Teaching is Harder Than You Thought

This blog post is long overdue. I have finished my first quarter teaching!!! WHOO-HOO!! I hear it only gets easier from here! I have to say it wasn't too bad. I definitely enjoy the work, but the fact that the work NEVER ends is what makes it so difficult.

For those of you who think teachers have it easy, allow me to correct you. I remember a time when I had a job where I left work when my shift ended, and that was it. That is nothing like being a teacher. Teachers are not done with work at 3pm. Teachers are only done with classes at 3pm. I, for example, have 4 hours of classes per day. For each of those classes I have to spend at least as much time planning for the class as I do actually teaching it. That makes 4 hours of planning outside of class time for every day that I work. During the day, I may have 2 hours free to begin the planning process, so that leaves another 2 hours after school to plan.

So here I am at 5pm having taught, and planned for the next day. And guess what, the day is not over yet. All that work I assigned the kids, now I have to grade it, give feedback, put into the gradebook, analyze my grading scale, organize what is to file, what is to hand back to the students, etc... With 50 students, each having two subjects, and assignments everyday in each subject, that is 100 assignments per day that I have to keep track of. All of which has to be done before 9pm so I can get to bed in time to get 8 hours of sleep before I wake up again at 5am the next day to do it all over again.

Oh, and I forgot to mention a couple other things...Trying to keep my class website up-to-date so parents can be aware of what their student has for homework this week, and what important things are coming up. Also, the 4 hours of planning is never enough. There is so much material out there to sort through, learn from, and apply to your class, you could plan 24 hours a day and not get through it all.

So, what I've learned as a teacher this quarter is:

The work never ends, sometimes you just have to stop anyways.

AND

Good teachers spend more time in "the office" than the best paid sales reps, for less than a quarter of the pay. Anyone who wants to give me the "but you've got the summer off" argument, be prepared to see my claws.