Don't get me wrong I love my job, I love working with students, and the ah ha moments and expressions on the young people's faces when they ‘get it’.
However our contract is up for renegotiation and the possibility of teachers getting a raise there are those who believe Teachers have it easy . . . only work 9 - 3 each day, ten months of the year with two months holiday in the summer. Let’s also not forget the two weeks at Christmas and the week at Easter.
True the school year is 10 months or 40 weeks long which translates to 200 days. 190 of which are spent in front of students. The remaining 10 day are used for parent-teacher interviews, professional learning, and organisational days - Teachers DO NOT get the day off.
Recently found a log I kept of time spent in a variety of teaching-related activities. It was mind boggling when I added up the time spent fulfilling my teaching responsibilities over the course of a month. This was not even a 4 week period in which I had to write report card comments Wow!
Week 1 62 hours
Week 2 58 hours
Week 3 49 hours
Week 4 53 hours
Lunch Break? What is that? I am either fulfilling required supervision duties the whole lunch or in the classroom helping students or supervising students who have missing assignments.
Washroom breaks? Only if I can get someone to cover my class while I run to the washroom.
So what does a teacher do all day?
Classroom Preparation - This is a time-consuming aspect that covers everything from writing lesson plans, finding, creating and photocopying handouts, brainstorming fun ideas to 'hook' Jonny & Sally, developing critical thinking questions.
Teaching - Teaching a class for 50 minutes involves engaging students in the lesson, managing classroom behaviour, taking attendance, dealing with homework assignments, and more
Assessing Student Work and Providing Feedback - Grading student work entails evaluating the quality of students' papers, tests, and homework assignments providing feedback that informs how they are doing and what are the next steps to improve. Entering student achievement into an online grade program.
Administrative Duties - Administration includes attending meetings with other teachers and school administrators, as well as writing required reports documenting student performance and progress. Curriculum/Subject Team Meetings, Student Learning Team Meetings, Parent Meetings, Planning Meetings with colleagues, Meetings for Clubs, Athletics, or other extra-curricular duties.
Tutoring/Extra Help - Before school, Lunch or afterschool providing one on one help to struggling students.
Clubs/Coaching/Extracurricular Activities - All those fun activities students are involved in don't run themselves. Outside of the actual event or coaching sessions there are the organizational or administrative components that teachers take on.
Parent Interaction - One of the least favorite aspects of a teachers day. Think of it this way. 6 classes of with an average of 30 in each class= 180 students. Even if the teacher needed to speak to the parents of one student from each class that’s over hour of time after the students have gone home.
By the time I have managed to access the contact information from a very slow records program, call the parent, discuss the issue, listen to their input and document the parent support or lack of in the same slow records program usually 10 - 15 minutes will have elapsed. Multiply that by 6 students.
Parent contact is made after the students who came for extra help have gone or meetings were over.
Would you like to wear my shoes for a day, a week or a month?
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