As we start the countdown to the first day of school, a month away, there are some things I want to share with readers--teachers, legislators, benefactors, parents, and the general public (whether you support education or not). The basic gist? Well, the last paid teacher workday was May 30. Since that time, I have had three--that's right, three weekdays off from from teaching or getting ready for the new school year. I've had (by generous count) four Saturdays or Sundays off (meaning no work and total devotion to family and housekeeping). Those four days have had less than four hours of the day spent online. Why the rigor? Because it is my job. I AM A HIGHLY QUALIFIED, HIGHLY MOTIVATED TEACHER, AND IF YOU ARE FORTUNATE, YOUR CHILD OR GRANDCHILD, YOUR NIECE OR NEPHEW WILL BE IN MY CLASSROOM.
Why the crazy schedule? Teachers don't get paid to work like this, and crazier still is the fact that I am NOT ALONE!
I work in a county where teachers take a few days off and then go to professional development classes or take a relicensure/recertification class or work on a Master's degree in teaching--or gasp!--in administration (hopefully because it's their dream to be a principal).
People can say what they want about teachers. It's their right. We teach that in school. People can say how they would improve schools and make teachers work harder. It's their right. We teach that in school. People can blame teachers for all their failures in life. It's their right. We teach that in school. People can say what they like about teachers and the state of education. Its their right. And yes, we teach that in school.
But if people think that it is RIGHT to criticize teachers and education based on their personal experiences as a child or as a parent...or if people feel that it is RIGHT to tear down one of today's last stable institutions , then as a HUMAN BEING, I am going to say it is wrong.
People who don't like teachers scoff at the low pay teachers receive for all their hard work. They don't want to know that teachers in Japan only teach four days a week and have two days to sit in their offices to grade papers, meet with parents, get lessons ready for the following week. They don't want to know that the "substitute teacher" is a specialist that teaches computer science and technology or a specialist that teaches traditional subjects such as bamboo watercolor painting or calligraphy or remedial mathematics or remedial English (yep! All students are required to take English class in addition to Japanese and literature classes). Kids go to school six days a week for 48 weeks. So, all you critical thinkers who hate American teachers to the point of running them all off on a rail...Compete with that! And be willing to give up Saturdays and vacations! Teachers won't lose anything in that proposition because they are working for free already! Now, how about salary? Well, let me just say this. The starting wage for a trash collector in London is more than a teacher in my county makes after teaching five years. I won't argue with people who think teachers are overpaid. They need to think critically about that opinion, and nothing I say will change that narrow viewpoint.
Education-wise, it has come to my attention that I have as many years of education as a medical student. I am, in reality, a brain surgeon. I just don't make the big bucks. I do lots and lots of pro-Bono work, and I don't charge high premiums for my expertise. I never pay for a vacation with income from a single patient's visit to my classroom. Mind you, I do understand there is a huge difference between the brain surgeon who works in the operating room and likes of an educator who performs miracles every day with paper, pencil, and ingenuity! If you paid me more to use a scalpel, I might consider it, though.
People in other career fields with the same amount of education, make 58-72% more per year than teachers, and based on the government's own generous statistics, teachers with four or five-year degrees are in the only profession where the salary continues to go down. I could let that go if the need for teachers was also dropping. I could agree that this is fair if there was an education system that would replace teachers and glean the test scores and high quality education for students that people are demanding. Why on earth would anyone WANT to be a teacher when they have to pay more for their educations? keep up with the changes in licensure that happen every year? pay for their own professional development to stay on the job? work an average of 22 hours off the clock each week during the 200-day teacher contract year? work ten days during the summer without pay to attend in-service trainings provided by the school system? (Wait! You thought teachers get paid for 12 months? Really? No, that's not how it works. Teachers work on a nine-month contract for the most part. Because teachers cannot file for unemployment, many school systems take the nine-month salary and pay it out over twelve months so that teachers and their families won't go hungry or have the power turned off.) Frankly, one government agency and one independent agency that used census and employment data from 2010 report that teachers sank into the ranks of the working poor by December 21, 2010. This is both shocking and disgraceful.
Do people care? Probably not. There is the attitude that people get what they deserve and that teachers get more than that. People who feel that way must not have received a very good education, wouldn't you say? For if they had, they would be tracking down all the teachers that made a big impression on them as they were growing up. Teachers do not expect anyone to say thank you. In trending these days, it is en vogue to slam teachers just to get a laugh. People who do that must really think that teachers are dumb! Sooner or later, teachers will leave the classroom and never come back. Most will just retire while others resign themselves to making lots more money doing something else--hopefully shaking their heads when they hear co-workers ridicule teachers who stayed. What about future teachers entering college? Those numbers are already dropping. Local colleges that used to turn out twenty polished professionals each semester are down to an average of half a dozen. Why? Because even if you grow up wanting to be a teacher, you choose another profession or line of study that pays the bills and gives you a margin of comfort once you enter the workforce.
People who want to tear down the institution of public education at the expense of teachers are basically ignorant. What will happen when the last teacher doesn't return to the classroom. We can look back on history and answer that question. It was called the Dark Ages. And ignorant people were annihilated by the power hungry. It took a critical thinker, a leader to bring people out of the darkness. That person was a teacher. Peter Abelard. When Platonic and Socrative philosophy was threatened by the rule of Henry VIII, it was Abelard who cried foul and motivated people to learn the truth.
If we are not careful, despite all we have in material wealth, technology, and futuristic skills for this century, ignorance threatens us with a new Dark Age. And I ask you. Where is our Peter Abelard?
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About LizLiz Phillips teaches eighth-graders in a close-knit Southwest Virginia community, a stone's throw from the birthplace of country music and NASCAR's Bristol Raceway. Archives
October 2016
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