'The case against summer vacation'

I've never thought that what I do (teach) is "more important" than what I used to do (be an SE).

In journalism, you fulfill a Constitutional role (OK, maybe not often in sports ), hold public officials accountable, affect change in your communities, provide a vital connection to information that the community would not receive otherwise. Newspapers and media are important.

Teachers are important because of what we do for the next generation.

ALL jobs are important.

And, I wasn't expecting sympathy, but I work a lot of 12-16-hour days during the school year for no extra money, and spend a lot of my "vacation" (and a lot of my own money) to enhance my teaching career. I got out of newspapers because I hated split-shifts (I used to work for a PM) and feared the second-shift work my wife has to do now that they moved to a quasi-AM cycle.

 

I'm not a teacher, and believe me, I respect the hell out of what they do, but why would it take 12-16 hours a day to do your work?

I can see it happening if you're an elementary teacher, but a high school teacher, to me, shouldn't be working 12-16 hours days, for no pay.

The high school teachers in my state have classes five periods out of eight. They get a lunch, a prep period, and a monitor period (study halls and hall monitoring duty). They're in school with the students from around 7:30 to 2-ish, and stay until around 3. A couple of days a week, they provide extra help until 3.

They should be able to get at least the work for one class done in the prep period (grading homeworks and tests, writing up lesson plans). They should be able to get the work done in another class combined with lunch and the monitor period (The teachers when I was in school always were grading stuff during that time).

So, that leaves three classes. If it takes the 45 minutes to prepare for the class, that should be 2 hours and 15 minutes. Many of the teachers use Scantrons for tests, and they should be able to use the same lesson plans each year, with alterations for curriculum changes.

Then you have parent meetings and phone calls, which might be an extra half-hour. And I'll chuck in an extra 15 minutes for any other duties.

So, that's 10 1/2 hours. Notice, I didn't put any coaching or club duties in there. Where I am, teachers get compensated for that.

 

It seems kinda circular to me. Other jobs aren't as important as teaching because we need good teachers to train kids to be good at those jobs that aren't as important at teaching?

At some point, adults are important too. Won't someone please think of the ex-children?

 

In contrast to the opposing viewpoint: "Let's do lots more of nothing."

 

I always think the exact same way when I explain to people that I don't think that it's good to make raising your children, as a parent, your sole mission in life.

Stay-at-home moms really react well that one, as you can only guess.

 

If we really want to get off on a tangent, I am totally down with that. One time my wife was watching Oprah and she had a woman on there who wrote a book about how she loved her husband more than her children. It was basically a statement for shock value, but her point was that if you ignore your marriage for the sake of your children, you are going to lose your marriage, which is not going to be good for your children.

Speaking as a husband and father, of course I agreed wholeheartedly with her. I think a lot of moms get in competition with each other about how good they can be as mothers (who spends the most time taking their kids to activities, helping them with their homework, etc.) and they ignore their marriages.

Anyway, that's my little rant that's way off topic from this thread.

 

Not the point I was making at all.

I'm saying I don't acknowledge discussion of a topic that has been discussed nonstop for decades to be a noteworthy political accomplishment.
Further, neither is 'doing something' a noteworthy political accomplishment. 'Doing something' does not equal 'fixing something.'
Previous administrations have 'done something' about public education. What they have failed to do is 'fix the problems.'

That is the point I'm making.

 

I remember going off on this rant in a van with my wife, my friend and his wife, and their two children. My friend's wife was saying how the most important thing we can do as humans - and really, the only think we should really worry about - is raising children.

And I said: "Why? So they can grow up to raise children, who can grow up to raise children, who can grow up to raise children? At some point, don't you have an obligation to contribute more to society than just that, in order to do your part to help move the human race forward?"

I don't think she understood what I was trying to get at, though. She just kept taking it as me saying that it wasn't important to be a good parent.

 

I'm somewhere in between two extremes on this.

I see the benefit of building to a climax and then taking time off, like a sports season does. But I think three months of idleness is a bit too long. Maybe something like 10 months of a school year and add in a few longer breaks along the way.

 

That's Ayelet Waldman, author of "Bad Mother" and wife of Michael Chabon. Just thought I'd cross thread with the useless info thread.

 

BTE, when you get home at 1 a.m., did you get to work at 7 a.m.? Because that is likely about when crimsonace got to work, if not earlier. And when he gets home at 6 p.m., there is a good chance he brought home some lesson planning to do or papers to grade.

Tell the large number of experienced, certified teachers in my county who are out of work how easy it is to get a teaching job. You really are displaying tremendous ignorance on this thread.

 

You can add my name to your list, this is a very odd day.