Anyway, back to whining. Tonight is my first night class of the year.
I was up until 3:30 last night attempting to hit a deadline on a project at work. No time for a nap today, so I’m off to class on 3 hours of sleep. Yawn. At least this time I’m taking the class, not teaching it. No big deal if I drift off a little in the back row. I hope the prof doesn’t take it personally, though.
My brother (who isn’t a teacher) was recently complaining about his own lack of summer productivity.
During his vacation and the weekends, he’s only, that I remember:
added a new shower to the East-side balcony,
opened a new closet under the stairs,
re-roofed the house his wife inherited in a town 3h away from where they live (on lousy roads),
repainted the boy’s room, the kitchen and the hallway.
I know he wanted to do more work on the inherited house and put some protection on the balconies (he’s bought the materials but hasn’t put it up).
My other brother, the Finance Guy, says about summer productivity “an interesting thing about working on the international level as I’m now doing is that you verify that it isn’t only Spain that closes down for July and August… sometimes I wonder why the hell am I in, when the three people whose work I need most in order to go forward are on vacation.” Mind you, he’s only completely redone the filing system.
“Lack of productivity” doesn’t necessarily mean “sitting on my ass.”
Sorry, but Europeans don’t count.
Sure they do, just not always in English.
Kimmy, I’d call you a cunt, but my vagina would take offence.
A short joke
Q: How many Europeans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That’s not funny.
Why not?
They’re not very productive to begin with. Most Europeans spend more time on vacation (or “holiday” as they say in European) than they do at work.
[singsong]Some-body’s jeaaaloooous…[/singsong]
Bien sûr, but still, it’s only good taste not to take most of the year off from work while insisting that you toil as much as those in other countries, or even a common college faculty member.
You have a cite? Cause just a quick google found a bunch of cites that say Europeans don’t in fact get 26 weeks of vacation.
Also if they’re so unproductive how’d they achieve first world status? Why is the pound worth more then the dollar?
9-month workload: (in descending order of time spent) grading, teaching, lecture preparation, meetings, out-of-class interactions with students, research, writing, research and apply for grants.
Summer workload: (in descending order of time spent) research, writing, fieldwork, research and apply for grants, lecture preparation, meetings.
And that’s just the years I don’t teach summer session, currently only one out of the twelve years I’ve been teaching.
I think your misconception is that teaching is all we do. But the second a job comes up where I can teach three small classes a term in my specialty and spend summers relaxing, I’m there.
Bless you, mhendo. You just described my life: many years of expensive education; hired at the pay range you mentioned; no TAs; grading hundreds of essays a month with no help; long hours of grading, planning, writing, developing. At some universities I suppose professors have cushy jobs, but not at mine.
On top of that, over the last decade or so the student body has changed, so now I have to contend with lots of whining, cajoling, rebelling, eye-rolling and overall disrespect from students. I’ve been teaching since before most of them were born, yet apparently they all know more about the subject I teach than I do. I can’t figure out why they’re paying to go to school when they already know everything there is to know. Apparently they think they should hand us a check and we should hand them a diploma.
I would be remiss as a teacher to point out that you meant “teachers,” not “teacher’s.”
It would also help if you knew what you were talking about. I’m a tenure-track faculty member at a major research university. So essentially the day classes let out, and I have fewer obligations on campus, I’m required to produce research that will appear in top-tier journals or major presses. I actually teach in the summer as well.
I did as a matter of fact teach middle and elementary school. First, I had to work another job in the summer - as a single guy living in a relatively inexpensive city (Houston) because the $20K I was bringing home wasn’t enough to live on. Second, teachers are required to do certification work and attend inservice trainings year round. And some of us give a damn about doing a good job, so there’s curriculum review and doing things to enhance our teaching. God forbid if there’s new state standards that you have to align your curriculum to as well.
I’m not going to bitch about my job; I feel lucky to have it, and I really enjoy it 95% of the time. But I manage to respect other fields; I have no idea why others find it hard to respect mine. No idea why you felt the need to drop this steamer in the thread.
ITT: teacher hater gets schooled
Aerobics is a university-level class now?
Now? It has been for at least 25 years.
Aerobics classes? Low “summer productivity”? Having to dispense with your afternoon nap on really busy days?
Oh my goodness gracious! I’m convinced. I take it all back. University is soooooo hard.
Don’t forget having to get up at the ungodly hour of 7AM. :rolleyes:
You’re still a fucking moron.
So are you. But that’s not even news, i guess.
I’ve never quite understood the apparent moral deficiency some people attach to late rising. If person A goes to bed at 11 and gets up at 6, and person B goes to bed at 2 and gets up at 9, why is person B somehow lazier or less productive?
There are times, especially when i’m not teaching, when i go to bed at 3 and don’t get up until 10 or 11. When i’m doing research and writing, i do some of my best work late at night. Would that work be somehow more valuable or interesting if it were carried out at 8.30am instead of 11.30pm?