You're a smart guy, so I'm willing to post a reply to this as I believe there is some amount of hope that I can provide some information to help turn around your view of my elementary colleagues. I hate to say it - but your point of view couldn't be much more wrong than it is.
OK. Before I get going, I want to assure you (and anyone else who may be interested in this conversation) that I love my job. I would happily choose it again if given the opportunity and frankly can't really imagine what else I would do if not teaching. I know that I get some great benefits (decent pay, nice vacation time, excellent job security, good health and dental coverage, all that stuff). I also know that I earn those great benefits.
There are a couple of things that I've never really seen addressed to satisfaction when people bring up things like you've done here.
- When you hear teachers (or teachers' loved ones and friends) describe what they go through each day and the workload that it brings, do you think that we are lying?
- I appreciate that you acknowledge at least 7 hours of work a day in the life of a teacher, but I would point out that those 7 hours are solid - and very busy - work. I don't sit down while I'm teaching, unless it's next to a kid to help them with some of their work. I don't get a chance to surf onto CP. I don't get to stop by my friend's desk to have a quick chat. Heck, I don't even get to go to the bathroom whenever I feel like it. There are some days, and I am not exaggerating in this point in the least, where I don't have a conversation with an adult while at work.
Here's some of the daily/weekly work of a teacher that you are missing:
First of all, that "Math worksheet" doesn't appear out of nowhere. At absolute minimum, you need to find it and copy it. While it's a small amount of time, it takes time.
Second, you don't just get to find one "Math worksheet" to hand out to your students. In my Math class this year, there are students whose abilities in Math range anywhere from approximately a grade 4 level to well beyond a grade 10 level. I need to prepare personalized, individual work to each of them that meets their learning needs.
Third, at the elementary level, that "Math worksheet" may well be an activity that would work for 20 minutes or so of the day. We still need to plan for the remaining 5 hours and 45 minutes of the teaching day. I'll give you that teachers usually get daily prep time. When I was in University, the instructors pointed out that the ratio of prep time to class activity time was about 1:1, so for every 1 minute of in-class time, 1 minute of prep time was required. In my experience, that hasn't quite been accurate, but I think it would be fair to say that 0.5:1 is pretty reasonable. Given that you feel that ~6 hours of a teacher's day is spent teaching, that works out to 3 hours of prep time. Please note, that when I talk about prep time, I'm talking about everything that goes into planning and organizing a lesson (marking, other assessing, creating and organizing activities, gathering materials and so on).
Fourth, elementary teachers are nearly always considered generalists that teach, at minimum, across the core subject areas (English, Social Studies, Math, and Science). In many cases, they are also responsible for the Fine Arts programming (Art, Drama, Music), and in some cases are further responsible to teach Phys Ed. That is a huge cross section of subject matter to know how to teach. Yes, it's generally fairly straightforward work for an adult, but teaching it to someone else who has no experience in the area is another matter entirely.
Fifth, you have to add some time spent at lunch as required supervision time that we all have to do. I would say this probably adds about 15-20 minutes per day of work. So - even the lunch time isn't necessarily fully ours to rest, decompress, and socialize with colleagues.
Sixth, at this point, we've not dealt with any of the so-called 'extra' work that teachers do. Field trips would be a big source of additional planning time. The CBE has done a great job of streamlining this process over the course of the last couple of years, but every single time I plan a field trip for my students, I have to assume that the work involved is going to take about 6 hours of work.
Seventh, we've still not communicated any of the assessment information we've gathered for our students to parents. Report cards need to be written; Individual Program Plans for students with special needs need to be written; sometimes I just need to send emails home because a student failed to submit work, or because their parents want me to communicate with their tutors, or they plain would like to check in to see how things are going.
Eighth, those Friday afternoons that we aren't teaching aren't exactly work free. These are assignable hours that our Principals can, well, assign to specific tasks and nearly always end up being used for various meetings. I would agree - times like those when students aren't in the busy are less stressful, but they can hardly be qualified as 'not work'.
Ninth, many teachers give up personal time to run extra-curricular activities for their students, ranging from clubs to sports teams. This further takes away from our planning time, which ends up costing time with our families and friends. We don't get paid for this work. We could earn the exact same amount not doing this work as we earn for doing it, and yet, many teachers engage in these activities.
Tenth, we've not even mentioned the stress that can come along from teaching kids, big or small. In many ways, I find the younger ones and their constant need for attention more trying than older students. We put a lot of care into our work - I get emotionally invested in my students almost as if they were my own children. It brings me joy to witness their successes, but I feel just as much stress and frustration as they do when things just don't work. Of course, there are always times when some kid has an awful home life and it just breaks your heart.
Anyway, I'm sure I left out some huge chunk of my day, but I thought I'd take some time to point out the flaws in your argument. I love my job - I really do - but people saying disrespectful things like what you did above are one of the huge negatives in my line of work. Everyone's been to school so everyone thinks they know what goes into it, when few really do. Teachers are incredibly hard working individuals who put a lot of love into their work. We aren't lying about our workloads.