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My husband get five weeks vacation plus all major holidays. He's an engineer. He gets to work from home sometimes, and has a more flexible schedule in some ways. He does have to travel for work though. He does get paid waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy more than I did.
I got seven weeks in summer the years I didn't teach summer school. Plus three weeks during the school year. If I taught SS I had four weeks off.
True, engineering pays better, and some assignments include travel. But the layoff rate is quite high. Some of my friends have already, well short of 65, decided to call it a career. There is no "tenure" in engineering.
18 hour days seem a little extreme. So you get 6 hours of sleep, have zero commute time, and don't even eat dinner with your family?
Not saying teaching isn't difficult, but if you're pulling 18 hour days then you're probably not doing it right.
My dad taught high school accounting for 30 years, special ed for 7. I don't think I saw him once pull an 18 hour day.
Well maybe 18 might be extreme, but reading through the horrors on these pages and countless other discussions with teachers....it's still sounds like hell. No wonder there are so many teaching jobs open and they have to beg people to take the job.
And like I said. Not one positive from any teacher.
I'm certainly not a "celebrated teacher." But I retired last year after more than 20 years of teaching HS science in large public schools, and I'm in the "Who's Who in American Education" for all that represents, which isn't much.
I'd offer the same advice to any young folks contemplating a teaching career: don't do it. It will be almost nothing like you imagine it to be. Mindless, time consuming, irritating, counterproductive bureaucratic administrivia has become THE overarching characteristic that will quickly drive you on to some other career.
This is my experience, as well.
Teaching is fulfilling work (for those who truly enjoy the thrill of sharing/imparting knowledge, designing creative lessons and activities that inspire students, who enjoy the challenge of getting through to challenging learners, etc., anyway).
But the field of education is veering more and more noticeably away from that image of teaching, and has been for some time. "Mindless, time consuming, irritating, counterproductive bureaucratic administrivia," has absolutely gotten to the point where it overshadows all else. Bureaucracy is a part of all organizations. No question there. A PART. But nobody goes into teaching because they're looking for a job where administrative red tape is of primary consideration, and you get to fit in your teaching responsibilities however you best can around all of it.
Instruction is a great career. Education isn't primarily about instruction anymore.
All the nonsense bickering about "summers off" and "your job isn't that hard" and "If it takes up that much of your time, it's that you're an entitled incompetent who is doing it wrong...not that your school is undertaffed, and not that you've had three people's worth of workload dumped on you," blah blah blah, distract from this plain truth...people who want to teach want to actually be allowed to focus on their teaching. They don't want to sign on to be an "educational process coordinator and assessment facilitator and analyst." If you are a teacher at heart, you will not be satisfied with a job that focuses largely on data collection and interpretation, mandated standardized testing, state and federally-determined curriculum, endless meetings, endless meetings about meetings, meetings about testing, and meetings about meetings about testing. You want to have the freedom and time to actually teach students.
True, engineering pays better, and some assignments include travel. But the layoff rate is quite high. Some of my friends have already, well short of 65, decided to call it a career. There is no "tenure" in engineering.
I have no tenure either. Teachers in Texas are let go all the time. Very few of our friends in his field have been let go, and they found a job within a few months. There are a few teachers that are forced out or let go every year.
No tenure at the teaching position I left when I got out of the field. Private school, at-will employment state. No unions, no nothing.
I really loved it, for many years. Not having tenure didn't matter to me. My job was never in danger, I was at the top of my game and fairly specialized/hard to replace (as far as I know, they have not yet been able to replace me, and I left almost two years ago...they've cobbled together a couple of different positions to do what I used to do, but nobody stays). I left when the bureaucracy firmly overwhelmed the teaching, and policy became ethically alarming to me.
There is the 2 year unpaid maternity but IMO it makes up for lack of maternity leave! Many other jobs in the US will not hold a job for an extended amount of time but many also get paid time off. Other countries - Canada specifically comes to mind- get upwards of 2 years.
Maternity leave is specific to districts and I know in my NY suburb school district maternity leave is.. Wait for it.. 2 paid days. TWO.
At my job, I have to use all paid sick leave and all paid leave that I have accrued. If I only have two days accrued, that is all I have... I am not given any days. I believe I can use "short term disablity" if I have been paying for that benefit, but that is paid for by me through the years.
My dad says at one point - (he's works in a school system currently, but all the way back to the 70's) that if they found out someone was pregnant, they'd get fired. Usually re-hired later, but definitely fired. So I guess we've gotten a little progress?
I think maternity leave in America just sucks, period.
The one thing I can say is in my field, if I took off to raise my kid until kindergarten - my years of experience will be wiped away and I will probably have to compete for entry level jobs again. My sister was able to take off to raise my niece with 11 years of experience and was able to return with them counting 11 years of experience.
It's just apples to oranges sometimes.
From what I've noticed, it seems like the worst teachers usually end up becoming administrators. That's kind of sad.
Last edited by randomlikeme; 07-02-2015 at 08:40 AM..
At my job, I have to use all paid sick leave and all paid leave that I have accrued. If I only have two days accrued, that is all I have... I am not given any days. I believe I can use "short term disablity" if I have been paying for that benefit, but that is paid for by me through the years.
My dad says at one point - (he's works in a school system currently, but all the way back to the 70's) that if they found out someone was pregnant, they'd get fired. Usually re-hired later, but definitely fired. So I guess we've gotten a little progress?
I think maternity leave in America just sucks, period.
The one thing I can say is in my field, if I took off to raise my kid until kindergarten - my years of experience will be wiped away and I will probably have to compete for entry level jobs again. My sister was able to take off to raise my niece with 11 years of experience and was able to return with them counting 11 years of experience.
It's just apples to oranges sometimes.
From what I've noticed, it seems like the worst teachers usually end up becoming administrators. That's kind of sad.
And, yet, a wholly unappealing job for anybody who went into education because they wanted to work with students. I got so sick of people asking me why I wasn't interested in becoming an administrator. Um, because I'd rather eat glass?
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