Another Vacation!

Whenever I tell people I'm a teacher, the reply they inevitably give is always the same: "It must be nice to work only half the year!" or "It must be great to not have to work the entire summer!" But above all of these, there are two words I absolutely cannot stand: "Another Vacation!" It would seem that the fact teachers get a vacation or day off roughly every six weeks is something the public cannot tolerate. While this is understandable for people who are ignorant of what teaching is like; I must say it is time to set the record straight.

By contract, teachers work 186 days out of the year. Six of those days are designated "professional development". That leaves exactly 180 days that are designated "instructional". Now, by contract, teachers are required to work from 8:20 A.M. to 3:20 P.M. That is a total of 7 hours per day. I don't know of any teacher that can do everything from planning lessons to correcting student work in a 7 hour day and still teach. Personally speaking, I start my job at 7:30 A.M. and stop at 4:30 P.M. That is a total of 9 hours per day (and that's a minimum). That means I am putting in 2 hours of overtime that I DO NOT get paid for. Again, while I speak from my own experience as a teacher, I know there are many educators who follow the same work pattern I just described. Now for a little math: 2 hours/day x 180 instructional days = 360 hours of non-paid overtime work! Take that 360 hours and divide by 7 (the number of hours in an instructional day) and you get about 51 days of overtime work that is unpaid! Okay, if we take those 51 days and add it to our contractual 186 work days, we get a sum total 237 days of work per year. Half a year MY ASS!!

How do these figures compare with the "average person" who has a master's degree? Well, the average person works from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. That is a standard 8 hour day. Now, let's take 5 days/week (the average worker, and teachers, have weekends off) x 52 weeks (about a whole year) = 260 days of work per year. I'm not counting overtime hours here for two reasons: 1) The average person gets paid for overtime, and 2) the average person has a higher salary than a teacher. Either way, there is compensation for overtime that teachers just don't receive. I must make an adjustment here. The average person gets a one-hour lunch break, and I get a 30 minute one. That means, per year, the average worker gets paid for an extra 130 hours of lunch that I do not! It would be completely unfair to count these extra hours. So, take 130 extra lunch hours and divide by 8 hours (the average work day) and it equals about 16 extra days of paid work for doing nothing but eating! Sorry, but those extra 16 days have to go: 260 days -16 days = 244 work days per year! Now, by my calculations, that means the difference in work days between the "average person" and a teacher is only 7 days!

Okay, if you want to compare the amount of hours worked per year, then here it is:
Teacher- 237 work days x 9 hours = 2,133 total hours per year
Average person- 244 work days x 8 hours = 1,952 total hours per year
Well, well....the teacher actually works more. Surprised? You should be.

Obviously these figures are not "gospel truth" that are set in stone. But I think it is safe to say that this comparison is unbiased and fair. Please note, I have included paid vacation for each side. I'm sure both sides could go on and talk about the endless responsibilities each has that is involved with their job. However, when it comes to responsibility...the teacher wins, hands down. There are no two ways about it. Teachers are responsible for so many things that to list them all would literally take hours. Let's not forget that responsibility means stress. Is it any wonder teachers have the highest drop-out rate when compared to other professions?

In conclusion, teachers work more, are responsible for more, and get paid less than the "Average Joe". So, the next time I hear someone say to me, "Another Vacation!", I will simply shake my head and think to myself, "Another Asshole!"