Teachers are lazy wankers

The BBQ Pit
41

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.

42

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.

43

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.

44

A journalist calling a teacher a lazy wanker !

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

Sin

45

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.

46

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.

47

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.

48

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.

49

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).

50

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?

51

I forgot to mention that prior to being a teacher, I worked for a newspaper and a publishing company. Piece of cake in comparison, but teaching was more worthwhile.

52

Yes. It’s easy to understand in written form. Spoken might be a tad more difficult, depending on the dialect.
I do understand that there are vast differences between American and Swedish schools, but as always, America is the setter of trends. We, too, threw out all people from the psychiatric wards, only we did it in 1994, thus having a homeless problem for the first time in history. The 90’s also saw the first drive by shootings and a couple of years ago, someone torched the mosque in my town. Ethnic tensions are high and in some parts of this town, the ambulance won’t respond to a call unless accompanied by a police patrol.

As for welfare state - I use it pretty much in the same way Americans do, and the problem is that people don’t “fare well” here anymore. We have three times as many MDs as we did in 1975, yet people will have to wait up to five years to get a hip joint replaced. Spending on Students are up 50% in ten years, yet more students leave school without a diploma every year. Bureaucracy (or -crazy) it’s up most of the very high taxes (more than 50% of the GDP).

BTW - the staff meating yesterday afternoon was a long disussion of where the teachers could go for a field trip, without the students. And setting the agenda for a whole day teacher’s conference coming up soon.

So even if everyone, including teachers, have felt the welfare state erode under our feet, they have been let off easy, so far.

53

At least they have the World Maritime University, which I almost attended.

I am the daughter of a someone who’s been in the teaching profession for over 35 years, and an active member of their union. I hate to tell you that it is a badly paid, hard-work profession anywhere, some places more than others. My mother usually workd another 4 hours after class preparing classes and grading, sometimes more. You have to be available during the so-called “vacations” to help out students that failed and will take the exams again. After-school meatings are not paid.

54

For us, all meatings are included as wortk time. We’re not supposed to be available to the students after we leave the school building. And the WMU is just a mile from where I live.

55

I’m sorry to hear that things aren’t working so well there now – especially for medical services. People here can’t afford the hip joint replacement unless they have insurance, and fewer and fewer people are covered by insurance.

And I was always impressed with how well Scandanavians speak English. I would hate to see your country become more “Americanized” with high crime rates. Do you have lots of people living on the street and under bridges?

(Forgive the hijack; I am interested in the changes since I was there so long ago.)

56

Just for some additional info - I have a lot of friends that are teachers and here in Milwaukee (all references are to Public School Teachers)

  1. Teachers get the choice of 9 month pay structure or 12 month - everyone I know goes for the 9 month

  2. Teachers get paid either 1.5 or 2x their base hourly wage for teaching summer school, so most will jump at it. Considered overtime, even if it’s 4 hours a day.

  3. Teacher salaries start low, and jump in pay rather quickly. You’ll find that most people use the term “Teachers starting pay is only…” when the average Public School teacher salary is around $51k here in Wisconsin. They just published the figures about 2 weeks ago. I’m jaded enough to believe they keep starting salaries artificially low.

Otherwise I don’t think teachers are any lazier than any other government employee - some are good - some are bad, just not as many others think their position is as important.

57

I checked Nashville salaries for the current school year. The starting salary for someone with a Bachelor’s degree is $34,242. That increases by $600 to about $1200 each year until the 14th year. After that, there are no raises until your 25th year – unless their are raises in the base salary or unless you get a Master’s degree. If you have a Master’s Degree and you are in your tenth year of teaching, your salary would be $44,000.

If you are in it for the money, it’s not worth it. They could never have paid me enough to teach. Something else kept me going back. But many good teachers are lost because of the low salaries and poor working conditions.

58

Tell me where they are lost to, then? Guess what? There is another group of people who are underpaid, don’t like their job, work in shitholes, and want to strangle the people around them. They’re called 90% of the population. And they keep coming back too - because that’s how it is. And every year, good bus drivers/accountants/doorbell repairmen/and taste-testers are lost because of low salaries and poor working conditions but nobody gives a flying fuck.

They just don’t have 100% paid healthcare, free lunch, 4 months off plus vacation and sick days, are impervious from firing, and raises whether they deserve them or not. I’m basing this on Wisconsin, but it seems to be the same story everywhere. You work late, you say? Who doesn’t?

59

Wisconsin teachers don’t have to pay health care premiums? Who pays them? Where are the 4 months off? Here, teachers get off mid-June and go back mid-August. One week in the winter and one in the spring. There is no other vacation time allowed. There are less than a dozen sick days a year for a population most at-risk for catching airborne and bodily fluid borne illnesses from being around sick kids all day without many opportunities to wash their hands. There are 2 “personal days” a year which must be applied for 30 days in advance, the reason for your absence must be revealed in writing, and personal days can and mostly are denied by the administration. You may specifically **not **use a personal day for legal, financial, family or medical reasons (uh…what’s left?). That is, you cannot use a personal day to close on your new house, go to your grandfather’s will reading, get a mammogram or pick up your kid from the hospital. Free lunch? From where? If teachers want the crap the shill in the cafeteria, they have to pay for it.

Again, I’m not trying to “woe-is-the-teachers” here. The situation has been unchanged for decades and they certainly “knew what they were getting into.” But that doesn’t mean they can’t fight and argue for better pay and working conditions, just like every other occupational force out there. It also doesn’t mean we, the taxpayers who pay their paychecks, should remain uninformed as to what the actual pay and working conditions are.