This club is the best in the world, bar none you flogs!

[eldorado]

Teachers...* 'em, they're all slackers and lefties...

 

[Davo23]

Teachers...**** 'em, they're all slackers and lefties...

"A 5 hour day and 12 weeks holidays every year"

 

[savagelunchbox]

Teachers...**** 'em, they're all slackers and lefties...

nun off them qan spell eether

 

[grumbleguts]

"A 5 hour day and 12 weeks holidays every year"

I know you're joking, but before I was a teacher I worked as a senior research fellow with the Victor Chang Heart Research Institute designing molecules to mitigate heart pump unction for blood pressure patients. I was earning more than twice the money I earnt when I started teaching (and after ten years I have not reached the earnings I was on when I left). But as a teacher, the hours are worse the work load greater, the stress levels higher, there is NO comparison. Teachers don't understand if they have never done anything else, and non-teachers CERTAINLY don't understand. The only way to get any perspective on this is to work in the teaching field AND some other field to fully get an appreciation of the workload, hours and stress teachers undergo.

The stress comes in part from teaching typically in a cohort 5 or 6 classes of 25 - 30 kids, each with 1 or two pieces of assessment at the end of each term. That's 130-150 assignments, exams, etc of 7 or 8 pages each, having to be marked in a few days, fairly and justly. That's sometimes thousands of pages, submitted within days of each other and having to be marked in a few days. These kids are someone's magnus opus - their raison d'etre. For every parent these kids are as important in their lives as my kids are in mine. They relinquish control of their child for 6-7 hours a day to us, whom they know very little about, and have no choice who teaches them.

I'm lucky in that my students instill jealousy in other students for having me and as such there are a great deal of phone calls to the school asking for space in my class. The demand is high and space is low. I can't imagine what it would be like if kids were begging to swap OUT of my classes. Some teachers struggle. They work their guts out, they slave as much as the next teacher AND they don't get any job satisfaction. Then they are perceived to be lazy overpaid, underworked. I know I work a hell of a lot harder now than I did in a much higher paying job.

I don't desire excellence from my students, I desire it FOR them.

 

[tige19]

I know you're joking, but before I was a teacher I worked as a senior research fellow with the Victor Chang Heart Research Institute designing molecules to mitigate heart pump unction for blood pressure patients. I was earning more than twice the money I earnt when I started teaching (and after ten years I have not reached the earnings I was on when I left). But as a teacher, the hours are worse the work load greater, the stress levels higher, there is NO comparison. Teachers don't understand if they have never done anything else, and non-teachers CERTAINLY don't understand. The only way to get any perspective on this is to work in the teaching field AND some other field to fully get an appreciation of the workload, hours and stress teachers undergo.

The stress comes in part from teaching typically in a cohort 5 or 6 classes of 25 - 30 kids, each with 1 or two pieces of assessment at the end of each term. That's 130-150 assignments, exams, etc of 7 or 8 pages each, having to be marked in a few days, fairly and justly. That's sometimes thousands of pages, submitted within days of each other and having to be marked in a few days. These kids are someone's magnus opus - their raison d'etre. For every parent these kids are as important in their lives as my kids are in mine. They relinquish control of their child for 6-7 hours a day to us, whom they know very little about, and have no choice who teaches them.

I'm lucky in that my students instill jealousy in other students for having me and as such there are a great deal of phone calls to the school asking for space in my class. The demand is high and space is low. I can't imagine what it would be like if kids were begging to swap OUT of my classes. Some teachers struggle. They work their guts out, they slave as much as the next teacher AND they don't get any job satisfaction. Then they are perceived to be lazy overpaid, underworked. I know I work a hell of a lot harder now than I did in a much higher paying job.

I don't desire excellence from my students, I desire it FOR them.

Brilliant post.

Just on this -

I wanted to teach, in part because I wanted the lifestyle and I had ambitions to coach at a higher level, and suitably the best way to go about this was to complete my university degree. I understood whilst on my rounds that the role was very different to that I envisioned, the common thought of 9-3, rolling in and out, having holidays every 9 weeks and breezing through life in a semi-full time career whilst I focussed on coaching were quickly shot down.

My first year in the education system I was lucky enough to score a sports coordinator role at my previous high school, I really enjoyed the year and was heavily involved in the coaching/training of the elite junior athletes as well as the coordination of the dozens of sporting events/carnivals we participated in. The role was heavily management focussed and minimally theory focussed, I loved it. My next role was having my own PREP class, and what an eye opener, in fact what a mind f**ing experience. I can't even begin to provide the amount of work one has to undertake for such a role, countless hours in class preparation, countless hours explaining/re-explaining curriculums to parents, countless hours trying to discuss student development with parents, countless hours trying to get parents to get their children to attend EVERY DAY in order for organic and natural development to transpire. You don't even want to know the extra curricular expectations placed upon by you by the school, by and the large the principle is simply a dictator who delegates, and for what? 56k?

Those that poke fun at teaching as a profession really do so with little idea of what the responsibility entails, it is a role that is highly scrutinised and criticised and rewarded minimally.

 

[Davo23]

I know you're joking, but before I was a teacher I worked as a senior research fellow with the Victor Chang Heart Research Institute designing molecules to mitigate heart pump unction for blood pressure patients. I was earning more than twice the money I earnt when I started teaching (and after ten years I have not reached the earnings I was on when I left). But as a teacher, the hours are worse the work load greater, the stress levels higher, there is NO comparison. Teachers don't understand if they have never done anything else, and non-teachers CERTAINLY don't understand. The only way to get any perspective on this is to work in the teaching field AND some other field to fully get an appreciation of the workload, hours and stress teachers undergo.

The stress comes in part from teaching typically in a cohort 5 or 6 classes of 25 - 30 kids, each with 1 or two pieces of assessment at the end of each term. That's 130-150 assignments, exams, etc of 7 or 8 pages each, having to be marked in a few days, fairly and justly. That's sometimes thousands of pages, submitted within days of each other and having to be marked in a few days. These kids are someone's magnus opus - their raison d'etre. For every parent these kids are as important in their lives as my kids are in mine. They relinquish control of their child for 6-7 hours a day to us, whom they know very little about, and have no choice who teaches them.

I'm lucky in that my students instill jealousy in other students for having me and as such there are a great deal of phone calls to the school asking for space in my class. The demand is high and space is low. I can't imagine what it would be like if kids were begging to swap OUT of my classes. Some teachers struggle. They work their guts out, they slave as much as the next teacher AND they don't get any job satisfaction. Then they are perceived to be lazy overpaid, underworked. I know I work a hell of a lot harder now than I did in a much higher paying job.

I don't desire excellence from my students, I desire it FOR them.

Good post, but I'm the wrong person to assess it.
I am overloaded with teachers in my family, my mother, sister and brother-in-law were/are all high school teachers. The dinner table conversation was all about the Staff Room and the Head, and the DP and the kids and the constant arguments and hassles:

"the DP wants us to wash our own cups and clean up every time we use the Staff Room"
"Oh my God, really?"
"And we have to pay for our own biscuits"
"The horror"
Etc. etc, etc

I've heard it all even though I didn't understand most of it!

 

[grumbleguts]

Good post, but I'm the wrong person to assess it.
I am overloaded with teachers in my family, my mother, sister and brother-in-law were/are all high school teachers. The dinner table conversation was all about the Staff Room and the Head, and the DP and the kids and the constant arguments and hassles:

"the DP wants us to wash our own cups and clean up every time we use the Staff Room"
"Oh my God, really?"
"And we have to pay for our own biscuits"
"The horror"
Etc. etc, etc

I've heard it all even though I didn't understand most of it!

If that's all their concerns are they are probably not doing it right. I worry about every kid and where they are going well in all areas of their lives. What the admin want and whether or not the dishes are washed in theh staffroom is completely irrelevant to me. I spend every non playground duty in classrooms with students running robotics club, chess club and tutorial sessions. I don't spend much time in the staffroom because I hate teachers.

 

[Grendel]

Teachers...**** 'em, they're all slackers and lefties...

You should have saved this for April first mi amigo.

Tige, you were always passionate if not coherent. I'd rather the passion any day. Keep it going, good luck with the new business too.

Oh and whoever it doing the modding, just twist the arm of whoever is on the main board. Unless they're Don's followers, I reckon all other mods would probably get a kick out of (further) kicking a near-dead don while it's down.