In response to Gary Wood:
Obviously Gary, you have either never been married to a teacher or do not have one in your family. You apparently think that teachers work an eight hour work day and nothing else. My wife is a teacher at Chattanooga Middle School. She works an average of eight hours a day at school and right at 2.5 hours per night, except on Friday. Many a night I go to bed at 11:30 while she stays up until 12:30 or 1 a.m. On Sunday night, when your family is probably gathered around the TV, she spends around five hours trying to get ready for the upcoming week. Right at 55-60 hours per week.
That's a real "cushy deal," isn't it?
Also, during her "summers off," she has mandatory in-service and seminars before the school year starts.
Despite the fact that teachers are county employees, they pay more for their health insurance than non-teacher county employees.
That's a real "cushy deal" too, isn't it?
Although she received her degree in microbiology in 1985, she went back to school another two years to obtain her teaching degree. She attended school part-time while working an almost full-time schedule. Her schedule was worse then than it is now.
A "cushy deal" too, I suppose.
Her income now is equal to what she made in 1988, SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO!
More of that "cushy deal."
Oh, one more thing. SHE doesn't complain about working almost 60 hours a week for the same pay she made 18 years ago.
Why? Because she wants to make a difference in the lives of the young people she teaches.
THAT is the "cushy part" for her.
Johnny Houston
VOLJOHN@aol.com
* * *
I feel compelled to second Johnny Houston's response to the "Cushy Job" comment that was made. I am married to an elementary school teacher and can verify everything Mr. Houston said about the actual number of hours teachers work as true.
Teachers are constantly putting in more time than their scheduled school day. After the bell rings, they attend parent-teacher conferences, grade papers, write lesson plans, attend seminars (all year long, including during their summer breaks), attend after hour staff meetings, etc.
It's virtually impossible for my wife to have a “free” night or weekend – there is always some work to be done. She is as organized as she can be, using the latest grading and test software (that she purchased herself, it must be pointed out) to try to minimize her time spen working so that maybe she can spend some time with her family.
So why doesn't she do something else? Having served in the military during the Gulf War, she is definitely strong enough AND intelligent enough to take on any task in the corporate world. She is fully capable of maintaining a job with better pay and benefits. However, she teaches because she wants her life to be meaningful and truly believes she can make a difference. She feels good when she hears that there are parents that want her to teach their children and finds satisfaction when she knows that she has advanced her children to the next level. She is a veteran teacher with a conscience and she wants to give all she can to benefit her students.
We're getting a real deal with people like her and just by the limited iteraction with other teachers that I've met, I know that there are others just like her. What would we do if we didn't have dedicated people willing to teach our children and why isn't there more value placed on the skills teachers possess? Who knows. I know that all of us are not capable or qualified to home school their kids and most of us don't have the tolerance or patience to actually withstand a school teaching position. Maintaining patience over the three kids that I have in my house on a nightly basis doesn't quite compare to supervising 25 9 year olds on a daily basis.
A lot of us have job stresses as a result of too much work with too little scheduled time, but I can safely say that I would never trade places with my wife. For those that feel teaching is an easy task or "cushy job," then go back to school and become certified. In five years, you'll be making around 32k and hopefully you’ll stick around. . . and not just for the money.
Kevin Byars
Hixson, Tn.
kbbyars@comcast.net