Time for some ventin'! Up to this point, I have kept my posts humorous and light. Time for a lil' switch-up.
The general public judges teachers with a cracked eyeglass. (For those of you who do not, thank you. This obviously does not apply to you.) Misinformation and stigmas have accumulated and threaten to overtake all us in the profession. Media reports of teachers exercising poor judgment and abusing their power appear on a regular basis. People assume that all teachers are thinking about committing these atrocities, if they haven't already. Former students are forever marred by one (or more) bad experience(s). People assume that all teachers are treating other students the same as they have been treated.
On top of the few bad teachers giving all the good teachers bad names (<--- we've been shot through the heart, baby), misleading research is taken as gospel. For instance, one report (I'm not citing; this is a private blog, foo'!) indicated that the average pay of teachers is around 50k a year. (This makes me simultaneously laugh and cry.) When the media gets their talons into this data, it fails to disclose just how this figure was calculated. The result is that the general public thinks that every teacher makes around 50k. (Again, combo laugh/cry here.)
Another thorn in my side is when the public underestimates the amount of work we put in. People hear "summer vacation" and refuse to validate all the hard work most teachers endure.
Allow me to do what I do best, dear public, and educate you (or rather, re-educate you) about the teaching profession.
MYTH #1: All teachers are cruel, vindictive turds! That, and they probably failed at some other profession, so they had to fall on teaching as a backup.
Hahahaha... try again. Consider this: What comes quicker to mind? An incident of kindness, or an incident of cruelty? For most of us, it is easier to remember when someone has wronged us as opposed to when someone has loved us. If one bad teacher treated you like scum, that teacher leaves a lasting impression that is difficult to erase. Relationship experts (again, not citing! Feel free to look it up yourself, though) say that for every foul you commit, you must smooth it over with 3-5 acts of kindness. That can be a tough ratio to beat for good teachers to beat. Not to mention, no teacher can beat it if a student loses all faith in teachers and remains forever closed off from them.
Also, you should consider that some people have horrible experiences with teachers because they were horrible students! (Imagine that, holding somebody accountable... sheesh!) If you were acting the fool all the time, you were also bringing out the worst in your poor instructor. Be honest with yourself if you were (or still are) one of these students, the crusher of teachers' souls!
To be fair, there are some bad teachers. There are bad people in any given group. Is it fair to judge an entire population based on the actions of a few? Or should we exercise age-old wisdom and wait to draw conclusions until we actually get to know someone? Furthermore, we should judge teachers as individuals, not packs.
As for "those who can, do; those who can't, teach" CRAP, you should know better!!! Many people go into teaching because it is a calling! Teaching in and of itself is a craft. (Don't believe me? You try it.) Also, many SUCCESSFUL professionals leave their professions and take a drastic pay cut so they can find more fulfilling work as an educator. Because of their professional experience in other fields, they add an extra element to the teaching profession; they become experts in their fields and can make excellent teachers so long as they are trained properly. While some teachers do teach as a fallback plan, most teachers teach because that was their *first* choice.
MYTH #2 Why do teachers complain about their pay? They make 50k!!!!
To get a more accurate idea of how much teachers in your area make, you should research the average pay in your area! Most district sites publicize the pay scale of their educators. Also, you should note that areas that offer more pay may also have a higher cost of living. In California and NYC, teachers seem to get paid a LOT. Pit their pay up against the cost of living, though, and you will see that they do not take home as much as you think.
And yes, we all choose our profession. Therefore, we should stop bellyachin' about our dumb pay already and suck it up, buttercup! And most teachers would do just that, if their pay accurately affected their real duties. Please see the next section for more info...
MYTH #3 Teachers only work 10 months out of the year! And they get paid for 12!!! Burn 'em at the stake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whoa, settle down there, Sally. Yes, most teachers only work IN THEIR CLASSROOMS 10 months out of the year. No teacher gets paid for those 2 months he/she does not spend in the classroom, though. We have the option of spreading our pay over 12 months rather than 10. Instead of getting paid the full amount in 10 months, we take less pay so we have something waiting for us during the summer.
Now, as for those 10 months that we're working, we are doing so much behind the scenes that is more difficult to quantify. If you only count a teacher's hours the same as the school day, you are grossly underestimating. Teachers, like students, have homework. They plan lessons, create materials, grade papers, and contact parents outside school hours. We cannot accomplish all this during our planning period. (Don't believe me! You try it!!!) Just because our wheels aren't rusting in the school parking lot does not mean that we aren't working somehow, somewhere. Yes, you will see some teachers staying at a school 'til midnight. These guys simply prefer to do their work on campus. Or they're avoiding someone at home. Or a combination of both. Either way, just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there.
When you look at the actual time that teachers spend working per week, which can easily reach 80 hours per week (consider club sponsors and duties for which there is no extra pay as well as insane amounts of paperwork), you can understand why teachers feel cheated with their pay.
Now, if teachers could focus their energies on doing what they do best, teaching, and could drop some of the extra nonsense, they would be more satisfied with their pay. Or, if you could pay them fairly for the work they do, they would complain less. Here is a sobering picture: One woman's father kept a tally of all the hours she worked, unbeknownst to her. He counted her hours spent at school and at home. She not only taught, but she performed duties and sponsored an extracurricular without pay. This extracurricular required her to travel and supervise students occasionally. Finally, he noted how long it took her to complete work at home. When he divided her yearly salary by the hours she truly spent working, she was only making 25 cents an hour. (Yes, some teachers work fewer hours. Her experience, sadly, is shared by most in her same district.)
Now do you get it?!?!?!?!?
MYTH #4 Stop yer complainin'!!! You get summers off, which is the only reason you took this job anyway!!!
Many a foolish college grad went into teaching so he/she could get the summers off. This person later joined the mass exodus of individuals who quit before year 3. This poor soul made the mistake of underestimating the intense pressure of teaching those other 10 months out of the year. Spend a semester with a class full of hormonal, angst-filled, smart-mouthed juvenile delinquents* and then tell me if those two summer months compensate for your lost sanity.
Again, most teachers join the fray for they feel that it is a calling. Many of us, myself included, did not even think about those nice summer vacations until we were well into our degree. (It was like a nice surprise, a light at the end of the tunnel.)
Moreover, there is more to those summers than meets the eye. Many of us, again, myself included, spend our summers preparing for the next year. (We don't always get to teach the same class over and over. And even if we do, we have to keep ourselves up-to-speed on things.) We are assigned mandatory professional development. Some of us teach summer school and/or conduct practices and camps during the summer months, as well.
BONUS MYTH: Teachers get snow days 'cause they're too lazy to work!
Well holy Christmas nuts, Gladys! I didn't realize I could control the weather, much less control the call to cancel schools!!! Why didn't you tell me I possessed this power sooner? I sure could have used a vacation last week when my third block decided to act like demon-possessed donkeys**!!!
*Ahem* In actuality, superintendents/directors of school, in conjunction with emergency personnel, make the call to cancel school. TEACHERS DON'T GET ANY SAY IN SNOW DAYS!!! But boy, we sure do enjoy 'em! You can't tell me you wouldn't enjoy getting a day off work, so doncha be hatin' on us...
-Conclusion-
This is my deal. I LOVE my job. I HATE the disrespect. I LOVE my students. I HATE my naysayers. (Rather, I hate their naysaying, not the naysayers themselves. I just wanted to achieve parallelism there.) I LOVE knowledge. I HATE ignorance. Because I hate it so much, I have sought to eradicate it with my spiel here. Thank you for reading to it. Remember to thank a teacher... or at least, keep yer nasty, unwarranted comments to yerself unless you want a fat lip. (JK. I want to keep my job. Come back in about 25 years when I can retire, though, and I'll gladly reward you with that promise!) ;)
* Please don't get offended at my juvenile delinquents comment; it was said in jest. Most of my students are fabulous individuals. Make no mistake, though, teenagers drive the best of us to madness. And some really are delinquents. Sometimes, though, these delinquents surprise me and make the best students. And that's one reason why I'm doing this, folks. I wish to bring hope, alongside knowledge, to our youth. It's available to anyone who wants it! Your children would want it more if you supported their teachers, rather than demoralized them.
** See note above. My students know I love 'em. I also gotta keep it real, though. They can drive me crazy, and someone's gotta tell 'em the truth...
