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Oh boy, your second-hand experience with teachers 20 years ago is very different than what teachers experience today. My wife just resigned after 8 years of tea

Oh boy, your second-hand experience with teachers 20 years ago is very different than what teachers experience today. My wife just resigned after 8 years of teaching. The first thing people always say when you talk about teaching being difficult with little pay is oh they get two months a year off to lounge around and do whatever they want. You want to know what single sentence will trigger a teacher immediately? That one. Teachers are still required to plan and get ready for the next school year over the summer and then they go back a couple weeks earlier than students so it ends up not being as good as it sounds. Most teachers have extremely high anxiety and are stressed to the max. Neverending paperwork, admin that won't help, and parents that don't care and/or are extremely overbearing. It's a grind and it really takes a special kind of person to do that job yet we pay them so little.

tejohnso 4y ago
> plan and get ready for the next school year I don't doubt all of your points, and can imagine the frustration, but regarding the summer off being interrupted by planning work, what's to plan? If you're teaching mostly the same thing year after year, wouldn't you have an established plan that doesn't require significant modification? What does "get ready for the next school year" entail?
- fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
  > what's to plan? If you're teaching mostly the same thing year after year, wouldn't you have an established plan that doesn't require significant modification? What does "get ready for the next school year" entail? I’m bookmarking this as a delightful example of “begging the question,” wherein the question is actually begged. You correctly identified and ran past the fundamental underlying assumption: teachers teach virtually the same thing each year. In reality, curriculum changes can happen as a result of (1) changes in the underlying textbook and course material, precipitated by publishers (2) changes in student and teacher KPIs precipitated by school administration, (3) changes in technological education-delivery platforms, precipitated by school IT, (4) personal changes, precipitated by experience and personal/professional motivation, and (5) changes in professional best-practices, precipitated by scholarship and professional organizations; to name a few. These things happen regularly, and often simultaneously.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    I thought it was a good question, and I didn't really believe your answer. I wanted to see if any statistics support what you said, and the reality is a bit different. Teachers put in fewer hours than other workers, and they work on average 20 hours a week during the summer [1]. To be clear it's more nuanced than "fewer hours" in the article, but the average teacher works 40ish hours a week. If you're a teacher, I'm sure you're tired of hearing people wonder whether teachers are working all summer, but the fact is it's a great fucking question and you shouldn't be offended when someone asks it. It beggars belief, and it's a question that should be asked over and over again until the answer is "no". 1. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/06/12/do-teachers-work-long-hours/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/...
    - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
      I address what work if any teachers perform during the summer to prepare for the upcoming semester. Your link attempts to quantify the hours teachers work during a work week. Your statement is unrelated to mine, did you mean to reply elsewhere?
      - DangitBobby 4y ago
        My mistake. When you responded to someone asking what teachers did all summer, you responded in a way that made me believe you thought they did. But now the question is, if you weren't saying that teachers work all summer, what was the point in itemizing the things they have to do each summer? Maybe you responded to the wrong comment? To make things easier, I'll bring back some context from earlier in the thread: > Teachers are still required to plan and get ready for the next school year over the summer. . . I thought this was more or less the entire topic of interest. That, and how much teachers work. What do you think the conversation is about? Pretty confused how you could think it's not relevant. You were needlessly combative earlier, so I guess I could chalk it up to that.
  - tejohnso 4y ago
    > These things happen regularly, and often simultaneously. Yes, I think my assumption is common. Thanks for the list. The entire thing consists of events I would have expected to happen very infrequently. "KPIs precipitated by school administration" - sounds horrific. Way too easy to screw up.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I’m not even a teacher and the first and super obvious thing that came to mind is working with special needs children. Like an adhd child or an autistic child might require different lessons plans to incorporate different sensory processing. Don’t teachers also have to re-credential or prove they’re taking continued education every few years or something too? And don’t teachers also teach summer school? Idk. I think maybe we should give teachers more credit… I’m sure there 10x more than I thought of and I am not a teacher nor do I I interact with teachers. Edit: also wasn’t a huge number of changes made recently on state levels to target schools that teach anything a parent might deem CRT/LGBTQ shit? I’d expect lots of teachers to need to change their lesson plans regularly because of wild political environment nonsense…
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
prepend 4y ago
I’m sorry your wife quit and I hope she finds a job she likes. I know many teachers nowadays too. They are friends and neighbors. In my county, teachers get 10 weeks off and they go back a week early to prepare for school. They also have a few days at the end of the year to wrap up. So it’s actually only 8-9 weeks off where they don’t have to think about school. Of course many do. Just like I think about work on my vacation. Pay in my state is $53k/year, slightly over the average salary of $51k. So teachers aren’t paid “so little” in my state. It’s not an amazing salary, but it’s ok. It doesn’t take a “special kind of person” any more than countless other jobs. People fit into jobs and don’t fit into jobs. I don’t doubt that teachers are stressed out, but I don’t know how much more stressed than other professions. Most jobs are stressful. At least teachers don’t have to worry about layoffs and they have a pension and they have summers off. So there’s pros and cons.

tejohnso 4y ago

> plan and get ready for the next school year I don't doubt all of your points, and can imagine the frustration, but regarding the summer off being interrupted by planning work, what's to plan? If you're teaching mostly the same thing year after year, wouldn't you have an established plan that doesn't require significant modification? What does "get ready for the next school year" entail?

fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
> what's to plan? If you're teaching mostly the same thing year after year, wouldn't you have an established plan that doesn't require significant modification? What does "get ready for the next school year" entail? I’m bookmarking this as a delightful example of “begging the question,” wherein the question is actually begged. You correctly identified and ran past the fundamental underlying assumption: teachers teach virtually the same thing each year. In reality, curriculum changes can happen as a result of (1) changes in the underlying textbook and course material, precipitated by publishers (2) changes in student and teacher KPIs precipitated by school administration, (3) changes in technological education-delivery platforms, precipitated by school IT, (4) personal changes, precipitated by experience and personal/professional motivation, and (5) changes in professional best-practices, precipitated by scholarship and professional organizations; to name a few. These things happen regularly, and often simultaneously.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  I thought it was a good question, and I didn't really believe your answer. I wanted to see if any statistics support what you said, and the reality is a bit different. Teachers put in fewer hours than other workers, and they work on average 20 hours a week during the summer [1]. To be clear it's more nuanced than "fewer hours" in the article, but the average teacher works 40ish hours a week. If you're a teacher, I'm sure you're tired of hearing people wonder whether teachers are working all summer, but the fact is it's a great fucking question and you shouldn't be offended when someone asks it. It beggars belief, and it's a question that should be asked over and over again until the answer is "no". 1. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/06/12/do-teachers-work-long-hours/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/...
  - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
    I address what work if any teachers perform during the summer to prepare for the upcoming semester. Your link attempts to quantify the hours teachers work during a work week. Your statement is unrelated to mine, did you mean to reply elsewhere?
    - DangitBobby 4y ago
      My mistake. When you responded to someone asking what teachers did all summer, you responded in a way that made me believe you thought they did. But now the question is, if you weren't saying that teachers work all summer, what was the point in itemizing the things they have to do each summer? Maybe you responded to the wrong comment? To make things easier, I'll bring back some context from earlier in the thread: > Teachers are still required to plan and get ready for the next school year over the summer. . . I thought this was more or less the entire topic of interest. That, and how much teachers work. What do you think the conversation is about? Pretty confused how you could think it's not relevant. You were needlessly combative earlier, so I guess I could chalk it up to that.
- tejohnso 4y ago
  > These things happen regularly, and often simultaneously. Yes, I think my assumption is common. Thanks for the list. The entire thing consists of events I would have expected to happen very infrequently. "KPIs precipitated by school administration" - sounds horrific. Way too easy to screw up.
SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
I’m not even a teacher and the first and super obvious thing that came to mind is working with special needs children. Like an adhd child or an autistic child might require different lessons plans to incorporate different sensory processing. Don’t teachers also have to re-credential or prove they’re taking continued education every few years or something too? And don’t teachers also teach summer school? Idk. I think maybe we should give teachers more credit… I’m sure there 10x more than I thought of and I am not a teacher nor do I I interact with teachers. Edit: also wasn’t a huge number of changes made recently on state levels to target schools that teach anything a parent might deem CRT/LGBTQ shit? I’d expect lots of teachers to need to change their lesson plans regularly because of wild political environment nonsense…

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

prepend 4y ago

I’m sorry your wife quit and I hope she finds a job she likes. I know many teachers nowadays too. They are friends and neighbors. In my county, teachers get 10 weeks off and they go back a week early to prepare for school. They also have a few days at the end of the year to wrap up. So it’s actually only 8-9 weeks off where they don’t have to think about school. Of course many do. Just like I think about work on my vacation. Pay in my state is $53k/year, slightly over the average salary of $51k. So teachers aren’t paid “so little” in my state. It’s not an amazing salary, but it’s ok. It doesn’t take a “special kind of person” any more than countless other jobs. People fit into jobs and don’t fit into jobs. I don’t doubt that teachers are stressed out, but I don’t know how much more stressed than other professions. Most jobs are stressful. At least teachers don’t have to worry about layoffs and they have a pension and they have summers off. So there’s pros and cons.