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I don't know how a teacher can avoid taking home 20 hours of work. Actually reading and grading just 3 assignments per week for my 160 students, if I take average two minutes per assignment is 16 hours of grading. On top of that is planning and test writing. I wonder how much time parents would want their child's teacher to spend planning for classes, grading assignments and writing tests that reflect what was taught?
I put in way more than 20 extra hours per week because one of my preps is chemistry. Many of the labs we do have 5-6 hours of prep to set them up and then there's staying after school for lab make ups, cleaning up, doing the dishes and disposing of the waste after the lab is done. My typical week has me at the school 50 hours per week and taking 20 hours of grading/prep home with me. The other science teachers are also there late. While other teachers leave earlier, I'm sure they take their share of grading home. I imagine that English teachers have a lot of reading/grading to do.
I will admit my math prep was easy but I still had to take time to review the material and I had to do all the homework problems so I could do them quickly in class. Tests were all I had to grade though. That was nice.
I do a lot of grading while the kids are testing. I have a prep period to prep. Plus I did a lot of prepping for my classes my first year teaching. My first year I easily spent 20 hours a week, but not after that.
I do a lot of grading while the kids are testing. I have a prep period to prep. Plus I did a lot of prepping for my classes my first year teaching. My first year I easily spent 20 hours a week, but not after that.
If I did this, I'd have a lot of cheating. I have enough cheating with me walking the aisles and trying to catch them cheating. I don't want to know what would happen if I sat at my desk and graded while they tested and even if I did this, it would only buy me 6 hours every 2-3 weeks which is nowhere near the 20 or so I need to grade.
My prep period is spent prepping for demos and labs as is the time I spend at school after school when I'm not tutoring students (School gets out at 2:10 and I, usually, leave around 4:30.). I have 5-10 hours a week worth of lab/demo prep and chemical disposal to worry about too. And then there's washing the dishes after labs....The job I hate the most.
I do a lot of grading while the kids are testing. I have a prep period to prep. Plus I did a lot of prepping for my classes my first year teaching. My first year I easily spent 20 hours a week, but not after that.
Then you probably have a lot of cheating.
And as for your prep period... what if it were taken away frequently?
As for my first year of teaching, i spent vast amounts of time developing my lessons, too. But with each passing year, I tweek my lesson plans based on what I've seen work or not, I pick up new preps, new text books, new labs, new standards set by those that know nothing of education, etc. My planning period - when I get it - is not a nap time. I know of very few teachers, both new and experienced - that don't have something they must do during planning.
Now, if your the perfect teacher, with the perfect lesson plans for those perfect students that never change from year to year, then I guess your planning period is free to watch Netflix. Unfortunately, I meet none of those cases.
I will also admit that I don't have something to do do every day in planning, nor do I have something to take home each day. Again, I don't teach Social Sciences, so I can't speak for that. But as Ivorytickler & I can both attest, physical sciences are quite different.
Last edited by Starman71; 06-28-2013 at 06:50 AM..
If I did this, I'd have a lot of cheating. I have enough cheating with me walking the aisles and trying to catch them cheating. I don't want to know what would happen if I sat at my desk and graded while they tested and even if I did this, it would only buy me 6 hours every 2-3 weeks which is nowhere near the 20 or so I need to grade.
My prep period is spent prepping for demos and labs as is the time I spend at school after school when I'm not tutoring students (School gets out at 2:10 and I, usually, leave around 4:30.). I have 5-10 hours a week worth of lab/demo prep and chemical disposal to worry about too. And then there's washing the dishes after labs....The job I hate the most.
I don't grade at my desk. I grade at my podium in the front of the class standing up. And I periodically stroll the aisles. If a student cheats and gets away with it they only hurt themselves in the long run. I look for it, but I'm not obsessed with stopping it.
And as for your prep period... what if it were taken away frequently?
As for my first year of teaching, i spent vast amounts of time developing my lessons, too. But with each passing year, I tweek my lesson plans based on what I've seen work or not, I pick up new preps, new text books, new labs, new standards set by those that know nothing of education, etc. My planning period - when I get it - is not a nap time. I know of very few teachers, both new and experienced - that don't have something they must do during planning.
Now, if your the perfect teacher, with the perfect lesson plans for those perfect students that never change from year to year, then I guess your planning period is free to watch Netflix. Unfortunately, I meet none of those cases.
I will also admit that I don't have something to do do every day in planning, nor do I have something to take home each day. Again, I don't teach Social Sciences, so I can't speak for that. But as Ivorytickler & I can both attest, physical sciences are quite different.
When did I ever say prep period was nap time? I said prep period was used so I didn't have 20 hours of take home work. Sometimes it's used to prep, sometimes it's used to grade, but it's always used efficiently so that I take as little work home as possible.
Content knowledge and designing the most advances challenging lessons for students is great, but that's not everything that teaching encompasses. Teachers are also role models and mentors to students. If you can't develop relationships with students, even those that don't seem to care about school, then you are not being the best teacher you can be. If I took 20 hours of work home every week that would seriously cut into my time with my family and my own kids. I won't do that. But guess what? By not doing that I love my job and my students see that. They love being in my class and they learn at the same time.
I always change my lessons from year to year. But tweaking a lesson takes a lot less time than designing one from scratch.
And as for your prep period... what if it were taken away frequently?
As for my first year of teaching, i spent vast amounts of time developing my lessons, too. But with each passing year, I tweek my lesson plans based on what I've seen work or not, I pick up new preps, new text books, new labs, new standards set by those that know nothing of education, etc. My planning period - when I get it - is not a nap time. I know of very few teachers, both new and experienced - that don't have something they must do during planning.
Now, if your the perfect teacher, with the perfect lesson plans for those perfect students that never change from year to year, then I guess your planning period is free to watch Netflix. Unfortunately, I meet none of those cases.
I will also admit that I don't have something to do do every day in planning, nor do I have something to take home each day. Again, I don't teach Social Sciences, so I can't speak for that. But as Ivorytickler & I can both attest, physical sciences are quite different.
You and me both. I just finished year five, I'm two weeks into summer and I've rewritten three lesson plans because I didn't like the way they went last year. I have a feeling I'm never going to have a set of lesson plans I never change.
My prep period is used for lab set up, tear down, washing dishes and chemical waste disposal 95% of the time and that's not enough. I still end up staying after school until 5:30 frequently to catch up.
When I first started teaching my planning time was used strictly how I chose it to be used. In other words, I could plan and grade. By the time I retired it was rare to have more than one planning period a week that I could choose how it was used, and quite a number of weeks there were no days. Additionally, when I first started parents weren't checking some portal every day so I could grade at my own pace. Not only that, but when I first started teaching I was not only allowed, but encouraged to have a quiet class where students were working independently, so I could grade while students worked. When I first started teaching whole-group direct instruction or independent reading was the norm so as long as I had content competence, planning classes meant writing down the sections of the book they were working on. Now days it requires creating a presentation with all the bells-and-whistles that must compete with the students' techno-toys. There was no such thing as differentiation when I first started teaching so I only had to do one plan per class instead of the three being required when I retired. When I first started teaching my professional development, when I had it, was chosen by me based on I felt would best assist me in teaching my subject. Now, if I wanted that it would be on my own time and dime. When I first started teaching a Bachelor's degree was all that was needed and expected, now many states require a certain number of graduate level classes.
The time requirements for teachers to do what is considered an adequate job has grown tremendously but their paid work time has not been altered to match those changes.
When did I ever say prep period was nap time? I said prep period was used so I didn't have 20 hours of take home work. Sometimes it's used to prep, sometimes it's used to grade, but it's always used efficiently so that I take as little work home as possible.
Content knowledge and designing the most advances challenging lessons for students is great, but that's not everything that teaching encompasses. Teachers are also role models and mentors to students. If you can't develop relationships with students, even those that don't seem to care about school, then you are not being the best teacher you can be. If I took 20 hours of work home every week that would seriously cut into my time with my family and my own kids. I won't do that. But guess what? By not doing that I love my job and my students see that. They love being in my class and they learn at the same time.
I always change my lessons from year to year. But tweaking a lesson takes a lot less time than designing one from scratch.
I've been teaching successfully for twenty years (most of which teaching AP Chemistry & Physics), so I really don't need to be lectured to & told what a student-teacher relationship is. I have students come back each & every year from college to stop by, say hello, and to thank me for preparing them for college. I know what success is.
And I'm not sure where this came from, or what it has to do with the topic of the thread, but what's with the statement in bold? What does that have to do with time spent on lesson prep or take-home work or compensation? It actually sounded as if you were making some kind of judgement on my abilities, but that certainly can't be true, as I'm quite sure you've never stepped foot in one of my classrooms or discussed my relationships with any of my students. So, I'll chalk that up to misguided rambling.
As for the nap time comment, I'm sure you've of the phrase "tongue-in-cheek"? Many people that don't teach assume that's what we do.
When I first started teaching my planning time was used strictly how I chose it to be used. In other words, I could plan and grade. By the time I retired it was rare to have more than one planning period a week that I could choose how it was used, and quite a number of weeks there were no days. Additionally, when I first started parents weren't checking some portal every day so I could grade at my own pace. Not only that, but when I first started teaching I was not only allowed, but encouraged to have a quiet class where students were working independently, so I could grade while students worked. When I first started teaching whole-group direct instruction or independent reading was the norm so as long as I had content competence, planning classes meant writing down the sections of the book they were working on. Now days it requires creating a presentation with all the bells-and-whistles that must compete with the students' techno-toys. There was no such thing as differentiation when I first started teaching so I only had to do one plan per class instead of the three being required when I retired. When I first started teaching my professional development, when I had it, was chosen by me based on I felt would best assist me in teaching my subject. Now, if I wanted that it would be on my own time and dime. When I first started teaching a Bachelor's degree was all that was needed and expected, now many states require a certain number of graduate level classes.
The time requirements for teachers to do what is considered an adequate job has grown tremendously but their paid work time has not been altered to match those changes.
Yes I bring home work with me. But not 20 hours per week. And I worked with many teachers and very few of them brought home 20 hours worth of work either. I didn't say none of them do. I just said it's not the norm. So to base a teachers salary on 20 hours of unpaid overtime is not accurate.
Depends on the teacher, depends on the role and the way it's set up. Case in point, most special education teachers do AT LEAST that much "outside of hours," particularly if they are IEP case managers, process coordinators, and transition specialists in addition to doing classroom instruction/one-to-one or small group instruction. If you even get a prep in special ed, you're going to spend it either prepping for instruction (which looks different than prepping for gen ed classes, since individualizing instruction so it's specific to each learner is the legal standard), or working on the massive quantities of compliance-related file maintenance and related paperwork/meeting with IEP teams to confer and do data updates for said paperwork. You're not likely fitting all that in a single school day, your time and attention during the school day is going to go to predominantly one or the other, and the one that didn't get your attention during the work day has to be done before or after.
In my case, I typically DON'T have a daily prep period, so the portion of my job that's administrative HAS to be done outside of school hours, as does any instructional preparation.
I have a dual certification and have taught both gen ed and special ed, and different teaching roles and responsibilities can be very, very different. While doing case management and direct instruction, there is usually not a night I DON'T have at least a couple of hours of work to do at home, or to go in at 6 a.m. and do. This is not a complaint, it's the job. But it's not an uncommon thing, depending on the teacher and the role and the program.
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I don't know how a teacher can avoid taking home 20 hours of work. Actually reading and grading just 3 assignments per week for my 160 students, if I take average two minutes per assignment is 16 hours of grading. On top of that is planning and test writing. I wonder how much time parents would want their child's teacher to spend planning for classes, grading assignments and writing tests that reflect what was taught?
