What career would you suggest?

[northcrunk]

Originally Posted by gladaki

I know people doing great with degree from SAIT. I heard there infrastructure management course us good and people get place easily. Its 10 month course, better than spending 4 years in school again..

SAIT is good. You get training and won't come out 'overqualified' with 'no practical experience'. It will be easier to actually get a job and work your way up.

[troutman]

I sometimes think if I was starting over, I would study viticulture (wine).

http://www.canadianvintners.com/cana...-and-research/

http://www.okanagan.bc.ca/Campus_and..._Programs.html

http://www.brocku.ca/mathematics-sci...nd-viticulture

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Locke

You're a 'hobby astronaut?' Where do I sign up for that?

Interested in astronomy. Have been a passenger in planes.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by troutman

Interested in astronomy. Have been a passenger in planes.

Looking for large cardboard box to use as spaceship.

[V]

Originally Posted by peter12

Take an Arts degree. Read tough books. Learn a new language. Maybe some business courses. Find yourself pretty much qualified for every marketing and comms job out there. Enjoy reading fine things at home, and generally, having a delightful level of engagement with the world you live in.

Forget engineering. Look at the way engineers talk. It is deplorable.

This is such a fantastic deltabravo post. Honestly, well done.

[V]

Sliver is pretty over the top about teachers, (well, about everything) but it is a pretty good gig. My dad and brother are both teachers, and they've got it pretty good. They do spend a lot of extracurricular time volunteering for the school through sports programs, drama, etc. A lot. Maybe that's special, because it's a fairly small private school they teach at. I'd say they put in pretty close to 50 hours a week through a pretty solid chunk of the year. My brother more than my dad, as my dad is established, got the courses he wants to teach and has taught them for a while. My brother's in his second year, so there's a lot of prep and learning.

But the idea of having a 6 week completely uninterrupted vacation over the summer every single year is incredible. It really is hard to beat. And that's just the start of their vacations. Crazy.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by V

Sliver is pretty over the top about teachers, (well, about everything) but it is a pretty good gig. My dad and brother are both teachers, and they've got it pretty good. They do spend a lot of extracurricular time volunteering for the school through sports programs, drama, etc. A lot. Maybe that's special, because it's a fairly small private school they teach at. I'd say they put in pretty close to 50 hours a week through a pretty solid chunk of the year. My brother more than my dad, as my dad is established, got the courses he wants to teach and has taught them for a while. My brother's in his second year, so there's a lot of prep and learning.

But the idea of having a 6 week completely uninterrupted vacation over the summer every single year is incredible. It really is hard to beat. And that's just the start of their vacations. Crazy.

How many actual days are teachers required to work? Theres Summer, Easter, Christmas and the various other holidays.

Even take all of their prep work and volunteering and everything else and spread it over a standard work year and where do they fall?

Even this weekend, Monday is a holiday and I guess Friday was a 'Professional Development in Vegas' day?

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Locke

How many actual days are teachers required to work? Theres Summer, Easter, Christmas and the various other holidays.

Even take all of their prep work and volunteering and everything else and spread it over a standard work year and where do they fall?

Even this weekend, Monday is a holiday and I guess Friday was a 'Professional Development in Vegas' day?

School year is 40-41 weeks, plus another week or two total before and after the school year where they're in the school.

Take out the stat holidays (I think there are 5 or so that aren't covered by summer, Christmas, and Spring Break) and they have about 200 work days a year. Different people will work different hours, but the government uses 9.1 hours per work day for teachers for things like EI calculations which would put them in the 1800-1850 hour a year range. Some will certainly work less than that and some that run a lot of extracurricular activities will work more. And the utterly lazy and useless ones probably work the bare minimum of about 1500-1600 hours a year.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by opendoor

School year is 40-41 weeks, plus another week or two total before and after the school year where they're in the school.

Take out the stat holidays (I think there are 5 or so that aren't covered by summer, Christmas, and Spring Break) and they have about 200 work days a year. Different people will work different hours, but the government uses 9.1 hours per work day for teachers for things like EI calculations which would put them in the 1800-1850 hour a year range. Some will certainly work less than that and some that run a lot of extracurricular activities will work more. And the utterly lazy and useless ones probably work the bare minimum of about 1500-1600 hours a year.

Hm. For a structured union job thats a pretty nebulous answer.

So, with 2 weeks vacation most standard work years are about 2000 hours, so some teachers work between 1500-1850?

At 1850 hours thats 46 weeks of work, so thats only 6 weeks vacation which cant be right because summer alone is that 6 weeks, that doesnt take any other holidays or PD days into account.

At 1500 is about 38 work weeks which indicates 14 weeks off total?

And they are accounted for at 9.1 hours per day? So on an hourly basis they're logging 9.1 every work day?

But they're not paid per day or per hour, they're paid an annual salary regardless of number of hours actually worked right?

Anyways, I dont want to get into it, and I'm not attacking you or teachers I just wanted to run the numbers a bit because for something thats supposed to be open for everyone to know there seems to be a fair bit of ambiguity.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Locke

Hm. For a structured union job thats a pretty nebulous answer.

So, with 2 weeks vacation most standard work years are about 2000 hours, so some teachers work between 1500-1850?

At 1850 hours thats 46 weeks of work, so thats only 6 weeks vacation which cant be right because summer alone is that 6 weeks, that doesnt take any other holidays or PD days into account.

At 1500 is about 38 work weeks which indicates 14 weeks off total?

And they are accounted for at 9.1 hours per day? So on an hourly basis they're logging 9.1 every work day?

Not sure where the confusion lies. It's like a lot of jobs where you have a certain number of hours that are mandatory (i.e. classroom hours) and you have a certain amount of work you're expected to get done outside of those hours in order to be prepared for that face time with the students. That varies between teachers and it doesn't change the number of days or weeks worked in a year, it just means more hours per day. Some will put in 7-8 hour days while others will end up putting in 10+ hours a day depending on how dedicated they are, what kind of extracurricular activities they handle, what subject they teach, etc.

But yes, the government considers the teacher's work week to be 45.5 hours per week on average, hence the 9.1 hours per work day. At 40-41 weeks that's in the 1850 per year range I mentioned.

But they're not paid per day or per hour, they're paid an annual salary regardless of number of hours actually worked right?

Anyways, I dont want to get into it, and I'm not attacking you or teachers I just wanted to run the numbers a bit because for something thats supposed to be open for everyone to know there seems to be a fair bit of ambiguity.

Yes, they're paid salary. And like many salaried jobs there is some ambiguity in the number of hours that are needed. Even a single teacher will likely vary the number hours worked year to year based on the different circumstances. If you have a good class where the students are all at a similar level then you'll have to work less than if you have a bunch of kids with behavior issues or a huge range in abilities where you need to create and monitor a bunch of individual education plans for each one of them.

[Codes]

To the OP, what kind of science degree does your brother have? Is it general sciences, or did he specialize?

[Sainters7]

There seems to be a misunderstanding regarding PD days. Students get the day off, teachers don't. They have to go to conferences, or sometimes meet with other teachers who teach the same subject at a designated school and look at previous year's final exams to see how they can be improved, etc.. From the teachers I've talked to, they'd rather just be teaching that day, instead of PD stuff.

Definitely a solid career with great benefits, and a lot more security in lean times than the private sector. There's just way more extracurricular/prep stuff you gotta do than most realize it seems, especially your first few years in the profession. Teacher burnout is a real thing, the amount of people who leave the field within the first 3-5 years is high.

Very rewarding career, but it's definitely not for everybody.


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[GGG]

Originally Posted by Sainters7

There seems to be a misunderstanding regarding PD days. Students get the day off, teachers don't. They have to go to conferences, or sometimes meet with other teachers who teach the same subject at a designated school and look at previous year's final exams to see how they can be improved, etc.. From the teachers I've talked to, they'd rather just be teaching that day, instead of PD stuff.

Definitely a solid career with great benefits, and a lot more security in lean times than the private sector. There's just way more extracurricular/prep stuff you gotta do than most realize it seems, especially your first few years in the profession. Teacher burnout is a real thing, the amount of people who leave the field within the first 3-5 years is high.

Very rewarding career, but it's definitely not for everybody.


Posted from Calgarypuck.com App for Android

How does teacher burnout compare relative to other professions? Is there anywhere that measures graduates working in their field after 10 years?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Sainters7

There seems to be a misunderstanding regarding PD days. Students get the day off, teachers don't. They have to go to conferences, or sometimes meet with other teachers who teach the same subject at a designated school and look at previous year's final exams to see how they can be improved, etc.. From the teachers I've talked to, they'd rather just be teaching that day, instead of PD stuff.

Definitely a solid career with great benefits, and a lot more security in lean times than the private sector. There's just way more extracurricular/prep stuff you gotta do than most realize it seems, especially your first few years in the profession. Teacher burnout is a real thing, the amount of people who leave the field within the first 3-5 years is high.

Very rewarding career, but it's definitely not for everybody.


Posted from Calgarypuck.com App for Android

Of course that burnout has little to do with the teaching and more to do with the administration and dealing with that aspect.

I briefly considered teaching as a career, but it was more as a 'if nothing else works, I could always do that', which I realized was a bad idea because the intentions were just wrong. I personally feel like the education system needs a significant overhaul. There is no way that teachers are putting in 9.1 hours a day, despite being paid for that. Seemingly every school closes at noon Friday, for starters. Then you consider that teachers would be working say from 8-6 the other days to make that work, and it's just not happening.

Do some teachers work those hours? Sure. But the other impactful point is that teachers have prep time during the day as well. So they have to do some things before and after school, but they also have a chance to do some things during the day as well. So to suggest that all teachers are near that 9-10 hour day average is ridiculous.

I also think that if people think that being a teacher is so amazing though, go get a degree and teach. I decided that while summers off to go travel and fishing would be awesome, you have to be a certain kind of person and have a certain dedication to be a teacher.

[Fuzz]

The other problem with teacher vacation schedules is you are stuck travelling in busy season. You want to go to Europe in July and August? Have fun with that...Mexico over spring break? BC road trip camping in the summer? Ugh. I always travel out of peak school vacation time, it is so much more enjoyable. Every time I talk to my teacher friends theuy are jealous of that flexibility.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

The other problem with teacher vacation schedules is you are stuck travelling in busy season. You want to go to Europe in July and August? Have fun with that...Mexico over spring break? BC road trip camping in the summer? Ugh. I always travel out of peak school vacation time, it is so much more enjoyable. Every time I talk to my teacher friends theuy are jealous of that flexibility.

Hah, teachers jealous of the standard two weeks a year a lot of people start out with? That's a new one.

You may think your schedule of getting to go away for a week during the third week of November is awesome now, but wait until you have kids. You get a fraction of the days off they get, but you still have to arrange childcare on the days they have off. If you're a teacher, you have the same amount of days off as a school child.

Also, how can you think having the two nicest months off per year and two weeks at Christmas and a week or two in the spring is not the best scenario? Those are literally the best times of year to have off. And finally, if teachers want to take time off during the year, they can! And while they're away another teacher comes to their class and does their work for them. Hell, if they want to take a year off they can and still come back to a job. How deadly is that?

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Hah, teachers jealous of the standard two weeks a year a lot of people start out with? That's a new one.

You may think your schedule of getting to go away for a week during the third week of November is awesome now, but wait until you have kids. You get a fraction of the days off they get, but you still have to arrange childcare on the days they have off. If you're a teacher, you have the same amount of days off as a school child.

Also, how can you think having the two nicest months off per year and two weeks at Christmas and a week or two in the spring is not the best scenario? Those are literally the best times of year to have off. And finally, if teachers want to take time off during the year, they can! And while they're away another teacher comes to their class and does their work for them. Hell, if they want to take a year off they can and still come back to a job. How deadly is that?

As an educator, I agree. I have never felt the least bit annoyed about my vacation time being in the summer or over major holidays. I have no problem working around busy travel times with my four months off each year.

The teaching profession is not for everyone, and vacations are not a good reason to get into it, but I don't know anyone in K-12 education who complains about their vacation time.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Hah, teachers jealous of the standard two weeks a year a lot of people start out with? That's a new one.

You may think your schedule of getting to go away for a week during the third week of November is awesome now, but wait until you have kids. You get a fraction of the days off they get, but you still have to arrange childcare on the days they have off. If you're a teacher, you have the same amount of days off as a school child.

Also, how can you think having the two nicest months off per year and two weeks at Christmas and a week or two in the spring is not the best scenario? Those are literally the best times of year to have off. And finally, if teachers want to take time off during the year, they can! And while they're away another teacher comes to their class and does their work for them. Hell, if they want to take a year off they can and still come back to a job. How deadly is that?

I usually travel in June if I stay in Canada, or September in Europe. In Portugal right now, actually. It's busy, I couldn't do it in summer crowds and heat.

We went to Hawaii early December and it was half the price than 2 weeks later. There are lots of advantages to npot traveling on school schedules.

Won't be having kids, so that isn't much of an issue.

[NuclearFart]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Not sure where the confusion lies. It's like a lot of jobs where you have a certain number of hours that are mandatory (i.e. classroom hours) and you have a certain amount of work you're expected to get done outside of those hours in order to be prepared for that face time with the students. That varies between teachers and it doesn't change the number of days or weeks worked in a year, it just means more hours per day. Some will put in 7-8 hour days while others will end up putting in 10+ hours a day depending on how dedicated they are, what kind of extracurricular activities they handle, what subject they teach, etc.

But yes, the government considers the teacher's work week to be 45.5 hours per week on average, hence the 9.1 hours per work day. At 40-41 weeks that's in the 1850 per year range I mentioned.


Yes, they're paid salary. And like many salaried jobs there is some ambiguity in the number of hours that are needed. Even a single teacher will likely vary the number hours worked year to year based on the different circumstances. If you have a good class where the students are all at a similar level then you'll have to work less than if you have a bunch of kids with behavior issues or a huge range in abilities where you need to create and monitor a bunch of individual education plans for each one of them.

I think there is a bit of misrepresentation here on what the average teacher is doing. Take a look at teacher parking lots for a decent read on what most of their hours are - the lots are pretty much vacant by 4pm. I suppose some could take their exams home to mark etc, but I suspect that is the minority, nor is it anything unique to any professional career.

I remember back in the day when the teachers were "working to rule". It honestly didn't make a lick of difference other than a lack of fun stuff after school.

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by Codes

To the OP, what kind of science degree does your brother have? Is it general sciences, or did he specialize?

Just general sciences.