Why do so many SF members hate teachers?

[Rupert_Baehr]

I wasn't pointing the finger at teaching - my comment was addressed to Treatment.

 

I agree with your comments in the post 38 - but suggest that the 60 hours per week for a 38 week year works out at about 48½ hours per week over a full year. - Few non-teachers work for 52 weeks; most get 3 weeks or so annual holiday plus 10 days public holiday, so the working year for most non-teachers is probably nearer 47 weeks.

[Rushup]

I presume you didn't mean to post this on this thread. This doesn't describe the job of a teacher at all, but it does describe how teachers are perceived by people who have never taught.

 

The reality is reasonable pay per hour once you've been doing it a while, long hours, long holidays but which you cannot take as and when you like, and the difficult job of trying to convince a generation who are constantly fed messages that being 'famous' is pretty much the only career choice -and it's one that evidently doesn't require you to know much - that learning something is a valuable thing to do.

 

On the hours thing - the school day is 6 and a half hours long. In that time you might teach 5 or 6 lessons. Each one has to be prepared. On your PGCSE you are are told to spend as long on prep as you do teaching. Clearly that is unreasonable, but let's say for every hour you teach you spend 15 minutes on prep - making sure you have the right things, that your demo works, that you have a backup in case things go wrong, that there is something to challenge the full range of abilities in the group and so on. If you teach 5 lessons a day, that's another 1.25 hours, so we're up to 7.75 hours per day.

 

Now, lets assume you set each group one homework per week, and you have 6 groups, each with 25 kids in. That's 130 homeworks to mark and give feedback on per week. Let's assume each homework takes you a mere 5 minutes to read and give feedback on. That's 650 minutes per week. Let's round that up to 11 hours - so we're now on almost 50 hours per week.

 

Remember though that teachers have to be in before the pupils for playground / bus stop duty or staff meetings, or to set up their first lesson - so we can add a minimal 15 mins per day - so we're on 51 hours per week.

 

Each year group has a parents evening - usually two per year per year group. If you teach 4 different years that's 16 parents evenings, at 3 hours each. Another 48 hours over the year, or over an hour a week on average. 52 hours per week.

 

And then there is coursework to maek - that takes much more than 5 minutes. A full set of A-level coursework (one module, complete class) would take me about 10 hours. I had two classes, and I did a full collect, mark and feedback 3 times per group, but students were free to hand in work whenever they wanted feedback, which they did reguarly. Without the ad-hoc handing in, that is still 30 hours of coursework marking per module, with two groups that's four modules. Another 120 hours - an average of 3 hours per week over the school year. We're now on 55 hours a week.

 

The curriculum changed every year I taught, which meant preparing a new scheme of work for the year over the summer. That took two days per course - 16 hours - another half hour per week of term on average. 55.5 hours.

 

Add on the after hours clubs, the trips, the sports day, the staff meetings for whole school, department and year groups every few weeks and you can easily get to a 60 hour week over 38 weeks, which works out at 43 hours per week over 52 weeks - for which I was paid about £25k, or about £11 hour. Not exactly poor wages, but it's a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility. And a lot of hours.

 

See me after class.

 

^^ What he said.

[Greengeek]

So, I was doing my teachers a favour by not doing homework?

[Number Six]

So, I was doing my teachers a favour by not doing homework?

 

You were probably in detention for longer than it would have taken to mark it.

[Lockjaw]

Ok, Blokey, I'll bite and take issue with a couple of your points here.

 

 

the teachers who regularly reply on here seem (for whatever reason) to be particularly defensive about their profession. I have found personally that the teachers that respond to specific questions (and not just to any thread that has the word 'teacher' in the title) are the more helpful.

 

and

 

 

If a poster does not receive an 'understandable' reply they will ask another question. They do this to clarify for themselves that they understand the answer - although there are inevitably exceptions and we all know who you are! People do not expect to be 'ganged up on', spoken down to or treated as antagonists or trolls! The majority(??) are grown-ups - this is not your classroom!

 

YOU are the teachers! You should be able to get your point across concisely and accurately without the needless rants that often develop.

 

 

To start. "Defensive" is, actually, a pretty inflammatory word, isn't it? By definition, anybody who responds to criticism is defending their position. If they defend their position factually would you accuse them of being "defensive"?

 

Also, "ganged up upon". See, I consider that to be a defensive statement. If a lot of posters appear with a similar opinion it means they have a similar opinion. That's it. It doesn't mean that they've all contacted each other in order to "gang up" on some poster or other.

 

Now then. In the quotes above you refer to teachers answering specific questions as being the most helpful and imply that there is sometimes poor communication. Furthermore, you seem keen that people answer questions asked of them. Here, therefore, is a previous post of mine and your responses to it:

 

 

 

listen. I, and others, have pointed this out to you already but you seem to have missed it.

 

The five training days WERE taken from teachers' holidays. Before they were introduced teachers had a week more holiday each year.

 

The students get the same now as they did before training days were introduced.

 

The introduction of training days did not decrease the number of days students spend at school.

 

Understand?

 

 

I thought I did - but now I'm not sure!

 

Does this mean that teachers now get 5 training days in school time?

 

and:

 

 

This is what I originally thought until I read the previously confusing post!

 

It is worrying though that some 'teachers' on here seem to be unable to clearly explain what appears to be such a straightforward concept.

 

It does make you wonder about what the kids have to endure at school!

 

That little exchange contains a perfectly clear, factual explanation which answered a specific question just as you recommend above. Your response was to misunderstand it and launch an attack : "confusing" ... "unable" ... " 'teachers' " ... "endure" ... etc.

 

When I, subsequently, asked you to tell me which bit was confusing your response was not a straightforward answer as advocated by yourself above but:

 

Much better attitude!

 

But I'm sorted now - Thanks!

 

I put it to you, therefore, that your own postings are at odds with the points you make regarding the failings of teachers' postings on here.

[iansheff]

I presume you didn't mean to post this on this thread. This doesn't describe the job of a teacher at all, but it does describe how teachers are perceived by people who have never taught.

 

The reality is reasonable pay per hour once you've been doing it a while, long hours, long holidays but which you cannot take as and when you like, and the difficult job of trying to convince a generation who are constantly fed messages that being 'famous' is pretty much the only career choice -and it's one that evidently doesn't require you to know much - that learning something is a valuable thing to do.

 

On the hours thing - the school day is 6 and a half hours long. In that time you might teach 5 or 6 lessons. Each one has to be prepared. On your PGCSE you are are told to spend as long on prep as you do teaching. Clearly that is unreasonable, but let's say for every hour you teach you spend 15 minutes on prep - making sure you have the right things, that your demo works, that you have a backup in case things go wrong, that there is something to challenge the full range of abilities in the group and so on. If you teach 5 lessons a day, that's another 1.25 hours, so we're up to 7.75 hours per day.

 

Now, lets assume you set each group one homework per week, and you have 6 groups, each with 25 kids in. That's 130 homeworks to mark and give feedback on per week. Let's assume each homework takes you a mere 5 minutes to read and give feedback on. That's 650 minutes per week. Let's round that up to 11 hours - so we're now on almost 50 hours per week.

 

Remember though that teachers have to be in before the pupils for playground / bus stop duty or staff meetings, or to set up their first lesson - so we can add a minimal 15 mins per day - so we're on 51 hours per week.

 

Each year group has a parents evening - usually two per year per year group. If you teach 4 different years that's 16 parents evenings, at 3 hours each. Another 48 hours over the year, or over an hour a week on average. 52 hours per week.

 

And then there is coursework to maek - that takes much more than 5 minutes. A full set of A-level coursework (one module, complete class) would take me about 10 hours. I had two classes, and I did a full collect, mark and feedback 3 times per group, but students were free to hand in work whenever they wanted feedback, which they did reguarly. Without the ad-hoc handing in, that is still 30 hours of coursework marking per module, with two groups that's four modules. Another 120 hours - an average of 3 hours per week over the school year. We're now on 55 hours a week.

 

The curriculum changed every year I taught, which meant preparing a new scheme of work for the year over the summer. That took two days per course - 16 hours - another half hour per week of term on average. 55.5 hours.

 

Add on the after hours clubs, the trips, the sports day, the staff meetings for whole school, department and year groups every few weeks and you can easily get to a 60 hour week over 38 weeks, which works out at 43 hours per week over 52 weeks - for which I was paid about £25k, or about £11 hour. Not exactly poor wages, but it's a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility. And a lot of hours.

 

See me after class.

 

Don't forget the reports that need doing on top of the marking, I have around 270 reports for just after half term.

[poppins]

Don't know about over there but not too many people in the US envy teachers, 4 years of collage, then they have to keep on taking other classes to get the higher wage scale while still working full,time, snow days off, plenty of them where I live, the teachers hate it as they have to make those days up at the end of the year usually in the good weather, also theres summer school to be taught for the slow learners,they also have to bring homework home nights and have it all ready for the next day, a nice pension, why not, theres plenty of teaching positions open for anyone that wants to stop complaining long enough to do 4 collage years

[funkymiss]

I wasn't pointing the finger at teaching - my comment was addressed to Treatment.

 

I agree with your comments in the post 38 - but suggest that the 60 hours per week for a 38 week year works out at about 48½ hours per week over a full year. - Few non-teachers work for 52 weeks; most get 3 weeks or so annual holiday plus 10 days public holiday, so the working year for most non-teachers is probably nearer 47 weeks.

 

Just saw a quote on another thread about the health dangers of consistently working such long hours (45+ per week). Higher chance of a stroke or heart attack. It suits me now, but I would hate to be still doing 50-60 hour weeks when I'm 65.

[funkymiss]

Don't know about over there but not too many people in the US envy teachers, 4 years of collage, then they have to keep on taking other classes to get the higher wage scale while still working full,time, snow days off, plenty of them where I live, the teachers hate it as they have to make those days up at the end of the year usually in the good weather, also theres summer school to be taught for the slow learners,they also have to bring homework home nights and have it all ready for the next day, a nice pension, why not, theres plenty of teaching positions open for anyone that wants to stop complaining long enough to do 4 collage years

 

I'd love to do a collage for four years

 

[Number Six]

Don't forget the reports that need doing on top of the marking, I have around 270 reports for just after half term.

 

How could I have forgotten the reports? Let's assume you do a rush job and only spend 5 minutes per pupil. You can add half an hour per week over the year for those.

 

I also forgot to include the GCSE coursework. I had two A-level groups and one GCSE group in my last year teaching. Depending on what you teach, that could easily add an hour per week over the year.

 

And then there are the revision classes after school I used to do - an extra hour once a week for eight weeks.

 

How many hours per week are we up to now?