She may not even go in on some days. I think she only teaches 3 hours per week this semester. The rest of the time she works at home.
She typically gets up at 5:30 and starts dealing with e-mail – she gets a lot of it. Then she moves on to administrative stuff, correcting assignments, counselling grad students, dealing with lawsuits, conducting research, and a bunch more stuff that I don’t understand. That goes well into the night. And that’s on a day off. On top of that she has to keep office hours and teach classes. And somehow still generate 3 or so journal articles per year. And write the occasional book, which counts towards her career.
At the end of the Fall semester, she has to submit grades for maybe 300 students on archaic software, and have that in by December 26th. Hence working on Christmas. She then gets a month off, which she spends doing catch-up work so she can be ready to teach in the Spring. She spends most of the Summer doing more catch-up and then getting ready for Fall.
I couldn’t agree more, but I also think there is an increasing trend to embelish the amount of time we work; generally by starting our hypothetical work day when we open our eyes and stopping it when we’ve done the day’s last work, despite the fact that in that time, we have showered, eaten, commuted, socialized, etc. and given that we usually do less on Fridays. To maintain the schedule you’re talking about, someone would have no life outside of work/sleep/commute. You’re telling me these folks never go to the movies, a bar, a restaurant?
Ahhh! She’s a professor, or assistant or associate professor? This makes more sense, but where does she teach that she only gets 10 days off a year (don’t answer that, its rhetorical). Most colleges and universities have one or two week breaks between spring/summer, summer/fall and fall/spring – that’s three to six weeks off. I believe the OP is a secondary school teacher, which is not quite the same time commitment as a prof. (I have lived with both) at least with respect to the job itself (a secondary school teachers might however be chasing an advanced degree while working). Still, your GF’s work will taper off quite a bit once she gets tenured.
Still, when people have fluid schedules, knowing how long you actually worked becomes difficult to know. I am sensitive to this because I bill my time for a living. I can tell you what I’ve done in a day down to the six minute increment. I would much rather clock in and out, or judge myself based on what I have completed, not how long it took.
First, second, and, often, third year teachers will put in ungodly hours just to do the basic job. Teachers who coach put in ungodly hours. Very often, when calculated out, the $/hr rate is at or below minimum wage. I will certainly not pretend that there are no teachers who are in at 7:30 and out by 2:30 every day. But that is not even close to the norm for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year teachers. (Usually not the norm for any teacher, either.)
Sorry, bub, major difference. I could see the argument if the kid were in 5th grade, mentally disabled, or the OP was in a lock-down school. There is a two-way “zero-tolerance” policy at work here. Teachers do not hit kids; kids do not hit teachers. If the OP had hit the kid, I would bet pounds to pesos that she would have been out on her ass before the day was out, and a pit-thread on her would have been started. (Alright, I doubt the kid would be posting here…)
Hoo-boy, treis, are you totally wrong on this one. Your second sentence there is the whole point of what you quoted me on. Believe it or not, but what most 14-15 y/o boys worry about when their thinking about popping someone is what’s going to happen to them in the near future. Wanna guess how much shit I collect from my ninth graders as a 6’0" male? Wanna know how much shit I see the smaller female teachers catch? Yeah, the kids “know” that I’m not allowed to pop 'em. They also “know” that they don’t “know.” When a 14/15 y/o boy sees a female around his size, his automatic assumption is that they are a 14/15 y/o girl. Smaller, female teachers have to maintain a higher level of “I won’t put up with your shit” than I do, simply because they are viewed differently by the students.
(And to pre-empt the attack, no, I don’t and won’t “pop” students; my point is that they are more afraid of me simply because of my size and gender.)
Yes, but just because the school is closed doesn’t mean the work stops. As I said, that’s often catch-up time. And there’s always some admin mucky muck that needs doing.
Time off comes in the form of actual vacations, when I convince her to leave her laptop at home.
IMO, the kid needs to be punished/disciplined in some way–from the school’s rules, NOT the police’s. Detention, suspension (which does nothing but reward kids with days off of school) or something. I think expulsion is too drastic.
What really needs to occur is some support from administration. Kid was probably told, “go show this to Ms Fumando and go to your next class.” He has nothing to do with his showing back up–that was all the AP (who sounds like a moron). Perhaps there was a problem in the office that morning–too many discipline problems or something. Who knows? I can’t think of any reason for him to be sent back like that. And I wouldn’t be calling his parents, either–let the admin handle it.
It was WRONG of this kid to hit a teacher–and he should face consequences, but not arrest etc. I also don’t get why the teacher didn’t immediately go into Full Authority Mode and not only send him to the office, but reprimand him in front of the class right there and then–a teaching moment for all was lost.
I am likely to be assaulted in my job at any time–I am a nurse. I am not petite(I’m 5’7"), but I am blonde. I can see where it would be hard for a short, blonde woman to look formidable, but for god’s sake-stop trading on that! Sorry to be harsh, but I’ve got criminal pts and ones that would scare the shit outta me if I met them on the street–I command respect by my voice, demeanor and body language. Work on a bitch face and a no nonsense attitude or this is going to happen again with other students. I’ve been known to tell gangbangers to watch their language–and 99% of them mumble “sorry” and do so. Don’t think for a minute that if you worked in a nice suburb that you would escape any of this, it comes with teaching HS.
I hope this kid is not just thrown out of school to turn to increasing crimes etc–that is no solution.
I hear you dude. I wasn’t allowed in our dining room when I was eight and nine because that was disertation central. To this day, I can count on my mom being up working at 11:30 or 12:00 if I have a question.
Yep. That’s why I value our vacations, because I don’t have to share her with 300 students, who sometimes call her at home pretty late.
To answer your earlier question, the last movie we saw was F9/11, almost 2 years ago. We’ve gone to restaurants maybe 5 times in 7 years of dating, not including vacations. We don’t do bars.
Given a 36 week school year (that’s 180 days – which is the national average school year by state as of '01 according to the U.S. Department of Education --divided by 5) and a $29,500 starting salary (the '02/'03 average according to this site (warning PDF) *), even assuming the unlikeliness of the herculean efforts required to average 80 hours a week, your teach is still making $10.24/hour, almost twice the $5.15 minum wage
the NEA is pushing for $40,000 to be the minum salary
Late 70’s for me. It was a public highschool with about 1400 students in a large metropolitan city. The neighbourhood was mostly white upper-middle class with lots of parents who were well educated professionals like doctors, accountants and lawyers. Certainly people with a big enough ego and means to not let their kids be pushed around by the teachers.
So what I hear you say is that since we’ve become a much more litigious society in this day and age, the aim of teachers should be to fire back aggressively even at the more or less minor trasgressions with the biggest guns they got. Is that really a case of setting the best example for the students?
You know, I have a tremendous respect for teachers and the job that they do. But I see their job as being educators not ending where the school corriculum ends. I think a good teacher can serve as a good model of behaviour in many ways beyond what’s in the subject textbook. I also think most try to do so.
How does it not make sense? Would you punish two students, one who said “I was pissed off, and wanted to hurt her so I punched her,” and the other who said “I didn’t mean to hurt her, I punched her becuase I was just clowning around” equally? I sure wouldn’t. The first student acted with malice and is a danger to the teacher. The second student simply needs to be told where the line between acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior is.
I don’t think hours spent coaching should count as work any more than they do for anyone else. Coaching is done becuase the teacher either enjoys coaching, or is basically volunteering.
As for the hours, yes new teachers spend more time preparing lessons. However, if they are smart they only have to do it once, with periodic updates as necessary. It would be interesting to see what the average teacher actually does work, as opposed to what they say they work. I would place a very large wager that the average teacher does not work over 50 hours in a normal week.
How so? She isn’t in any physical pain. The damage is emotional and is no different than emotional damage caused by words.
I doubt it. If a teacher did this, in the vein of horsing around, I seriously doubt they would be fired. If, of course, the teacher stopped doing so when the student said it made them feel uncomfortable. Even if what you say is true, I see no problem with holding an Adult in an authority role to a different standard than a kid.
How is a teacher’s sex relevent in punishment if it won’t affect student behavior?
Hell, even at the truly absurd 80 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, at $29,500/year, you’re still around $7.00 an hour, which only approaches some of the higher “state” minimum wages.
You are, of course, correct in your calcuations. I obviously got myself confused. I confused a discussion I had had with our athletic director about our coachs’ stipends and that break-down. 300 hours over a schedule of 60 school days, weekends, off season help, etc. is fairly realistic, I think. Our coaches don’t get much in the way of stipends, ~$1500 is on the high end, IIRC.
And then subtract what teachers spend out of pocket for school supplies.
Going with you earlier calculation, which assumes that teachers only work on schooldays (which we’ve seen is not so), that’s only $10 per hour. That’s pretty pathetic.
There’s rather a lot in your posts, treis that involves some assumptions that I am not willing to make.
For example, your two students are going to get punished equally for the simple reason that we are not mind readers, we have no idea whether the second student actually meant that (or was copping an excuse), and if we do not punish equally, we will be accused of favoring one student over the other.
The work week of the average teacher? I can only tell you about the average teachers that I have worked with. 50 hours does not strike me as being out of the ordinary. Until you can actually give me a cite for the average amount of time teachers work, I’ll go with my gut feeling, not yours.
You’re still not seeing the fundamental line that was crossed by this student. I doubt that you will see my view. I will agree to disagree.
And as for this:
I ask how you are sure that A leads to B. Why won’t a stronger punishment affect the student’s behavior? (And, yes, I do feel that hitting a smaller person should carry with it a harsher penalty.) Again, I think that you have made an assumption here that I do not agree with.
I will point out something similar to what I’ve said earlier. If you feel that the benefits of the job outweigh the disadvantages, and you feel the you can make the profession a better one by being in it, there is a shortage of teachers. Got a degree?* Take the test; start sending out applications.
rhetorical; I don’t care; it’s none of my business
Maybe we’re not disagreeing, but you said why he did it was more important than what he did. I think that sounds absurd. The behavior itself, the punching, is the problem.
No. Like I said, the reason he did it affects how you respond. Punching is arguably inappropriate no matter what the relationship is, but here he not only ‘formally’ crossed the boundary by punching her, it seems like he really made her feel scared. That’s what has to be made clear.
No it doesn’t.
I used the number of school days in a year to arrive at the number of weeks in a school year because we were speaking in terms of average hours worked per week – never in that example do I assume someone only works on school days
(you might be thinking of earlier comments I made to you when you said the teachers you knew (who turned out to be professors) worked 16-18 hours a day. I scoffed at such 80-90 hour weeks (a figure I arrived at using only week days so as to give you benefit of the doubt – certainly you were not suggesting that the school teachers (who turned out to be professors) who you knew worked 110 plus hours a week?)).
I was also operating under the extreme hypothetical of an 80 hour a week primary/secondary school teacher (entirely unrealistic in my experience and nothing you tell me about your PROFESSOR girlfriend changes that).
Teachers aren’t paid well, but they are not given the shaft either considering all they need is an undergraduate education and a couple of tests to do what they do. At the more realistic 50 hour a week average, a teacher starting at $29,500 makes about $16.40 an hour – not terrible. And at the NEA’s $40,000 a year, they’re doing quite well – $22 an hour (more than starting RN’s in my region)
REMEMBER I am using STARTING salaries, i.e. the minimum.
How is a teacher’s sex relevent in punishment if it won’t affect student behavior?