Non-teachers: do you expect teachers to work during off-hours?

[MandaJo]

@doreen

Manda Jo , what i’m saying is that i expect a literature teacher who is assigning mandatory essays and other written work to spend more time grading than a math teacher who assigns optional homework as practice, doesn’t even collect it and grades his tests by scantron. Not because i demand it but because certain assignments take more time to grade and because there’s no point in assigning work that won’t be graded.

Fair enough, but I am responding to these type comments:

@Dangerosa

. . don’t expect your students to put in any more time than what they put in in the classroom either - i.e. no homework. Because if you aren’t going to work any hours outside of school, it isn’t exactly fair to have them do so either.

@Thudlow_Boink

If a teacher is assigning so much work that the students would have to put in a lot more effort than the teacher is willing or able to put in, that may be a sign that the teacher has unreasonable expectations.

@TBG

By that logic, kids should not be required to do homework or projects unless you are going to pay them, as that’s THEIR time and they should not feel obligated to do assignments, practice, etc. during that time.

@BigT

If they assign homework, then, yes. How much work is proportional to how much homework they assign.

They all seem to be arguing that there is a FAIRNESS element; that a teacher should have to give up as much and no more time after school than their students do. That’s where I don’t see any connection.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@MandaJo

They all seem to be arguing that there is a FAIRNESS element; that a teacher should have to give up as much and no more time after school than their students do. That’s where I don’t see any connection.

I don’t think teachers should have to “give up as much and no more time after school than their students do.” I don’t think anybody’s really advocating that, though if they are, they’re wrong.

Here’s what I think you may be missing: There do exist teachers who assign unreasonable amounts of homework. And there do exist teachers who are lazy and try to get by with as little effort on their part as possible, thereby shortchanging their students. And, for psychological reasons, these faults look particularly egregious when they occur together in the same teacher. And since neither of these applies to you, they’re not what you’re thinking of when you think about the issue.

[MandaJo]

@Thudlow_Boink

I don’t think teachers should have to “give up as much and no more time after school than their students do.” I don’t think anybody’s really advocating that, though if they are, they’re wrong.

Here’s what I think you may be missing: There do exist teachers who assign unreasonable amounts of homework. And there do exist teachers who are lazy and try to get by with as little effort on their part as possible, thereby shortchanging their students. And, for psychological reasons, these faults look particularly egregious when they occur together in the same teacher. And since neither of these applies to you, they’re not what you’re thinking of when you think about the issue.

And I do understand that. My point is just that the connection is entirely psychological. And I actually think it’s damaging: the lazy fuck shouldn’t be let off the hook because he lets his students be lazy fucks, too, and the clueless “kitchen-sink”-type isn’t a better teacher just because they make themselves as miserable as the kids.

[BlinkingDuck]

@MandaJo

No, you get a check year round. You are paid for the time you work. This matters because if you take unpaid leave (because, say, you get cancer), you get docked 1/180 of your annual salary, not the 1/250 of your annual salary you get docked if you have a year-round job.

This means that if you miss six weeks because, again, cancer or something, you don’t get a check for two months. If we were really paid “year round”, if we missed 1/4 of a month, we’d lose 1/4 of a months pay.

I seem to remember (I used to teach long ago) that we had the option of being paid 9 months or 12 months. However, there was some court case where a teacher applied for unemployment, was denied, appealed and won and from then on we HAD to take our pay over 12 months.

I do remember being paid for 9 months and, in my third year, that changed and I had no choice in the matter.

[Shagnasty]

@BlinkingDuck

I seem to remember (I used to teach long ago) that we had the option of being paid 9 months or 12 months. However, there was some court case where a teacher applied for unemployment, was denied, appealed and won and from then on we HAD to take our pay over 12 months.

I do remember being paid for 9 months and, in my third year, that changed and I had no choice in the matter.

Again, none of this matters if you are salaried. Teachers are the same as any other salaried employee and despite all the protests to the contrary, there is nothing exceptional about the way teachers are paid. You are paid for the year just like any other salaried employee. It doesn’t matter how those payments are broken up. They could pay you once a week, 9 equal monthly payments or 12 payments and it doesn’t change a thing.

Almost all salaried employees get paid holidays and time off as well. Teachers just get more than usual. Yes, teachers get docked something like 1/180 of their pay if they take an unpaid day off while it is often closer to 1/250 for most salaried employees in other sectors but that is by no means universal either. Some salaried employees in other sectors work four ten hour days a week or even three twelve hour days a week. In those cases, any unpaid days off that they take also counts more than 1/250 of their annual salary.