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Now, all of the staff development meetings kind of suck. They suck even for me and I've only been in the school system for a year (as an intern). I can only imagine how they make people feel after they've heard it for years. But the discrepancy from the redundancy doesn't grow every year. After a certain point, you just hear it every year and think, "Heard it, done it." You don't clench your fist harder every progressing year... Same with the bell theory.
At any given meeting your point is very valid at other times it might not be. If senior teachers remained current it might not be necessary to go back to basics. However that is not always the case. What can be lethal to school reform is if the newer teachers have a leg up on senior staff regarding pedagogy. It is a double edged sword.
Actually there is a rather large population - prison inmates.
Hmmm I don't think that anyone is promoting prison inmates as being the key to our economic progress and any host of other claims of why we need good teachers. Are you advocating that we need to increase our number of highly qualified inmates? Are you advocating or that we need prison reform so that inmates are able to function with greater success in prison. Are you advocating that children's future is dependent on a highly qualified and trained inmate population? In fact are you even articulating that prison inmate is a valid profession? If not please clarify the relationship of the importance of teachers to prison inmates? Hmmmmmm!
I'm not a teacher, so can't comment from that perspective. I have had six years of higher education, though, and am planning on going back to finish up my PhD. It's been my experience that each stage of school has been dramatically different than the last - elementary school, junior high, high school, college, graduate school - each is a distinct phase and has different expecations and demands. (and I wouldn't say it's "being taught," either - I think a more appropriate phrase would be "learning," as learning is active, being taught is passive, and a good education is not passive.) I'm sure some teachers do burn out from doing the routine year after year (as do people in all professions), but I wouldn't count the years of being a student as part of the total tally.
If I were a teacher I think I'd be more frustrated about having society at large always throwing blame my way for students who aren't making "progress." Teachers can only do so much to counteract the larger issues facing society and individual students and families.
well said, well said!!!! i am a teacher and i concur with your comment!
You know, I work in a high-energy, high-demand profession, too. One that requires lots of extra hours. One that requires nights and weekends. One with deadlines and capricious clients. And, yes, there are times when I don't feel like going to work.
But, guess what? I don't get a two-week vacation at Christmas. I don't get one week off for Spring Break. I don't get off for Veterans' Day, President's Day Weekend, or one over several Work Days scattered throughout the year. I don't get 10-12 weeks off every summer, either. In fact, if I took off a month, I wouldn't be able to feed my family.
In short, the average teacher gets more time off in the average year than the average worker gets in seven. I just have a hard time dealing with the complaints on this matter.
As a teacher, I have worked more than 1/2 of my summer. I spent one week redesigning curriculum and assessments, another 4 weeks teaching summer school, another week taking students to a national competition, and will spend 1 additional week before school training to teach struggling students to read - oh yeah and during the school year, I will teach those students 1 day a week during my lunch hour.
Sorry cpg35223. . . . I've been in industry working as an accountant and a school teacher - and I personally believe comparing the two is like comparing apples to orange. I worked 75 - 80 hours a week as an accountant and still didn't deal with the stress I do as a teacher. Why?
We are "ON" all day. As an accountant, I could stop a task, take a deep breath, maybe go to the restroom, then return. If I was having difficulty figuring something out, I could go speak to a co-accountant. Teachers can't do that - I am responsible for my classroom of 35 students 7 out of 8 hours of my day. I get a 20 minute lunch and every other week, I have to supervise students during that lunch. During the 8th hour, I have to grade papers for over 160 students AND plan what I will do to be "ON" for the next day. That's why I get to school 1 hours before it starts and am often there 1 hour after it ends.
After school, I deal with IEP meetings, parent meetings, committee meetings, etc. You may not like that we get time off because you don't, but you think we have difficulty recruiting teachers now? The lack of respect you demonstrate is one reason people who desire respect don't go into education. But then I didn't change from industry to education for respect - I did it because I so enjoy seeing the genuine difference I make in kids' lives.
I know in industry, accountants were always competitive, worrying whether the boss knew that they were working harder than their coworker, tooting their own horn, etc. That's something I don't see in education. Teachers tend to support each other and give many "atta-boys" rather than track hours.
Please don't take offense to our comments - didn't see anybody here who said we have it worse than nurses. And quite frankly I personally don't think I have it worse than many other professions. I just don't recall my mother ever hearing the comments similar to the ones we teachers get about being lazy because we have summers off and that we deserve the poor pay we receive because of it. At least my viewpoint is not so much that we work hard, but that we work hard and are still viewed as a lazy, overindulged class of workers. Make sense?
Well, I'm guessing your mom didn't hear the comments about the hours because nurses have historically been required to work half the holidays and half the weekends. Teachers get Labor Day off without a thought; I always had it off, too, but only because I was willing to work every single New Year's Eve and New Year's Day between 1983 and 1997. (I got Christmas off twice more than I should have, but only because of maternity leave.)
As for the "lousy pay", I think I noted the starting pay of LEOs, firefighters, and yes, nurses a bit upstream. (As a new nurse, I made more than the newly-minted architects of my acquaintance, about half of whom had their M.Arch.). Hospital- and program- based mental health counsellors are in the same range. Nobody's getting rich off those wages.
That's the point I hear most often levied at teachers, and with which I tend to concur. Not that teachers are heinous, undeserving, lazy wretches-- but that as a group, teachers seem to whine a bit more than most over conditions which aren't particularly worse than a lot of other people's.
Compared to the Buccaneers' starting line, yeah. Teachers are undervalued. Compared to the Bucs' paychecks, pretty much all of us are-- teachers no more or less so than anyone else.
But then, I post from the POV of someone who had to be locked in her office more than once to stay safe from a client who wanted to kill me (the voices told him to), for a whopping $38K a year. Most of the mental health professionals of my acquaintance have similar stories (most have far better ones). So maybe I tend to have a jaundiced view.
Well, I'm guessing your mom didn't hear the comments about the hours because nurses have historically been required to work half the holidays and half the weekends. Teachers get Labor Day off without a thought; I always had it off, too, but only because I was willing to work every single New Year's Eve and New Year's Day between 1983 and 1997. (I got Christmas off twice more than I should have, but only because of maternity leave.)
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As a nurse, both my mother and SIL did have to work holidays and like you, they usually worked every Christmas Eve so they could have Christmas Day off. My hat is off to you Aconite. My previous post wasn't intended to dismiss the acolytes of nurses, but to highlight them. I simply chose to include the comment about the poor treatment and lack of respect from Doctors (okay now docs, don't jump on me for this too) because that is probably what infuriated her the most and something I witness many times when I've been in the hospital.
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But then, I post from the POV of someone who had to be locked in her office more than once to stay safe from a client who wanted to kill me (the voices told him to), for a whopping $38K a year. Most of the mental health professionals of my acquaintance have similar stories (most have far better ones). So maybe I tend to have a jaundiced view.
As a teacher, I hear you on this one as well. Three situations just in the last two years come to mind. I had an irate estranged parent who showed up to get his son - who happened to be in my class at the time - so the entire school went on lock down because dad was there with a weapon. My 35 students and myself locked ourselves in the supply room for nearly 60 minutes. What a way to find out there isn't cell-phone service from the supply room. Just last year, we had a despondent student who created a list of people he wanted to kill - and the name of many teachers (including me) were on that list. Lastly, just last April had an emotionally disturbed student completely lose it in the hallway outside my door, thrashing about, throwing up (ON ME), defecating, etc. He had to be held down by 5 male teachers.
There are a number of professions that face burn out issues. Teaching is one of and nursing is another. However this is the education forum and not the health care forum.
Point well taken! I will state my opinion in a different way. There are many professions that have some of the same problems as teachers, including: "Right, but do people respect you, both at your job and outside of it? Do you have people threatening/harassing/abusing you on a regular basis, either verbally or physically? And, yes, I would also like to know how much you make, because chances are it is at least double what a teacher makes."
and "Teachers don't "feel" socially isolated; they actually are socially isolated, due both to the lack of interaction with other adults as well as issues with the adults (i.e. other teachers and administrators.)"
It is not that "teachers have it worse than these other professions that get threatened, harassed, abused, disrespected, isolated". Believe me, many of us can put ourselves in your mocassins because we have been there ourselves. Many of us aren't making huge salaries either.
I would agree that these issues, in whatever profession they are experienced, can lead to burn out. I would have far more empathy from teachers if I didn't hear they were the "only profession" that had these problems.
Point well taken! I will state my opinion in a different way. There are many professions that have some of the same problems as teachers, including: "Right, but do people respect you, both at your job and outside of it? Do you have people threatening/harassing/abusing you on a regular basis, either verbally or physically? And, yes, I would also like to know how much you make, because chances are it is at least double what a teacher makes."
and "Teachers don't "feel" socially isolated; they actually are socially isolated, due both to the lack of interaction with other adults as well as issues with the adults (i.e. other teachers and administrators.)"
It is not that "teachers have it worse than these other professions that get threatened, harassed, abused, disrespected, isolated". Believe me, many of us can put ourselves in your mocassins because we have been there ourselves. Many of us aren't making huge salaries either.
I would agree that these issues, in whatever profession they are experienced, can lead to burn out. I would have far more empathy from teachers if I didn't hear they were the "only profession" that had these problems.
I don't think the majority of individual teachers believe they are the only ones. The charge is led by unions and magnified multi fold by the fact that teacher salaries come from public coffers and that results in the inevitable annual or close to lobbying for higher salaries. Teachers are everywhere due to the nature of the profession. Directly or indirectly funding for salaries, benefits and the overall budget comes from all three levels of government so the lobbying occurs at all three levels. Again with over 2.8 million teachers that creates a broad base for lobbying and discussion.
Point well taken! I will state my opinion in a different way. There are many professions that have some of the same problems as teachers, including: "Right, but do people respect you, both at your job and outside of it? Do you have people threatening/harassing/abusing you on a regular basis, either verbally or physically? And, yes, I would also like to know how much you make, because chances are it is at least double what a teacher makes."
and "Teachers don't "feel" socially isolated; they actually are socially isolated, due both to the lack of interaction with other adults as well as issues with the adults (i.e. other teachers and administrators.)"
It is not that "teachers have it worse than these other professions that get threatened, harassed, abused, disrespected, isolated". Believe me, many of us can put ourselves in your mocassins because we have been there ourselves. Many of us aren't making huge salaries either.
I would agree that these issues, in whatever profession they are experienced, can lead to burn out. I would have far more empathy from teachers if I didn't hear they were the "only profession" that had these problems.
I agree with this. I highly respect teachers, and think it's unfair that they are so often made the scapegoat for broader social problems, but it's also a valid point that there are other people, too, who also put up with a lot. Educational assistants (also often highly educated, but making far less than teachers and getting even less respect), preschool teachers (who seem to have it worst of all in many cases), etc. I worked in an education-related nonprofit, and got paid less than many teachers, didn't have the benefits enjoyed by most teachers, and also faced isolation and lack of respect. I certainly think society needs to do more to value education as a profession, but we also need to look more at education as not just teachers in a traditional k-12 environment. Teachers certainly deserve respect and a fair wage, not to mention safe work environments, but they're not the only ones, even within the larger educational framework, facing these issues.
I think that as a teacher the burn out comes from wanting to fix every child's problems, and not having the tools or support to do it. You work so hard to try to make a difference, and at the end of the day you feel like you are banging your head against the wall. You work hard to not leave anybody behind, but some kids just don't want to be at the starting line.
The parents and administration just amplify the problems. There are so many issues within society at large that there is no way to create a system that works for every child. The US educational system is flawed, yet changing it takes more than just one person or one community.
So you have issues in every job that you need to deal with, although with teaching it seems like everyones' issue becomes your issues for 180 days. With the exception of spring break and the Christmas holiday, a lot of the days the kids have off are in service days for teachers. Without the so called summer vacations, I believe that the burn out rate would be even higher. It's not a 9-5 job, because you never really leave the school or the kids. You are constantly taking things home with you, and I do not mean just papers to grade. You are thinking about how to make a better lesson, how to help little Jonny read, or even how to help kids that are in an abusive situation. I guess it is more emotionally draining than anything.
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I will state my opinion in a different way. There are many professions that have some of the same problems as teachers, including: "Right, but do people respect you, both at your job and outside of it? Do you have people threatening/harassing/abusing you on a regular basis, either verbally or physically? And, yes, I would also like to know how much you make, because chances are it is at least double what a teacher makes."
