Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashartus
I don't think she's in the minority - my wife is an elementary teacher and regularly works ~60 hour weeks and it seems pretty common with other teachers I know. The marking and prep actually seems to be a relatively small part of it; a lot of time is spent on things like individualized plans for students, administrative reports, organizing field trips and external programs, dealing with parents, etc. During report card season she's usually still working when I go to bed. Getting 6-7 weeks off in the summer (teachers are back a week or two before students) and 2 weeks at Christmas is nice, though in some respects I'm not sure I'd trade the extra time off for the ability to choose when I take my holidays.
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I always chuckle at this argument. If I were to choose 100 days off a year, I'd probably pick about 60 days around the nicest two months of the year, maybe add 18 around Christmas as it's nice to spend that time with family, then I'd throw in another 10 days around Easter so I could sneak away for a winter/spring getaway. Those days would also be nice because that's when my kids would have off, which is great for family time and lowers childcare costs for families where both parents work. Teachers may not get to choose all of their days off, but they do get the best days off in the calendar so it's hard to have too much sympathy for them on that front.