Oh, and don't forget--you may end up prepping way before you roll in at 8, and you may end up doing grading, tear-down, etc. into the evening.

Oh, and all those lovely holidays listed in your schedule don't take into account mandatory teacher in-service or required continuing education credits. Or you may find that you need to use that time to grade, do lesson plans, etc.

I expect that lots of teachers will be posting here shortly. And I'm sure they won't hesitate to fill you in on the absurdly, decadently relaxing professional lives they lead.*





*Note to the irony impaired--this sentence was sarcastic.

[NinjaChick]

1. There's a big difference between a college professor and a elementary/middle/high school teacher. I was lucky in high school to have some incredibly dedicated teachers; one of them routinely was at school doing lesson plans, grading papers, etc, from 7AM-7PM.

2. Yeah, a lot of professors are lazy. They often don't even grade their papers; they sometimes write exams and stand up in front of classes and talk. Which makes me very thankful for my school: all discussion based classes (no lectures), my largest class has 18 students and 2 professors. All my other classes have less than 15 students.

[silenus]

Yep, we sure are. Never met a lazier, more no-account bunch in my life. Try and keep it on the QT, ok?

[Bryan Ekers]

So, how lazy do you have to be to be a lazy wanker, anyway? You lose interest halfway through, disappointing your wang in mid-stroke? Yeesh, talk about a lack of focus.

[Monstre]

Gosh yes, aren't we, though?

I'm full-time teaching faculty at Florida State, in Computer Science. And I'm obviously a lazy bastard teaching three programming courses, managing a bunch of TAs (writing their lesson plans, checking their grading), making up assignments, writing grading specs and test cases for assignments (the TAs grade those), grading all the tests (3 per term per class) myself...

Oh, did I mention that I usually have 100-150 students per term? that's the average. A couple years ago, I had 300 students in my classes in one term. That's 300 students' tests I graded, midterm and final in one course, and three tests per student (two term tests and final) in the other.

Scan-Tron? Hell, no. They get some short answer, but also code-writing questions on tests. Which I grade and get to dig through to see if partial credit is merited.

lazy ass Monstre...

[aurelian]

Fuck you too, Gaspode.

I earn 3500/ semester (I most certainly do not have any paid vacations) teaching Spanish at Madison. I plan the entire class, I do all the grading (tests - again, no scantrons - short answers, essay and verb conjugations), grade their compositions, plan all the activities, hold office hours - basically all the work a professor would do without the authority or salary.
To make ends meet, I either have to teach two classes (plus my own classes as a doctoral student), or, like this semester, go out and get another job. And for the summers, well, I'm usually s.o.l.

I work. A lot. Ever thought about having, I dunno, maybe TWO examples before you make a generalization?

[Zoe]

Hi,Gaspode. I've been to Malmo! I didn't go to any of the schools there, but I did go some some in Odense, Denmark. The first thing that I noticed was that there were no policemen visible in the hallways.

I noticed in your list was that teachers are paid in the summer months. I've never known of that happening in the States unless you are teaching summer school. Teachers are essentially laid off every summer.

One teacher that I know used to get a job sweeping the floor at the Ford Glass Plant when it was in operation in Nashville. He earned more money per hour sweeping the floor than he did teaching.

I taught 25 classes a week and had other responsibiities also such as forensics coach, club sponsor, department chairman, prom chairman, senior sponsor, fund-raising chairman, career day chairman, Nashville Institute for the Arts co-ordinator, substitute manual coordinator, Metropolitan Nashville Education Association Representative, Nashville Council of Teachers of English Member, school bus supervisor, field trip organizer, blah, blah, blah.

Then there was after school tutoring, grading papers, planning, parent conferences, faculty meetings, sports supervision and ticket sales, professional develoment, etc.

Then one day on the way home from school, I went by my doctor's office for my annual physical exam. He put me in the hospital and didn't even let me go home. He and the shrink he called in said that I shouldn't go back to school anymore. So I didn't.

I don't think that anyone thought I was lazy. Ha!

[Charlie Tan]

I know some stuff doesn't compare between countries, parts of countries, levels, types of education. Please note that the schedule I posted above includes administration time outside class.
And teachers I know are constantly complaining that the demands are bigger each year.
That might be so. But most teachers I know went straight from school to learning to be a teacher to working as one, never having been outside that world, I can only say that their perception of what a tough job is lacks some references. I only know that I'll be able to do this job and continue studying comp.lt. at half time and still not end up doing as much work as I did as a full time journalist.

Zoe - does that go for all teachers, not being paid during the breaks?

[zephyrine]

Gaspode : a word of advice, honey: keep the "Teachers are lazy wankers" bit to yourself when you're in the faculty room, OK? Otherwise we'll be reading about your lynching in the papers.

It's easy, right? You read up on what you have to teach, go in to class, spout off for a while, say goodbye to your students, and start again. Piece of piss.

If you can teach all day and not find that a heavy workload, you're not doing it right. Check back in once you've tried it.

[Kaitlyn]

The Gaspode is right in one way. Teaching is a profession that can be attractive for lazy people, and it's entirely possible to do the job without putting forth much effort.

It is not, however, possible to do the job well, or even competently without a lot of hard work. The time spent outside of class by a teacher who preps well equals the time spent in class.

I've worked for six different school districts. I get paid for the days I work. The only time I get paid for a day I don't work is for the same holidays everyone gets paid for, sick days, and weather cancellations. Summers are unpaid, and I have to either save out of my salary or get a summer job to get through the summer. That's not a vacation, it's seasonal unemployment.

[JohnBckWLD]

Originally Posted by The Gaspode

I'm getting a lot of freedom, a decent pay check, and the benefit of picking my own working hours.

Don't mention the paid sabbaticals...that raises all kinds of holy hell.

[Manda JO]

There is absolutly no point in trying to prove whether or not teaching is a tough job. and people who think it is the only tough job out there are clearly deluding themselves. However, the fact that it is not at all difficult to get a teaching position suggests that it really isn't that great of a deal--if it were, people would be in heavy compitition for every avalible slot.

[Kimstu]

The Gaspode: After working as a journalist for 20 years and then not working for about two years

Mmm, gotta love those Swedish unemployment benefits, eh? Considering the following:

The individual Swedish worker enjoys benefits, by law or by union contract, that include five weeks of paid holiday, paid time off for illness or child care, 16 months of paid parental leave, regulated working hours, overtime compensation and pension benefits.

Wow! Five weeks paid vacation, paid sick/parental leave, legally mandated overtime and pension!

Maybe what's going on here is simply that Swedes are lazy wankers, not Swedish teachers in particular?

(Semi-kidding; I personally think that mandating reasonable working conditions is a sign not of laziness but intelligence. However, I can't resist pointing out the irony of seeing a poster from welfare-state Sweden complaining to a board composed largely of Americans that his teaching job is too cushy---and blaming it on the teaching profession as a whole! Wimp.)

C'mon over here, Gas! We need teachers! We'll be happy to find you a teaching job that satisfies your work ethic! How does $18 K/year in an inner-city school with ten-hour days plus 10 hours/week of extra administrative paperwork sound to you? Oh, you also have to help "talk down" armed students threatening violence, and pay for classroom supplies out of your own salary. We'll get you out of that lazy-wanker rut of yours in no time!

[Elenfair]

I cannot WAIT for you to actually be teaching. Go spend a few months in an elementary school and then get back to me, okay?

It should be fuuuun.

[buttonjockey308]

I had a teacher related thread not too long ago, and never really got the answer to this question;

If a teacher makes X per year, do they not TRULY make X because of the summer 'layoff' or do they have to save from their checks during the working months the amount they will need to stay above the fiscal waters during the summer?

I am under the impression that the yearly comp of X is figured into the weekly (or bi-weekly) checks during the school season, so that the teachers will be properly compensated (as the published salary states) for the year.

Right or Wrong?

[Kimstu]

bj, are you asking whether teachers actually get paid the advertised salary of $X$ per year, or just whether their salary payments come at irregular intervals throughout the year?

[F. U. Shakespeare]

I'm an engineer/mathematician, but I've had various teaching experiences: I taught math classes in college, I teach technical classes to adults at work, and I've taught individual music lessons.

Currently, I volunteer one day a month through a program at the military Agency where I work. I go to a local middle school (grades 6-8) and give presentations on various applications of math to the real world. [hijack](I think this is a really good idea: lots of excellent math teachers haven't had any professional math experience to pass along to students, but even the most mediocre mathematicians (e.g., me) can recount lots of real-world uses of math).[/hijack]

As much as I enjoy teaching, and as much fun it is to go in one day a month, at which time I get received better by the students because I'm a 'novelty', there is no way I would take the teachers' place full-time. They work very hard, all damn day, and then go home and keep working.

A critical point: teaching adults (which college students usually are) is not the same thing as teaching kids.

I have no experience keeping middle school kids in order, and am amazed at how the teachers do it: they have to be Dirty Harry one minute, and nice enough to be liked the next.

And groups are different than one-on-one: I have taught music lessons to individual children, but when you get more than three or four kids together, I swear to God they're a whole different species.

In my school days, special ed teachers had the very hard of teaching kids who were learning-disabled. Today, they've also been handed a fair number of kids who would have been labeled 'discipline problems' in the past. They now have to keep order and continue teaching the learning-disabled, while dealing with the occasional tantrum, fight or firearm.

The special ed teachers have it the worst. Gaspode, take one of their jobs for a month and get back to us.

PS: I know teachers are not the only people with tough jobs. But they aren't lazy.

[buttonjockey308]

Originally Posted by Kimstu

bj, are you asking whether teachers actually get paid the advertised salary of $X$ per year, or just whether their salary payments come at irregular intervals throughout the year?

Yes. What I'm asking is if teachers get the advertised salaries of $X, and if so, are the checks during the school year higher to reflect not getting a paycheck while being laid off?

[WhyNot]

Originally Posted by buttonjockey308

I had a teacher related thread not too long ago, and never really got the answer to this question;

If a teacher makes X per year, do they not TRULY make X because of the summer 'layoff' or do they have to save from their checks during the working months the amount they will need to stay above the fiscal waters during the summer?

I am under the impression that the yearly comp of X is figured into the weekly (or bi-weekly) checks during the school season, so that the teachers will be properly compensated (as the published salary states) for the year.

Right or Wrong?

The details depend on whether you're talking pre-college, adjunct college or full professor college.

For elementary, Jr. High and High School:
They get paid the advertised amount (well, after union fees, mandatory retirement savings and all the usual suspects are taken out, of course) Most schools have an option of taking your annual salary in 26 payments (one every other week year round) or 18 payments (one every other week during the school year.) But it's the same total amount. According to the AFT, the average beginning teacher's salary for the 2003-2004 school year was $30,496. This was a 3.3% raise from the previous year. Health insurance premiums (which are required if you're a teacher - you cannot opt out) rose 13% in that same year, however. Here's a bunch of numbers, if you like that sort of thing.

Adjunct college or university faculty:
Teachers who are "part timers" (put in quotes because many "part-timers" teach more hours a semester than "full timers") are paid per class, and only while the class is going on. Payment varies widely. At some of the community colleges around here, the going rate is $1000 for a one semester course. The highest I've heard of personally is aurelian's $3500. My husband is currently making $3200 at DePaul University. He's been teaching there for 8 years, so he's on the highest end of the pay scale there. There are no benefits, no retirement plan, no 401K, no health care, no bonuses, no contracts and no job security. He cannot, at DePaul, teach more than 6 classes per year, so the maximum he can make there is $19200 annually. Most adjunct faculty teach at more than one college, to pastiche a living wage together. At Columbia College, he makes $1100 per class, and is required to pay union dues out of that pay.

Full "Professor" at a college or university:
This is the one I know least about, although I pray that soon I'll know more! These guys have a set-up similar to the OP. There are several (usually between 5-8) classes to teach a year. These guys do get benefits, as well as the potential to apply for paid sabbaticals. (Um, it's pretty hard to actually GET a paid sabbatical, however.) They also have a contract which can give them some level of job security. I'm not going to look up salaries here, as they vary so widely as to make the averages useless. They also have the option of splitting their pay up to cover just the academic year or the full calendar year.

[KeithT]

Originally Posted by aurelian

Fuck you too, Gaspode.

I earn 3500/ semester (I most certainly do not have any paid vacations) teaching Spanish at Madison. I plan the entire class, I do all the grading (tests - again, no scantrons - short answers, essay and verb conjugations), grade their compositions, plan all the activities, hold office hours - basically all the work a professor would do without the authority or salary.
To make ends meet, I either have to teach two classes (plus my own classes as a doctoral student), or, like this semester, go out and get another job. And for the summers, well, I'm usually s.o.l.

I work. A lot. Ever thought about having, I dunno, maybe TWO examples before you make a generalization?

Hi, aurelian. Nice to see a fellow UW TA.

Last semester, I taught the discussions for a course in engineering economic analysis-- in other words, basic finance. Though lectures were taught by a full-time faculty member, it was his first semester teaching the subject, and he left a lot of students a little confused; about a third of the class eventually stopped going to lecture. That left me having to draw up my own lesson plans, and essentially teach a "mini-lecture" each class period to help fill in the gaps in my class's knowledge. Grading took surprisingly long-- usually ten hours a week, and I let my students work in small groups for assignments.

This semester's looking to be even longer. My appointment was upped to the 66% level-- that is, I'm expected to work on my TA duties 26.67 hours a week, in addition to my research and my own graduate-level classes. The course I teach was retooled over winter break into a broader-based competitive manufacturing class, so all of the lesson plans will be new. Each week, lecture will be taught by a different professor, based on their areas of specialization. Honestly, I'm looking forward to the change; finance is a pretty dull area to teach.

Except that things hadn't gone quite as planned. First, the professor in charge of coordinating the course had double bypass surgery while travelling in Singapore about a week before the semester began. (He's doing fine, and plans to be back in his office in a few weeks.) In his absence, nobody in the department seems to know what's going on. Adjunct faculty have asked *me* what should be on their lesson plans. And class starts Monday.

It's going to be an interesting 15 weeks.

[aurelian]

Hi Keith!

Originally posted by The Gaspode:
But most teachers I know went straight from school to learning to be a teacher to working as one, never having been outside that world

Jobs held by aurelian since she started working (earning a paycheck) 11 years ago:

Deli clerk, grill monkey
Hostess
Waitress
Room Service runner and doing set-up
House cleaning
Tutor
Barista
Burrito roller
Cocktail waitress
Sub sandwich clerk
Waitress (again)
Call center worker
Webpage designer
Oh yeah, and TA

Have I ever had a 9-5 that involved business suits and a commuter train? No. But even though I went straight from high school to undergrad to grad, I have worked outside academia. Hell, that's why I stay, despite the bureaucratic clusterfucks and pontificating Republicans.

[beckwall]

Originally Posted by Manda JO

However, the fact that it is not at all difficult to get a teaching position suggests that it really isn't that great of a deal--if it were, people would be in heavy compitition for every avalible slot.

WTF? Which planet do you live on? Here in parts of California, teachers are getting laid off due to budgetary issues, then they have to wait months to see if they will be re-hired. Talk about cooking the books - the district has to balance its budget, so it dumps a bunch of teachers. When there is a legitimate opening, the applicants are lined up around the block. Sure, you might get "lucky" and get hired right out of school for an inner city job that pays squat and requires you to be bi-lingual (and semi-lingual in Hmong, Russian, Vietnamese). Be prepared to pass through a metal detector everyday and the possibility that your life will be threatened on a regular basis.

Maybe I just know exceptional teachers. They are dedicated, definitely not lazy, buy school supplies with money out of their own pocket, work extra jobs during the summer break, and spend extra (non-compensated) time at home correcting and planning lessons. I suggest that everyone go spend a full day in an elementary school classroom and see what the teacher is dealing with. It's not like it used to be when we were growing up.

[ivylass]

Are things different in Sweden? My SIL is a teacher, and her day does not stop just because the bell rings. She's frequently up until late at night, grading papers and preparing lesson plans.

That's on top of keeping house, and being a wife and mother.

[sugaree]

Gaspode, how long have you been on the job?

Zoe, some districts now allow you the choice of spreading your salary throughout the year. It's the same amount of money, just split up into smaller, more numerous paychecks.

[catsix]

I teach at the college level, in addition to my other duties at the college I work at, and my routine week involves 44 hours of work Monday - Thursday. One eight hour day, and three 14 hour days.

Wait you say, that adds up to 50 hours a week, not 44 right? Yes, actually it does. I spend fifty hours a week at work over four days, but the times I'm not actually in a class or doing explicitly scheduled meetings/network administration aren't counted as working hours. That accounts for 6 hours a week that I'm at work, but not getting paid for being there.

Nor does it include the work I have to take home, the special events that I go to and don't get paid for, the meetings that I get called in on Fridays (normally a day off) for, the emails and phone calls I answer at home from advisees, and a bunch of other stuff.

I've earned three weeks paid vacation by virtue of 3 years full time employment there, but can only take them during between quarter breaks, of which there are two which last two weeks each. On the week that there are no classes but I don't have vacation time to use, I'm at work planning lessons, submitting proposals for new courses to the Dept. of Education, scheduling meetings with students who need additional course counseling during the break period, fixing network problems, upgrading networks, managing the Unix servers, etc. I also have no TAs and must do all my own exam writing and all my own grading.

Is it possible to do the job and be lazy? Yes, I'm sure it is. But like said above, it's not possible to do the job well and be lazy.

[CrazyCatLady]

Sugaree, it sounds as though he's just gotten the job, and hasn't actually been on it any length of time at all yet. So I'd take his comments about the workload with a shaker and a half of salt. I think once he gets going he'll realize that the four hours he's paid to be there for consultations with kids and other teachers isn't nearly going to cover his paperwork and such that his opinion may shift a bit.

I'm impressed, though--very few people are actually willing to Pit themselves as being lazy wankers. He does lose points, though, for not actually calling himself a lazy wanker.

[Manda JO]

Originally Posted by beckwall

WTF? Which planet do you live on? Here in parts of California, teachers are getting laid off due to budgetary issues, then they have to wait months to see if they will be re-hired. Talk about cooking the books - the district has to balance its budget, so it dumps a bunch of teachers. When there is a legitimate opening, the applicants are lined up around the block. Sure, you might get "lucky" and get hired right out of school for an inner city job that pays squat and requires you to be bi-lingual (and semi-lingual in Hmong, Russian, Vietnamese). Be prepared to pass through a metal detector everyday and the possibility that your life will be threatened on a regular basis.

Gad! Why do people act like teaching in "the inner city" is a fate worse than death, or as if a shortage in the "inner city" is somehow not a shortage, because it's not a real option for people who grew up middle class? I teach in the "inner city", I walk through metal detectors every day. I teach students from Afganistan, Zimbabwe, Vietnam and every Latin American country from Mexico to Peru. And it's not because I couldn't get a "real teaching job".

There are many places where teaching positions stay vacant because no one is avalible to fill them. This may not be true everywhere or for all postions, but there are a lot of teaching positions out there that people are not fighting for. The fact that these positions continue to exist is pretty good evidence that it isn't a fabulous deal, perfect for a "lazy wanker" that has no desire to break a sweat and only really wants summers off--if it was that good of a job, the inner city positions (which are often higher paying than the suburban ones) would be filled by people moving across the country looking for a place to be lazy.

[stretch]

Originally Posted by buttonjockey308

Yes. What I'm asking is if teachers get the advertised salaries of $X, and if so, are the checks during the school year higher to reflect not getting a paycheck while being laid off?

Teacher pay is a strange thing. In Washington, K-12 teacher's contract to work for the year, and get to choose how they are paid--bi-monthly for 9 months, or bi-monthly for 12 months. Teachers contract for all different pay rates depending on the school district. The state has set salary levels, IIRC it's now $28,000 for a first year teacher. Teachers with masters degrees get better pay; I believe the state base pay if $45,000 or so.

But, each school district can pay the teachers in excess of that base amount (if they have the money). Where I live most teachers make the base salary plus additional for additional responsibilities--coaching, advising the debate teams, stuff like that. The school districts in the more affluent areas generally pay their teachers base plus whatever the teachers can negotiate--sometimes several thousand dollars a year above the base rate. School districts that can levy lots of additional money can pay teachers more. They do have mandatory retirement deductions and health insurance premiums that go up every year. However, in Washington you can opt out of school district/higher ed health insurance if you have other health insurance (usually through a spouse/domestic partner; sometimes through an additonal employer).

In Washington, a K-12 teacher is required to work a 7.5 hour day (with paid lunch and one paid planning period). Students are required to be in school 180 days a year. I believe teachers are required to work at the school 183 days per year (it may be 187 by now--the state has been trying to increase it, with the teachers fighting tooth and nail).

In theory, this means the teachers are at the school longer than the students. In practice, in our school district, parking lots are basically empty the minute the students are gone. I was never able to contact a teacher before or after school class hours in any of the school districts my children attended. They would call me back during planning periods.

I used to be a student; I know that some teachers are great and work hours outside of their scheduled school day. Until a couple of years ago, I also was a parent of two school age daughters. I had many problems with teachers (and administrators) during those years.

As a former employee of our state's teachers retirement agency, I know that a lot of K-12 teachers are out of touch with the non-school world. They used to call and ask us if we were open during school breaks--as if we didn't have to work year round just because they wouldn't be at the schools! I'm not sure how they thought they were going to get their retirement checks if we had the summer off...

Teachers are like any other profession. The good ones put in a lot of effort; even working extra unpaid hours. The crappy ones skate by and give everybody else a bad name. Unfortunately, although we hear a lot of the "I only contract for a year at a time" crap, it is very hard to get rid of a teacher who has been at a district for a while. They do have union protections.

We do not have a teacher shortage in Washington; we have a shortage of people who want to work in the lower paying districts. Teachers apply by the hundreds for positions in the nicer districts--my sister-in-law is a teacher who had trouble finding a job where she wanted to work due to the competition. I understand wanting to work close to where you live/wanting the best pay/not wanting to get assualted in the classroom. However, I don't like the teachers organizations telling voters that we don't have enough teachers when that is not true; we have the teachers, just not the jobs they want.

You know who really gets over-paid in the school system? The administrators. But that's a whole 'nother rant there.

[Knorf]

I'm a college professor, and before I hear any more criciticsm about the "easy" work load of a professor, let me call your attention to the phrase "publish or perish."

Hint: it's not a fucking joke.

Myself, I'm dreading my third-year review. I should have enough professional activity to show for it, but let's face it: posts to the SDMB aren't going to cut it.

[catsix]

Knorf:

I'm starting to know the feeling. We had one of the publishing house reps in at work last week and they and administration have gotten on this lovely idea that writing our own texts would be wonderful.

I wonder when I should fit that in as I have no TAs or research assistants to speak of.

[Kaitlyn]

Originally Posted by buttonjockey308

Yes. What I'm asking is if teachers get the advertised salaries of $X, and if so, are the checks during the school year higher to reflect not getting a paycheck while being laid off?

Public k-12 schoolteachers are salaried employees. We work a fixed contracted number of days--at my current school district it's 186--and recieve the base salary and benefits described on the salary schedule. Pay is distributed evenly throughout the pay period.

I've worked at two types of districts. At the first, base pay was divided into twelve equal amounts and distributed once a month throughout the fiscal year (August to September). Thus, during the school year, while I was working, each monthly paycheck was reduced by 1/6 to provide for a paycheck in July and August. Teachers who get paid year round for a traditional school year are getting paid less than what they've earned during the school year to compensate.

At the other schools, as at my current school, I got paid only during the months I was working--September through June. My base salary is split into ten equal payments for those ten months. Thus, I get paid for the time I work, and must find some means to support myself during the summer months.

[Ink a dink a dink]

Originally Posted by aurelian

I earn 3500/ semester (I most certainly do not have any paid vacations) teaching Spanish at Madison.

Hey aurelian, are you at UW-Mad or another school in town? My dad is an educator at MATC-MAD and his wife works at Edgewood College. We're an education FAMILY!

I adore Madison. Wave to Shakti and The Soap Opera for me, and that great little Afgahni restaurant - oh, and the Blue Marlin. God, I miss Madison.

Wait...how cold is is it right now?

inky

Sorry for the hijack

[Charlie Tan]

Kimstu, I know it's tongue in check, but all those benefits only look good on paper. In real life, they're not too hot. It's a topic for anothet thread though. (And BTW, my severence package was very good, and paid for by a private company: 18 months of full pay and keeping all benefits).

I'm sure being a teacher can be really tough, for lots of reasons. There are schools in Sweden too, where kids show up armed. Teaching history to 15 year old hormone bombs isn't easy in any school, not even the best. And I'm sure I'm gonna be very tired for the first couple of weeks, finding my way around the place, learning all names, fitting in, being tested by the students.

That's not the point though, and I won't budge: The constanr whining from teachers about how tough their jobs are, is something that's been bothering me for a long time. Back then, I was outside looking in. Now, when I got my first glimpse from the inside, it sure seems as if all my presumptions are correct: Teaching is a job, like any other, sometimes tough, sometimes soft. The amount of whining, though, is nowhere near being justified, as compared to the workload people face in other jobs, without whining.

And yes, I'll keep my moth shut by the water cooler, which is the reason I came here to vent.

[catsix]

I'd like to see if your mind changes in a year. I thought teaching was easy as hell when I first got the job.

Then I discovered how much work is part of the job that the boss doesn't consider 'part of the job'.

[WhyNot]

Originally Posted by The Gaspode

Kimstu, I know it's tongue in check, but all those benefits only look good on paper. In real life, they're not too hot. It's a topic for anothet thread though. (And BTW, my severence package was very good, and paid for by a private company: 18 months of full pay and keeping all benefits).

I'm sure being a teacher can be really tough, for lots of reasons. There are schools in Sweden too, where kids show up armed. Teaching history to 15 year old hormone bombs isn't easy in any school, not even the best. And I'm sure I'm gonna be very tired for the first couple of weeks, finding my way around the place, learning all names, fitting in, being tested by the students.

That's not the point though, and I won't budge: The constanr whining from teachers about how tough their jobs are, is something that's been bothering me for a long time. Back then, I was outside looking in. Now, when I got my first glimpse from the inside, it sure seems as if all my presumptions are correct: Teaching is a job, like any other, sometimes tough, sometimes soft. The amount of whining, though, is nowhere near being justified, as compared to the workload people face in other jobs, without whining.

And yes, I'll keep my moth shut by the water cooler, which is the reason I came here to vent.

Where exactly does this "constant whining" happen, except during contract affirmation time, labor disputes and threads like these where someone denigrates teachers? That is, except in the exact same contexts where any profession is entitled to some "whining" about their salary and benefits being non-commesurate (sp?) with their job duties?

It's not "whining" if it's in the appropriate context of public relations (when the public has to approve tax increases to pay for your raise, you need to let them know why you need a raise!), or labor negotiations or fighting ignorance and defending your honor, sirrah!

[sugaree]

Might be interesting if you posted an update every week or two, Gaspode, a sort of diary of a first-year teacher.

[mhendo]

Originally Posted by WhyNot

Adjunct college or university faculty:[/b]
Teachers who are "part timers" (put in quotes because many "part-timers" teach more hours a semester than "full timers") are paid per class, and only while the class is going on. Payment varies widely. At some of the community colleges around here, the going rate is $1000 for a one semester course. The highest I've heard of personally is aurelian's $3500. My husband is currently making $3200 at DePaul University. He's been teaching there for 8 years, so he's on the highest end of the pay scale there. There are no benefits, no retirement plan, no 401K, no health care, no bonuses, no contracts and no job security. He cannot, at DePaul, teach more than 6 classes per year, so the maximum he can make there is $19200 annually. Most adjunct faculty teach at more than one college, to pastiche a living wage together. At Columbia College, he makes $1100 per class, and is required to pay union dues out of that pay.

I'm a grad student, and this semester i'm teaching a course at a local college to earn some cash and get add some more teaching experience to my CV.

I'm getting $3,300 which is, as you say, at the upper end of what one can expect to receive for teaching a course. Like you, i've heard of people earning less than half that much.

The class meets once a week for three hours. There are fifteen meetings during the semester, making about 45 hours of in-class time for the course. I am also expected to be on campus and available for consultation at least one hour a week but, like most people here, i am actually available for two hours. That's another 30 hours for the semester. So, i start out with 75 hours worth of obligations. If this were all i had to do, i'd be looking at something like $44 per hour for the semester, which is pretty decent money.

But i haven't yet included the time that i will spend grading papers and exams. With twenty students in the class, each writing one short paper (3-4 pages), one longer paper (8-10 pages) and one exam, even if i figured on budgeting only i hour of grading per student, that would be another 20 hours for the course. Of course, it will end up being considerably more than that, because i like to write detailed, helpful comments on students' papers. So now we're at a (very conservative) estimate of 95 hours, or about $35 per hour.

Of course, lots of people would, quite rightly, consider $35 per hour to be pretty decent money. I mean, if you work a 40 hour week at that rate, you're looking at about $70k a year, which is comsiderably better than the national average. But, of course, i haven't yet even begun to allocate time for weekly lesson preparation. This is the first time i'm teaching this particular course and, while i have plenty of material and a good idea of the general outline of each lecture, i still have to sit down and make sure i have a lecture and a class discussion planned out each week, which can take anywhere from a few hours to 10+ hours, depending on which week it happens to be and how much material i have prepared already.

Even if i had taught this course before, though, i would still have to budget a reasonable amount of time each week for class prep. I know tenured professors who have been teaching the same course for years who still spend a couple of hours (often more) preparing for each class, because they like to update and modify their class plans to take account of new developments in the field, or take a new approach to teaching the material. And even teachers who use essentially the same material still generally need to sit and think about what they're going to say and how they want to lead the discussion.

With the amount of prep i have to do this semester (given that it's my first time teaching this course), i'm budgeting a total of 15-20 hours per week for this course, which means an hourly rate of about $11-14 per hour. And if i run into any unexpected problems, this figure could go down. Not a great deal for someone with an MA and well on the way to a PhD. And remeber, as WhyNot says, there are people out there who already have their PhDs who are being paid even less for a similar amount of work.

I'm not complaining about what i'm being paid. The money is enough to help pay the bills, and the experience will be invaluable when i finish my dissertation and go on the job market. But i don't think the amount of work i'm doing, for the amount of money i'm getting, makes me lazy.

I also have plenty of friends who teach in the public schools (elementary and secondary), both here in the US and back in Australia. It seems to me that what Kaitlyn says is right on the money. In many school systems, it is indeed possible to be a lazy teacher, to do the absolute minimum amount of work, and still get by. But if you're a teacher who's even vaguely concerned about the welfare and education of your students, and who has any sense of professionalism, then you're going to be working a lot harder than many people realize. I can't remember how many times i've been to my teacher friends' places and they've had to cut the visit short because of all the grading or other out-of-class work they had to do.

These "teachers are lazy" threads pop up from time to time on these boards, often enough that i no longer get angry about them It's just a little sad, is all.

[Charlie Tan]

Well, There's a staff conference tomorrow morning at 8 and another at 2.
I'll get back with my impressions from the first day.

[ethanwinfield]

Originally Posted by buttonjockey308

I had a teacher related thread not too long ago, and never really got the answer to this question;

If a teacher makes X per year, do they not TRULY make X because of the summer 'layoff' or do they have to save from their checks during the working months the amount they will need to stay above the fiscal waters during the summer?

I am under the impression that the yearly comp of X is figured into the weekly (or bi-weekly) checks during the school season, so that the teachers will be properly compensated (as the published salary states) for the year.

Right or Wrong?

I get paid on the last business day of the month--12 paychecks a year. The published salary scale is divided by 12 to get the monthly salary. It doesn't matter if I work 20 days in the month or 3, my monthly check will be the same. I have worked for districts that pay 9 times during the year. That means you receive your final check on June 30th and don't receive the next one until September 30th. The published annual salary is divided by 9.

Here's an example with easy figures:

District A pays $36000/year
12 monthly checks of $3000

District B pays $36000/year
9 monthly checks of $4000

[Zoe]

In all fairness, the Scandanavian countries aren't welfare states. The citizens generally take a lot of pride in their work. [/hijack]

A look at Gaspode's schedule makes it appear that he will have a comparatively easy time of it at "75%."

I was paid the grand total of $200 a year to coach forensics! That was in the 1960's and 1970's. In the 1980's, workshops still paid $25 a day. Parents were lucky if it covered child care.

Gaspode, at what point does a legitimate complaint become "whining"? Which of these are reasonable and which is just whining?

1. My supplies for the year (ordered on the first day that money becomes available) come in the day that I begin review for the final exam at the end of May.

2. The temperature inside my classroom is 110 degrees F and my students are throwing up from the heat. The school has not provided me with even a fan and the one I brought from home is stolen.

3. One of my students threatens to slit my throat. (He later died in prison, a convicted murderer.)

4. One of my students pours flammable fluid down the hallway and tries to set fire the same day that the principal refused to remove him from my classroom.

5. After I was beaten at school and hospitalized, a principal refuses to allow me to miss forty-five minutes of class to meet with the prosecuting attorney before the trial of the attacker. (He was overruled by his supervisor.)

6. Teachers have no access to the duplicating machine.

7. Since the the janitorial staff has it in their contracts that they do not have to move heavy boxes, when the school is permanently closed, the teachers have to do the packing, labelling, and heavy lifting during their planning periods.

[Lola]

Gaspode, I've been teaching for 10 years. I'm currently in an amazingly well-paid post in an international school teaching the nicest, most amenable, most enthusiastic, most able students I've ever met. And y'know what? I am exhausted every single evening. I'm 33 and relatively fit, but the job of just being around kids all day every day is unbelievably tiring.

Try it before you pontificate about it, mate. Oh, and good luck in your new job; I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

[Charlie Tan]

Originally Posted by Zoe

Gaspode, at what point does a legitimate complaint become "whining"? Which of these are reasonable and which is just whining?

I need to provide a little bit historical backgroud for this. Also, the stages in school aren't really the same.

Mandatory schooling, nine years 7-16. After that "High School", which is divided into "programs" where the kid picks a major and sticks with it for three years. This major could be science, social science, engineering, economics, liberal arts ASF. There are some "core subjects" everyone must take: Swedish, English, Math, History, PE. The major takes up about 4 hours a week, the minor about 2 hours.

It used to be that teachers, working full time, had about 5 classes a day, 40 minutes each, and nothing else. Prep time was at home. This has been changed lately. As the welfare state is eroding, everyone's feeling the cut backs, teachers too. Up to the mid 90's, a teacher would have a class in two subjects, say Swedish and English, and teach the students the same stuff for three years, rolling it around. After the first cycle, they could, and many did, coast, teaching the same stuff over and over, with minimal prep time, short days, 15 weeks paid leave.
When the cutbacks started, the schedules were rearranged and teachers are now required to spend time in school, even if they dn't have class. A full time job now means 45 hour week, of which 35 are supposed to be spent in school. Of these, some 18 hours are spent teaching. The ten other hours are prep time at home, and they exist as a mean of saying that teachers are paying pack to the sytem their long leaves during school breaks. In reality, prep time is now at school, and those added ten hours are only there for show.

The whining I hear is that they have to work so much nowadays, that the schools are locking the teachers in, that they don't have freedom. But at the same time, wage classes and stuff like that have been abolished. Even in public schools (the US connotation, not the UK), the principal sets the wages individually, and even if there's a surplus in some cathegories of teachers, wages are up. A full time teacher, with some age and experience, will now easily make $50k /year, which isn't great by any stretch, but a fair wage that will let one live in god comfort. These figure don't translate to well across countries, because it depends so much on taxes, consumer price index and what you value as a person. I value being able to controll my own time, which I will be able to do, at least to some extent. This is worth more than a bigger paycheck.

The school has a/c, a nice room with photocopiers, faxes ASF. Each teacher has an office, shared by a maximum of two others, with their own computer. We get lunch for about $5 a day, free coffee and cookies. There are schools where kids show up armed, but this is not such a school. As I'm typing this, I'm at home after working two hours in the morning, with nothing really to do. I was the only one that showed up at the teacher's conference, so my work so far has consisted of drinking coffee and talking to people. I'll have to be back for another conference (provided anyone shows up) at two this afternoon.

[sinical brit]

A journalist calling a teacher a lazy wanker !

You couldnt make it up ( at least not any more - right Gaspode )

Sin

[buttonjockey308]

Originally Posted by Kaitlyn

Public k-12 schoolteachers are salaried employees. We work a fixed contracted number of days--at my current school district it's 186--and recieve the base salary and benefits described on the salary schedule. Pay is distributed evenly throughout the pay period.

I've worked at two types of districts. At the first, base pay was divided into twelve equal amounts and distributed once a month throughout the fiscal year (August to September). Thus, during the school year, while I was working, each monthly paycheck was reduced by 1/6 to provide for a paycheck in July and August. Teachers who get paid year round for a traditional school year are getting paid less than what they've earned during the school year to compensate.

At the other schools, as at my current school, I got paid only during the months I was working--September through June. My base salary is split into ten equal payments for those ten months. Thus, I get paid for the time I work, and must find some means to support myself during the summer months.

Thanks, Kaitlyn This is kind of what I was talking about; if teachers get the full $X every year, all that's necessary to support yourself during the summer months is to know your monthly spend rate, and save that much over the remainder of the year to keep yourself afloat during the break. I'm beginning to see that I'm at least a little bit right. Teaching's not an easy job, and as many have said, it takes going above and beyond the call of duty to do it well, but frankly, anyone who gets two months paid vacation hasn't got a bitch coming.

I work 300 days a year, usually more, in the jobs I do. I still spend my own money to buy the gear I need to fight fires (when the dept can't or won't) I still spend my free time giving 'back' to the community in safety education programs, and working around the firehouse, I still go above and beyond the call of duty on a regular basis, because I want to do my job well, but I'm not whining about it, I knew what it was going to be when I signed up, and I live with it, and that's withOUT the two months a year off.

[mhendo]

Originally Posted by buttonjockey308

Thanks, Kaitlyn This is kind of what I was talking about; if teachers get the full $X every year, all that's necessary to support yourself during the summer months is to know your monthly spend rate, and save that much over the remainder of the year to keep yourself afloat during the break. I'm beginning to see that I'm at least a little bit right. Teaching's not an easy job, and as many have said, it takes going above and beyond the call of duty to do it well, but frankly, anyone who gets two months paid vacation hasn't got a bitch coming.

But saying this without knowing exactly how much they are getting paid is completely meaningless. It's only "paid vacation" if the amount of money you earn during the rest of the year does, in fact, cover your expenses for the time that you're not teaching. In many public school districts throughout the country, teachers take private tutoring jobs and other types of temporary work because the yearly salary isn't enough to actually support someone for a full calendar year.

[buttonjockey308]

Originally Posted by mhendo

But saying this without knowing exactly how much they are getting paid is completely meaningless. It's only "paid vacation" if the amount of money you earn during the rest of the year does, in fact, cover your expenses for the time that you're not teaching. In many public school districts throughout the country, teachers take private tutoring jobs and other types of temporary work because the yearly salary isn't enough to actually support someone for a full calendar year.

Saying my point is meaningless is to miss it competely. It's STILL tantamount to paid vacation, even if you only get $18,000 a year as a base salary, just because you get it all in 10 months vs. 12 doesn't exempt you from managing it to keep your head above water.

There are plenty of people in plenty of professions who take second and third jobs to make ends meet, just because you're a teacher, doesn't make you special. I technically work four jobs. FOUR, to make ends meet, and I don't have the luxury of the 24 on 48 off schedules. I work 8 hour schedules at all of them. I get just shy of three weeks off every year, and I've been at it nearly 15 years. Some have it better, some have it worse, I just don't think that teachers are any different or better than the rest of us.

[mhendo]

Originally Posted by buttonjockey308

Saying my point is meaningless is to miss it competely. It's STILL tantamount to paid vacation, even if you only get $18,000 a year as a base salary, just because you get it all in 10 months vs. 12 doesn't exempt you from managing it to keep your head above water.

There are plenty of people in plenty of professions who take second and third jobs to make ends meet, just because you're a teacher, doesn't make you special. I technically work four jobs. FOUR, to make ends meet, and I don't have the luxury of the 24 on 48 off schedules. I work 8 hour schedules at all of them. I get just shy of three weeks off every year, and I've been at it nearly 15 years. Some have it better, some have it worse, I just don't think that teachers are any different or better than the rest of us.

But no-one here, least of all me, is making the argument that teachers are "special" or "better than the rest of us." If you'll recall, the title of this thread is "Teachers are lazy wankers," and some of us are simply trying to show that the reality is often quite different.

And i'm not saying that teachers have no responsibility to manage their money. Sure they do, like anyone else. But you're acting like they have some sort of luxury existence outside the classroom. To take your example, in my lexicon "$18,000 as a base salary," with two months off isn't called two months paid vacation; it's called "underemployment." YMMV.

[buttonjockey308]

Originally Posted by mhendo

But no-one here, least of all me, is making the argument that teachers are "special" or "better than the rest of us." If you'll recall, the title of this thread is "Teachers are lazy wankers," and some of us are simply trying to show that the reality is often quite different.

And i'm not saying that teachers have no responsibility to manage their money. Sure they do, like anyone else. But you're acting like they have some sort of luxury existence outside the classroom. To take your example, in my lexicon "$18,000 as a base salary," with two months off isn't called two months paid vacation; it's called "underemployment." YMMV.

I suppose my examples were more general than specific to our conversation, so let me apologize for that, and I'll say that Gaspode's blanket statement is one with which I disagree, but I never said that teachers had a luxury existance, never even heavily implied it. However. If you only have to work for ten months, and you still get all the benefits of working for 12, I'd say there's a serious advantage in teaching, as opposed to the remainder of the educated working classes.

Frankly, I think that old agrarian standby ought to be cast aside where ever it can be. There aren't too many places anymore where kids need to work the fields in the summertime, and even more frankly, our nations' kids could stand to be better educated. If we did away with summer breaks, we could add one entire year of learning by the time college comes around, and children would end up being better preapred for the REAL world, where you're expected to work all year long.

$18,000 for a salary SUCKS, underemployment AND HOW! Yet I doubt that many teachers make that little for long (we've all got dues to pay, so to speak).

[Zoe]

If we did away with summer breaks, we could add one entire year of learning by the time college comes around, and children would end up being better preapred for the REAL world, where you're expected to work all year long.

Teachers are required to continue their educations in order to renew their teaching certificates. Most do this by taking courses in the summer. Still others supplement their incomes with the work they are able to find during the summers.

Teachers do an enormous amount of work on their own time before school begins. In our school system, there was never more than a day or so to get your classroom in order, plans made, bulletin boards up, textbooks brought in and materials developed. Most of the time before students arrive was spent in faculty and departmental meetings. Since we wouldn't find out what we would actually be teaching a few days before students returned, we had to spend our own time or nothing would have been ready to go.

We also used our own money to buy supplies for the school. When those supplies were repeatedly stolen, I finally bought two big chains and padlocked my cabinet and my desk.

But one of the essential differences between a fireman and a teacher is that everyone respects a fireman.

Gaspode, judging from what you have described, there is an enormous difference between Swedish schools and American schools.

If Sweden is a "welfare state" at least everyone fares well by sharing the benefits. That is not what is meant by a welfare state in the U.S.

By the way, do you understand the Danish language?