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You have one thing to prove, namely that you are worth your pay. Any public employee has to prove that.
I don't think that public employees have to prove their worth to every tax payer. They mostly have to prove their worth to public officials. I'm a tax payer too. There are causes and funds that my tax dollars go into that I don't agree with. Welfare has not been proven to be effective in my eyes, still my money goes towards it. What is exactly is your point?
Which comments in this thread have been "way off"? Teachers get offended when an ounce of blame is pointed their way. The funny thing is that, at least in my experience, the best teachers will say "yeah I hear you...". Its the worst that protest the most!
The comments I'm talking about are not only from this thread. I'm just talking about some teacher bashing comments that I've read within the last couple of months.
I never said that the education doesn't need to improve. There are things that teachers and schools can do to improve education. I certainly never said that schools are perfect. However, I don't approve of some of the comments here and in other threads that all teachers are teaching because they can't do anything else. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I believe that I certainly could have been successful at other careers because of my intelligence. I CHOSE to become a teacher because I felt a calling.
You are not going to convince me of anything, most of the people in my family are teachers. I grew up with multiple teachers and I know exactly what they do during summer, on breaks, etc; it rarely involves working.
Teachers do not work more hours per day than other professions.
By the way, I have worked as a "teacher" before. Just not in K-12.
l.
I won't try to convince you, because I think you're right. The teachers YOU'VE been around are obviously the bottom of the barrel. The ones I know work extremely hard...they spend most of the summer researching and lesson planning. Too bad for you. I wonder what kind of 'teacher' you were. Not a very good one, I guess.
I am not a teacher yet. Teachers around here report to work 2 weeks before the school year begins and work 2 weeks after it ends. They do not work only the days the kids are in school. I would have to ask a current teacher exactly how many days they are expected to work, but I know it is at least a month longer than the school year.
I worked in private industry from the time I was 22 until I was 36 years old. I ALWAYS started with 3 weeks vacation. ALWAYS. By the time I left the investment bank I was working at I had 4 weeks vacation. I was not an investment banker, I was a regular old accountant. 3 weeks to start is pretty standard for PROFESSIONAL jobs.
you will see that there are only 16 states where the median salary for teachers is above the median salary for the state.
<snip>
It really doesn't matter how much time teachers get off in the middle of the school year. They still need to feed their family on what they make. It's not like they can go get another job over winter break. Who is going to hire them for the week they get off in December?
I am going to respond to the bolded areas:
I have several friends who are teachers, and I have never heard of them reporting in two weeks earlier and reporting out two weeks later than school starts/ends. Our district has 4 days at the beginning of the year that teachers have to report to work before the students, and one after students are released for the year. District Calendar
You may have gotten 3 weeks vacation to start, ALWAYS, in finance, but that is not how it is in every profession. Two weeks in nursing is the norm, with 6 paid holidays if you work in a dr's office. It's been so long since I worked in a hospital, I don't want to say what they're doing. When I started in the hospital, it was 2 wks vacation to start, 6 paid holidays, some of which had to be worked and taken a different day, and every third weekend off. At the engineering firms where DH has worked, it has been 2 weeks, and sometimes a few more holidays than in health care. Small companies and start-ups often are less generous.
YES IT DOES matter how much time teachers get off during the school year. I have worked every holiday possible. And when you get Christmas Day off in a hospital, you usually have to work Christmas Eve (for example). You may have to work both days, OTOH. Even in a dr's office, you are likely to work till noon on Christmas Eve, the day before/after every holiday, etc. Most businesses, at least the ones DH and I worked for, have limitations on how many people can be off on a given day (usually 30-50%). Some hospitals limit the time you can take off over "winter break" so that everyone can get a little time off, at least. Our school district gets two weeks off at Christmas; if you really want a job at that time, you could call your local hospital and offer to do day care for the employees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TuborgP
Think back to English class and the lesson on connotation and denotation. The words put up with suggest what in the minds of those reading who are not teachers? A positive experience to be valued and sought out or a negative experience to be avoided and if given a choice not experienced?
Hmmmmmm!
We can sometimes be our own worse PR people as a profession.
I agree. Teachers should stress the positives of thier profession, not the negatives.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Annie3
-In general- teachers spend their summers working (summer school, second job, tutoring, etc), continuing their education (was that a requirement of your last job?)
Surprise! Most health professions require continuing education. Do you really think your doctor hasn't learned anything since s/he graduated from medical school? The difference is a lot of them take days off work for their continuing ed. Mandatory continuing ed for nurses was discontinued in Colorado for political reasons, but it is required in many states, and will probably come back here.
Most teachers do report a week or two early because you are given very little time to set up when school officially starts. Even before the children arrive, you are in meetings and professional development all day. I go back about 10 days early. I don't like to wait until the last minute to set up. Setting up is time consuming and labor intensive. Luckily for me, my wonderful boyfriend helps me.
First of all, I was responding to TuborgP's post where he said that teachers have some flexibility in the time they spend after school grading papers, etc. They can come home, take the kids to their activiites and do it in the evening, if they prefer. Etc.
When a nurse or anyone works passed his or her contracted hours, that is called over time with pay.
Not necessarily. Both DH and I have had jobs that gave you comp time instead of pay, and sometimes it was difficult if not impossible to actually take the comp time.
Do you have conferences every day, or what? I recall conferences being 3-4 times a year, at most, and I know for a fact that the teachers in my district get scheduled comp time for the conferences. In the fall it's the Monday before Thanksgiving, giving everyone a week off.
If you think that other professionals never have to put in a moment w/o getting compensated, you are mistaken.
From reading your post, I can tell you were offended by what I typed. IF I HAVE OFFENDED THEN PLEASE DO ACCEPT MY APOLOGY. But, My point is to all readers and posters in this thread who think that teachers just got it made on 7 hour work days and get to go home to eat bom boms because people in other professions don't have that perk, since they don't get as many vacatiion time or whatever.
Trust me, deal with anyone's child for a hour, let alone 6 hours with classes as high as 40 kids, if you are high school teacher, then you would see why we need those long breaks and many vacations in between semesters. Again, comp time is better than working for nothing, so again, if a nurse has difficulty getting comp time and is still willing to work for no overtime pay, then all I can say is welcome to the club.
I won't try to convince you, because I think you're right. The teachers YOU'VE been around are obviously the bottom of the barrel. The ones I know work extremely hard...they spend most of the summer researching and lesson planning. Too bad for you. I wonder what kind of 'teacher' you were. Not a very good one, I guess.
I have to agree with you, simply because most good teachers don't leave the profession.
From reading your post, I can tell you were offended by what I typed. IF I HAVE OFFENDED THEN PLEASE DO ACCEPT MY APOLOGY. But, My point is to all readers and posters in this thread who think that teachers just got it made on 7 hour work days and get to go home to eat bom boms because people in other professions don't have that perk, since they don't get as many vacatiion time or whatever.
Trust me, deal with anyone's child for a hour, let alone 6 hours with classes as high as 40 kids, if you are high school teacher, then you would see why we need those long breaks and many vacations in between semesters. Again, comp time is better than working for nothing, so again, if a nurse has difficulty getting comp time and is still willing to work for no overtime pay, then all I can say is welcome to the club.
Actually, I wasn't offended. I try to be supportive of teachers, but I do get annoyed at the "teaching is the only profession where (fill in the blank with something negative)". I don't need to be welcomed to the club; I've been there for years. So has DH in engineering. This is a common problem for professionals. DH's company had some serious deadline a few years ago; eveybody had to work 10 extra hours a week for several months, then they were reimbursed in comp time, not money, for 80% of that. Not to mention it was hard to find the time to take even that, b/c of course, there's always another deadline. Most think the good outweighs the bad in their chosen field. BTW, I work in pediatrics, so I deal with "other people's kids", plus the parents 8+ hrs/day, 12 months a year.
Actually, I wasn't offended. I try to be supportive of teachers, but I do get annoyed at the "teaching is the only profession where (fill in the blank with something negative)". I don't need to be welcomed to the club; I've been there for years. So has DH in engineering. This is a common problem for professionals. DH's company had some serious deadline a few years ago; eveybody had to work 10 extra hours a week for several months, then they were reimbursed in comp time, not money, for 80% of that. Not to mention it was hard to find the time to take even that, b/c of course, there's always another deadline. Most think the good outweighs the bad in their chosen field. BTW, I work in pediatrics, so I deal with "other people's kids", plus the parents 8+ hrs/day, 12 months a year.
Great, and I appreciate your posting in this thread. Most teachers I know don't complain just to be complaining. I don't know about your job, but every time we get a new elected politician everything changes, new laws are passed, and no one seems to think about the kids in all of that change. It's about time that PARENTS be advocats for their children if we want real educational reform to take place. A teacher like me can't do it on his own because I am not an expert to make those kinds of decisions that would affect millions of children across our nation.
The best teachers are ones who have spent time in the real world, learning real world experiences. Teachers, who go straight from college to the classroom, have only gone from one artificial/abstract environment to another. They lack the experience to connect what it is they trying to teach, to how that knowledge is relevant to life. When the majority of teachers have little or no practical experience in the real world workplace, you have what we have now, a country in decline.
The best teachers are ones who have spent time in the real world, learning real world experiences. Teachers, who go straight from college to the classroom, have only gone from one artificial/abstract environment to another. They lack the experience to connect what it is they trying to teach, to how that knowledge is relevant to life. When the majority of teachers have little or no practical experience in the real world workplace, you have what we have now, a country in decline.
Well let's not leave the parents out, and our declining society out of that equation as well. Teachers teach what parents bring to us each and every day, and if your best and brightest child is a drug baby, a child neglected, a child molested by his or her parents, a malnourished child, as well as a child who is basically raising him or herself, then that country in decline show nuff falls back on whom?
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