The Next Time Someone Says....
Upon hearing that I teach, a new acquaintance said"How nice you get your summers off". I think I'm going to spit nails at the next person who says that to me.
Lemme 'splain:
During one of the neverending administrative meetings held this past week (during perfectly good planning time, I might add), I did the math. "What math?" you ask. Ahh but let me enlighten you.
Teachers work with students an average of around 60 hours a week, 36 weeks a year (this does not include the pre-service week or the built in planning days). Forty of those hours are at school, of course, and the rest are on teachers' own time. (I know cuz I took a poll among my colleagues). That turns out to be 2160 hours per year. An average full time employee works 40 hours a week, 50 weeks of the year, which equals 2000 hours.
The hours aren't that different, but the pay is. All 2160 hours are squeezed into a 36 week period which means I only get paid for 10 months out of the year. Why doesn't society value what educators do enough to pay appropriately for it? Where do people get the idea that teaching is a cushy job with lots of time off?
posted by Emma @ 8:17 AM
2 Comments:
Even worse, many nimrods think that we get PAID for that "time off" during the summer!
You can hear the resentment in their voices.
My question is, where is the resentment towards Courteney Cox, making a million dollars per episode on Friends and then getting two months of "hiatus" during-- you guessed it-- the summer!? (nothing against Courteney Cox, BTW)
I understand your frustration. I am a teacher education student and I hate when my family and aquaintances remind me of how "good" I will have it when I am teaching because I will have "vacations" throughout the school year in addition to my "summers" off. I do not believe that people completely understand a profession unless they are in it. From my own experiences, it seems as though people always like to argue about who has the harder profession and who gets paid less, etc. The comment that your aquaintance made is just one more factor that supports my argument. People tend to believe that they always have it worse than someone else. I know you are the teacher and I am just a student right now, but my advice would be to just ignore her. We can't inform everyone about anything. Some people will understand and some people won't. However, it would be nice to have some better recognition for the teaching profession. I believe that most people do respect teachers and the profession but they just don't understand what it actually entails.
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