Why do teachers think they work the hardest?

amother

Powderblue

Sat, Apr 08 2017, 10:51 pm

amother wrote:

I apologize in advance if this was already said but I don't have time to read this whole thread. (Just taking a ten minute breakfast break!)
Do teachers think they have the hardest job? If that impression was given over on imamother it was probably the result of teachers feeling attacked for all this pre Pesach vacation, which the teachers do not plan anyway.
There are a certain number of school days per year. In my neighborhood the MO schools have a ten day mid winter break while the more yeshivish schools have three or four days. Some schools give off for Memorial Day others on erev Shavuos. But if you count the days they are probably a similar amount of off days. If you'd prefer your children to have off one large chunk in the middle of the winter instead of erev Pesach, choose a school that gives that type of vacation.
With regards to gifts for Chanukah, Purim whenever. Give if you want to give and don't give if you don't want to give. Your child will not be treated poorly if you do not send a nice check or gift to the teacher on Chanukah.
I personally like to thank my kids' teachers as much as I can because they spend HOURS EVERY DAY teaching them, loving them and caring for them. When one of my kids had an asthma scare and my doctor spent a lot of time with us and got us through it, we did give him a gift. Everyone works hard. Work is, well, WORK!
This is the way schools run. They have these vacation days built into the calendar. If you'd like that type of work schedule, apply for a job in a school. If you'd like to change the way schools are set up then start your own school and run it the way you'd like. Or join the board of your child's school and you'll have a say in things like planning the school calendar.
Teachers work hard like everyone else. They do not have the hardest job but the school calendar happens to be a perk of their job.
And if my post is ttly irrelevant to this thread I do apologize.
Now back to work!

The bolded part is so true. I don't hear people complaining that their kids have winter break. Why is that any easier than kids having vacation before Pesach? The MO school where I teach had 7 weekdays off for winter break and 2 weekdays pre-Pesach (Friday and Monday). My kids' BY school had 4 weekdays for winter break and 5 weekdays pre-Pesach. Either way it is 9 days. Why does it make a difference to working parents how the vacations are split? To me it seems actually easier to have to work out arrangements for two shorter vacations a few months apart than one long vacation.

As others have said here, I am not sure where people get the idea that schools have off so teachers can clean for Pesach. Schools give a certain amount of vacation during the year. Yeshivish schools tend to give more of those vacation days around Yamim Tovim and MO schools tend to give a longer winter break and more legal holidays. My understanding was always that for the yeshivish schools it is mostly a hashkafic decision - that vacations should revolve around yamim yovim, while the MO schools are generally run by a powerful parent board and more concerned with coordinating vacations with days that more parents are likely to be off from work.

amother

Lilac

Sat, Apr 08 2017, 11:01 pm

Fox wrote:

The problem, IMHO, is that we shouldn't try to monetize appreciation.

Unless your local grocery store accepts grateful notes from parents in lieu of cash or credit cards, appreciation is an emotional transaction, not an economic transaction. Grown-ups go into careers (or should) with some idea of the salary range and opportunities. We balance our interests, talents, personalities, and skills with the demands of various careers and the lifestyles associated with those careers.

But when Facebook feeds are filled with odes praising teachers . . . When schools constantly prompt everyone to show their gratitude . . . When PSAs hector us to thank teachers . . . Well, it can seem like teachers belong to some coddled class that must be wildly applauded for showing up to work each day.

Teachers obviously deserve our respect and praise. But what about the money managers and investment gurus of Wall Street (well, more likely Jersey City these days)? The successful ones are well compensated -- obscenely so, in many opinions. But how many of us will live more comfortably in our old age as we draw pensions from funds managed by these people? How many of us -- including teachers -- draw salaries as a result of tuition, donations, or taxes paid by people whose businesses have grown through the investments made by such funds? And how often do you see a Facebook exhortation to "thank a stockbroker" that you have a job?
Snip

How do you all suppose things like Mother's Day came about?
Drawing attention to the appreciation we should give people that give us a lot, usually much of it goes unnoticed.

amother

Floralwhite

Sun, Apr 09 2017, 1:12 am

amother wrote:

Jealous? I just don't understand why kids have to be off more than a day before Pesach. Need their help? Ok, give them a half of the day. We always hear the excuse that the teachers have to prepare for Pesach. Well, people that work need that too. You work and that's your job. No excuses kids should be off and working mothers have to find arrangements. We're still paying tuition for that month too.

I love the way the chassiddishe boys NEVER have off even when it snows. Bitul Torah. But, before yom tov it doesn't apply.

The reason they have to be off is partially a safety issue. If you're a nurse, lawyer, etc, you can take off whenever you want. So every erev yom tov you can choose to take 3 personal days if you want or need to prepare. However, what if 10 teachers need to take off to prepare for yom tov? Do you think the school can find 10 subs? So what's the school supposed to do if all their teachers are out?

As a teacher I get THREE personal days a year. Yes, I get the summers off, but if my kid is sick twice, and then I have a funeral, there go my personal days and my pay is docked after that. At most jobs, people can take off, albeit there are limits, but you get more than 3 discretionary days. So forgive teachers the few extra days they get off before Pesach. And by the way, all I got was Friday and Monday.

saw50st8

Mon, Apr 10 2017, 7:40 am

amother wrote:

I think the added days during Pesach break make it really hard at work. Now you are trying to take off for an eight day holiday plus all those other days. I'm grateful that my family can watch my kids because this is busy season for me (as is fall right around the chagim). So a break in January plus a break in April is easier than a long break in April (in my opinion anyway).

amother

Pink

Mon, Apr 10 2017, 8:17 am

amother wrote:

I get 7 days all year!! No summer off, so no time for personal appointments.
Most teacher friends of mine, take care of things they don't have time for in the summer.
What happens when there is no summer?
7 days all year is some kid sick days, family emergencies or hopefully simchas and that's it.
Then I get docked.
Pay is not great to begin with, but I love what I do. I work with kids too.

amother

Ecru

Wed, Apr 12 2017, 9:07 am

amother wrote:

Disclaimer - I didn't read through the thread.
My husband is a teacher, he teaches many classes. He is very devoted to his work. He is always preparing or grading, etc. He works hard to prepare interesting classes. The parents call him all the time. Many of the classes have extremely difficult students. It's practicaly abusive situation. Teaching these classes is an uphill battle, and usually thankless.
that's why

That does sound very difficult.
And I think this post is exactly why some people with other professions take offense. Many workers have abusive or bordering on abusive bosses or co-workers. They are on-call, maybe in charge of servers 24/7 and blamed when anything goes down. If not blamed, then maybe responsible for bringing everything back up. Constantly attempting to improve efficiency of their products, very often outside of business hours.
And then we go back to the fact that these non-teachers/non-Yeshiva teachers do not have summers off, spring breaks, winter breaks or 10-day-long or more Pesach and Sukkot holidays, etc..
Anyway, no one has a monopoly on having the toughest profession. Everything depends on individual situations and individual temperaments. Sometimes salaries are commensurate with frustrations and sometimes vacation time is. And sometimes neither.

May we all find the most suitable profession for our circumstances.

petiteruchy

Wed, Apr 12 2017, 1:34 pm

I was tempted not to answer because of the pettiness on this thread, on both sides of the equation.

But, seriously: teachers don't think they work the hardest. I know dozens of teachers in all sorts of schools from private to public and part-time to full-time. I know hundreds more through online groups. They do think they work hard, and they do often feel burnt out and frustrated with the particular issues that this job entails, but only the most petty, immature people (who happen to have a teaching job) think they work the hardest out of any profession, and only the most petty, immature people (who aren't teachers) begrudge teachers or misunderstand what they do to such an extent.

SO, now that's out of the way.

It is a real thing that our capitalist society tends to monetarily undervalue "caring" positions, and tries to pit group against group. How many times have you heard the response "well, this group doesn't have it so bad, how can they complain when this other group has it worse?" to a group of workers who are trying to better their situation. Just because one group has to bring work home at night or has to deal with bad bosses or insane hours or low pay, doesn't make the other group's complaints any less valid. In fact, when one group manages to make life better for themselves in terms of compensation and treatment, it often improves conditions for other groups as well.

Teachers tend to buy into the "martyr" complex because they've been socialized to believe that so-called caring jobs demand more from them in terms of unpaid physical and emotional labor. Other caring positions like nursing and female dominated professions are often like this. Teachers believe (and society believes along with them) that because they're in the business of molding young minds and the future, that anything less than 110% is not good enough. At the same time, our society tends to believe that anyone can be a teacher, and everyone (because they were once in a classroom and have experienced good and bad teachers) thinks they know the business of teaching.

It's that dichotomy that leads to the kind of emotional response you see here. We simultaneously believe that because it's a female dominated caring job that every teacher should be putting in a ton of unpaid emotional labour "because children are our future!", AND that because we all have spent so many hours in classrooms and schools, that we know the job inside and out. In places where they have worked on elevating both the skill level and pay of teachers (Finland is a notable example) it is seen as a respected and desirable job, comparable to surgeon or engineer.

Finally, for a full-time, salaried, unionized teacher, summers off are pretty awesome. They're not as long as all that, though, when you consider that they stay a week after and come back up to two weeks before terms start. And if they are decent, they're probably planning, taking a course to upgrade, or otherwise preparing for their school year. Not to mention, their paid time off is actually just wages kept back during the 10 school months, not an extra two months pay. Private school or part time or non permanent teachers are most likely not getting paid at all, and enforced unemployment is not exactly a "perk."

I won't enumerate the other things that most decent teachers put into their work, because again, this isn't a contest. I think everyone deserves to get paid a decent living wage, to have a good work-life balance, to have some flexibility in their schedule and to be respected and valued for what they do.