Nerve. POW! Must. Respond. Can't. Help. Myself.
My chosen profession is the New Jersey of chosen professions. (Living in actual New Jersey only adds to the irony.) I can't tell you how many times other teachers have mocked my chosen field of librarian-ness, as if it is some sort of fake job, easy, etc. etc. Yes, it's true, I don't bring home papers to grade. I don't spend hours and hours at home planning lessons. I don't have to deal with students' parents, by and large. I used to be very defensive about all this. My choice was to be a teacher (a choice made when I was 8) and this happened to be the teaching area I went into. Then I got to a point where other teachers would say to me "Wow, you have it easy!" and I would say Yes. Yes I do. I bet you're sorry you didn't become a librarian, too.
But I am still defensive when I see anywhere the thing about teachers having it easy because they don't work a 9 to 5 day. I'm not talking about me (see above), but classroom teachers in general. I have my reasons.
When I hear people saying that teachers are just babysitters, I think of the formula I once saw which I'll attempt to reproduce here, more or less:
Let's say a babysitter gets paid, oh, $6.00 an hour. I don't really know, and that's probably cheap. When I sat, I got 50 cents.
Let's say you've got 25 kids in each class. Let's even say that when you babysit, you'd get the same pay for 2 kids. So that would be $75 an hour.
Let's say you're working a 7 hour day. (I'll get back to that.) That would be $525 a day.
That would be $2625 a week. Forty weeks in a school year. That would be an annual salary of $105,000, even for a first year teacher.
(Excuse me for a minute. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Thank you.)
Now listen, I'm not saying that teachers should be paid $105,000 a year. It would be nice, certainly, but that's not what I'm saying. (I don't think there's anyone in our society who should be paid more than firemen, case closed.) I am saying that a first year teacher in this general neighborhood gets approximately $28 for each of the seven hours a day he/she is spending with TWENTY-FIVE CHILDREN. TWENTY-FIVE CHILDREN. All in the same room at the same time. Each one an individual little human person (or sometimes even teenagers, or worse, middle-schoolers) who come in with needs, special or otherwise, baggage, quirks, and all the other amenities that come along with being people. Don't even get me started on how teachers can't just walk out of class and go to the bathroom when they need to.
Imagine then that some of these teachers who are spending all day with this multitude of children are going home where, like everyone else, they are helping their own children with their homework, while simultaneously grading papers/planning lessons for the next day. By the by, teachers generally work longer hours at school (aside from their work at home) than the hours when children are there. I know in the elementary schools in this town, school lets out at 3 but teacher sign-out is at 4. It's different at the high school; my day is generally 7 to 3. That's ... the same as 9 to 5, isn't it? I'm not a math teacher.
It's not my intention to be the apologist for teachers everywhere; there are a whole lot of miserable people out there in classrooms with children, as there are miserable people everywhere doing anything. I do think that people like this have no business teaching children, and there's no excuse for them. They're burned out, don't like what they're doing? Then they shouldn't be doing it. I do think, though, that teachers are an easy target, primarily because being a student and feeling powerless against teachers is a univeral experience in this society, and once we're adults, it's natural to respond from that point of view. And everyone has had a crappy teacher or two, or more (although most people, I think, have had at least one inspirational one, too, although I could be wrong about that.) The bottom line though, may be this: a teacher spends a whole lot of time in the company of a throng of children. Sometimes we're talking 25 five-year olds. So imagine that for a minute. Now shift that gear and imagine 25 thirteen-year olds. That's right. Ever been the parent of a thirteen-year old? Ever been a thirteen-year old? 25. Imagine yourself as the adult in charge of a room full of thirteen year olds. Or fives.
Thanks. I'm better now.
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I'm watching Will & Grace
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