A lot has happened since our last post, and while much has happened, a feeling we have each had over the years finally coalesced into an actual thought. Are we overworking ourselves? A week ago a teacher friend of mine from another state posted on Facebook that he felt like he was doing so many things that he was doing none of them well. I sympathized because I feel the same way most days. Then another friend sent an article to us, from the UK, discussing the hours teachers "must" put in to be good teachers and suddenly we understood! The title is "Teachers work more overtime than any other professionals, analysis finds", and it can be found on the tes website at https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2015/02/27/teachers-work-more-overtime-than-other-professionals-analysis-finds.aspx. While there are differences between primary and secondary teachers, both work at least 12.5 hours more than their contracted hours per week on average. This made us think about WHY we are spending so much time outside of the classroom without being paid for it.
My husband has a "normal" job. He is an engineer at a utility company. Other than talking through some successes or frustrations with me at home, he does not do a single bit of work outside of his office. He might stay 15 to 30 minutes later than "quitting time" without pay, but that is more of an exception rather than the rule. If he (and his department) fall behind due to a large influx of work, the company will allocate overtime pay to compensate him for his time. He does not often need to stay awake at night wondering how to help a contractor meet his deadlines, because he has time during the day to do it. He is a dedicated worker who really cares and works his butt off to do his very best, but that desire doesn't translate to having to "donate" his personal time to keep up. I have also worked in the normal sector. At no time was I required to spend hours and hours of my time to get a job done outside of the time given to me during the day. I am sure there are other jobs out there that may require unpaid overtime, but I would be interested to know what their average pay is to compare to the pay of a teacher.
I looked at my typical work week and determined an average amount of time spent on planning, grading, tutoring, etc. outside of my work hours during the day. This has definitely changed over the years. My first year teaching, I did not understand that there is some (albeit limited) flexibility in when things get graded. The day before the quarter grades were due I went to work at 8am and did not get home until 11:30pm. By 9:30 I had broken down into a crying-fest being so exhausted and knowing I had to get up in just a few hours and come back. Why did I stay so late? Well, we had a very labor intensive lab that I needed to mix chemicals for, and I had assigned a large project that I had just collected. I worked from 3:30 in the afternoon until 11:30 that night to get all done. My husband dropped dinner off for me, and I did not take a break during that extra 8 hours. I never did that again, at least to that extent.
For me, I come in to the classroom 45 minutes before school starts (contracted hours start 15 minutes before) and stay at least an hour after (again, by contract I have to stay 15 minutes). This is 75 minutes of unpaid work a day. I do this every day. Over the course of 180 student days (and I do the same on teacher workdays), this adds up to an average of 6.25 hours per week. During this time I am making copies, setting up labs, tutoring students, writing assignments, quizzes, and tests, or making power points. I do sometimes find the time to work with other teachers or even have a short conversation about things outside of the classroom, but easily 98% of this time is spent focused on some aspect of my job. We also have meetings that occur outside of work hours. Staff meetings, meetings for students with IEP or 504's happen outside of contracted hours, and we do not have a choice about whether we want to attend or not. This is not included in our pay calculations. It is just the way it is done.
While I do my best to leave work at work so I can focus on things at home, this is not practical. I do try, but probably average an additional 5.5 hours of school work at home. Whether this was because I needed to bring work home to grade so students have an accurate accounting of their grades or maybe I am planning a unit and need to develop support material for it, this is work that I cannot squeeze into my busy day. So all told, I am working at least 11.75 hours without pay each week, and truly cannot see how I can do it any differently. In conversations and by observations, I am not unique. I am not even in the minority. I know very few teachers who work just their contracted hours and leave everything behind. At least, very few effective teachers. I have known some over the years, but the quality of education in their classroom was definitely different than the rest.
You may ask why I don't get the required things done during the day. Class starts at 7:45. As soon as the bell rings we are off and learning. At the end of 90 minutes the bell rings for the class to move on. During this 6 minute time frame I might be able to run to the bathroom, but usually am answering questions for students, helping them find out what they are missing, or having a conversation with a student who needs someone to pay attention to them. Then the next class begins. During lunch, a large number of science teachers do our best to disconnect from the classroom and eat together, allowing us up to 44 minutes (from the end of 1 class to the start of the next) of interrupted time to decompress. Most of us are lucky if we get 30 minutes between getting back to our classroom on time before the next bell, and leaving our classroom after the last class. Our schedule consists of four 90 minute periods per day. I teach 3 different class types, with preparation and grading unique to each one. We each have 1 plan period per day. This is 90 minutes to work on grading, planning, etc.....except when we have meetings scheduled during it. One semester we have a total of three 90 minute "free" periods over the course of 2 days. This is a time where we often get students come to see us if they have the ability. Not always able to focus on getting the job done. I have 90 minutes during each day to prepare for 3 different classes. Chemistry classes. This means labs to plan and set up, assignments to develop, print, and then grade, lecture notes to create, tests to write and grade, entering grades in the online system, talking to parents via email, and completing paperwork for students who are struggling to be files, as well as try to work with my colleagues to make sure I am doing the best job I can. In 90 minutes.
So, knowing this. WHY are we expected, indeed required to work more than we are paid for? Our salaries are low to begin with. I Googled jobs that make my annual salary (and I have been teaching for 11 years in the STEM field and both a Bachelor's degree in Biology and a Masters Degree). A dance instructor, a court reporter, chefs, and convention planners made the list. There were many jobs that STARTED there, but rapidly went up with experience and degrees. We are already paid wages consisted with jobs requiring limited to no degree. And while each of those examples is a job to be proud of, the world would not stop if they did. Imagine a world without school. Without educators who spend so much of their time trying to make sure students learn, grow, develop and get prepared for the rest of their lives.
We decided to perform an experiment. What would happen if we refused to work more than the hours we are paid for? At my rate of pay, I am making $29 per hour for my contracted hours. If I got paid for the time I spent outside of the classroom, that would increase my pay by $19,373.64 per year. As long as I didn't work on holidays or over the summer. Stay tuned for the results of our 9 day experiment!
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