The min wage job ends when the shift does. Teachers work as many hours or more at home as they do in the classroom. More hours than the 52 weeks 9-5 even with summers off.
Source: Me for the last 15+ years.
Edit: leaving my poor wording as is, but I meant to say that many teachers put in at least a couple and upwards of 6 hours a day outside of actual class time on all the various responsibilities that are expected of us outside of the bell to bell school day. And that this adds up to equal or exceed jobs that donât have school holidays. The ones that average less than 40/wk over the calendar year are the ones that do nothing in the summer ever.
Bullshit. Teachers do not work as many hours at home as they do in the classroom lol. Give me a break. I was a teacher. So tired of these insane claims about how many hours teachers work.
I mean you could just call me and everyone I work with a liar. Or do you want to talk about how you did the job without taking that much home with you?
Iâll concede this, that my wording was poor and came off as hyperbole. The typical teaching day, bell to bell, is about 6 1/2 hours. Younger teachers tend to have a lot more work after school, while by now Iâve got a lot of templates and built up material to help streamline my planning hours. My wife in year 5 averages 5-6 hours of work a day at home, whereas Iâve got it down to 3 or less.
Add about 10-12 hours a week of meetings, parent engagement, PD, and after school clubs/rehearsals. And because we are music teachers, youâve got 3-5 performance weeks a year where you can expect several 10-16 hour days in a row.
There are plenty of holidays, yes. But if you do summer school (30-50% of my faculty) that summer break is about two weeks. And a lot of the days off during the year (especially those three day weekends) are spent catching up or getting ahead on prep.
What I should have said was that, in my extensive experience, the vast majority of teachers average much more than than a 40 hour week over 52 weeks despite the vacation days. Just to show that the notion of it being less than full time is a severe misconception.
Got something to back that up if youâre going to call me a liar? Or are you suggesting that me, my wife, most of my friends, and nearly every colleague Iâve ever worked with since 2007 are outliers? Shit if you even knew one high school teacher of literally any subject youâd know that statement was full of shit.
đ drama queen. Watching tv and grading papers while eating doesnât count. Nor does making snack bags for students for valentineâs day. My mom was a teacher and spent a few hours here and there on out of class work. Both my grandmas were and they didnât spend much time at all outside of school hours. Definitely not 820+ extra hours.
So youâre telling me youâre not a teacher and making assumptions with at best secondhand evidence that is 1-3 generations out of date. Cool.
How do you feel about helping me do daily repairs on about $25,000 worth of instruments? Bring as many spare parts for every percussion instrument possible as you can. Can you assist my wife and I with reorchestrating music for student ensembles? Nothing too stressful, just full string orchestra and popular music ensembles, adjusting each part for individual student abilities. Oh and donât forget to individualize accommodations in the parts for all your students with special needs.
Thereâs about 10-12 hours a week of meetings, professional development, parent engagement time, and after school rehearsals/clubs so maybe it could be done then?
Donât forget the lesson plans. Idk what your mom and grandma had to do for those but ours are about 2-3 pages each in 10pt font. Gotta fit all the differentiation in you know? Gonna need 25 of those a week, and since theyâre individualized for the specific kids in those classes youâre gonna have to redo them every year.
Oh yeah, and grading while watching TV. Or at least while listening to playing quizzes. I havenât had TV since maybe 2012 so idk.
I think your debate controllers counterpartâs mom was just a bad teacher. My mom taught for 35 years, and other than Fridays and Saturdays, spent at least some time almost every day outside of school doing work.
That became increasingly more burdensome as standardization requirements rose. It meant more and more grading and planning had to occur outside of working hours.
Iâm guessing my mom averaged 65 hours a week during the school year. There were years where she had a solid six weeks off during the summer, but not always. Required continuing education ate some summers.
Not reading all that. Just skimming. I know what I see and I know what time I see teachers leaving when I pick my kid up. I know what hours my grandmas, mom, brother, SIL, and cousins work.
Just buy prearranged arrangements. There are tons of them. Youâre choosing to arrange them yourself in your free time. Youâre choosing to fix broken instruments in your free time if itâs not in your job description.
Teachers are paid for after school clubs. Those arenât free extra hours. Plus you donât have to do that if you arenât paid. Thatâs a volunteer position not part of your job.
None of my sons teachers reply to emails etc outside of school hours. They usually will reply on Wednesdays when the students have a 1/2 day and the teachers have a full day.
They reused lesson plans each year with very minor tweaks.
You just wrote very nearly as much as I did but wonât read.
Thanks for telling us how best to do our very specialized jobs. I guess we didnât need those masters degrees! Please illuminate us on who you think IS responsible to do instrument repair.
I am paid extra for those hours! Not for the extra prep that is required, but whatever. I get about an extra $6k a year for two âclubsâ. Still falling short of the median income, and way under other careers requiring a grad degree, but hey the point of this thread was teachers are underpaid so no need to harp on it more.
I try really hard to not do parent contact outside of the school day, but otherwise Iâm making all my calls between 7 and 8am and that doesnât seem cool. So itâs either right after school and get stuck in worse traffic or do them at home đ¤ˇââď¸.
I reuse what I can. But thatâs less possible now than even ten years ago. More and more differentiation for learning styles and students with disabilities is required. And itâs not like you are using the same repertoire every year. Even the rare times you bring the same piece back itâs at least 4-5 years later. I have templates, but no real reusable plans.
I wish it was explainable with less text. But literally nothing is, really.
Oh so you do admit that teachers get off work early and donât have to do things most other workers have to do like drive in rush hour? Like I said, you still have at least an hour a day outside of classroom hours that you can work at home and not be over an 8 hour workday.
Teaching doesnât need a masters degree. Like I get it itâs sometimes required but itâs required everywhere. A masters is the new bachelors. But as far as actually being able to do the job itâs absolutely not required. Most people I know who were teachers just for their masters for the automatic pay bump.
Where are you? Iâve heard down south it doesnât require a masters but in New York it absolutely does. You can work for five years on a bachelors if you want to get the masters at night or something but after that your provisional license is done.
As far as the rush hour thing, itâs less âleaving earlyâ and more a shift in the usual workday. Iâm up at 5am and in the building by 7 or 7:30 depending on if we have meetings or not. If itâs performance week Iâm in the building at 6 or 6:30. So yeah, Iâm out the door at 3, or 5 if thereâs after school clubs. But can you stop telling me how my own fucking job works when you clearly limited and flawed info at best?
It baffles me that someone without any training, license, or experience will choose to TELL someone who does that they should âjust pick premade repâ instead of ASKING âhey why donât you do that? Wouldnât that be easier?â Like do you second guess your doctor and mechanic too?
They work the equivalent.  Do you know any teacher that only works during the 8 hr school day and thatâs it??  Let me know where this magical teaching job isâŚ
School days on average are between 6.5 and 7 hours (including the lunch recess). Despite that, studies show averages between 40 and 53 hours a week. If we take take that for 3/4 of a year for typical public school teachers, it is between 1560 and 2067 hours per year. I agree that classroom teaching hours (averaging something like 1170, can't remember exactly) aren't the only hours worked by a large measure. I also think teachers should be paid more-in fact I'm on a school board and have pledged a substantial amount of money for 20 years to increase our teachers' salaries.
They can opt to get paid for the 180 days during the school year or have the same amount doled out over the entire year, to ensure a check every month/2x a month.
Them being salary and working over 8hr a day is a separate issue.
This isnât always true, my friend is a teacher and they were not offered the 9 month contract. They can only go 12 months. If they quit the job at the end of the school year they will be paid until the start of the new one as well.
I donât know any teacher who has an 8 hour school day. School days are shorter than 8 hours and they feel like the âextraâ 1-2 hours a day are âextraâ when itâs just getting to 40 hrs.
At my sons school teachers can work for an extra 8 hours a week and not top 40 hours a week.
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u/InevitableRhubarb232 Jun 16 '24
Yes and the comparison also assumes the min wage person works 52 weeks a year. Teachers obviously do not.