“I WISH I HAD A JOB THAT STARTED AT 9:00 AND ENDED AT 3:30.”
This might be the most ill-informed, useless comment I’ve ever heard about my profession. I’m a teacher and proud of it, but I hear this every time we enter into negotiations with the government.
It’s absolutely frustrating. Here’s my average work day:
I get to school around 8:00/8:30, usually to do prep work/get ready for the day. Students arrive at 9:00 and I have them constantly until 11:47 a.m. I get an hour “lunch break” during which I am usually marking, supervising or providing extra help to students. Students return to classes at 12:47. I teach for the rest of the afternoon with a prep period of 50 minutes. During preps I am usually in meetings, preparing lessons and materials, marking, planning school events, etc. The school day, for students, ends at 3:30. I usually stay in my room until my team practice at 5:30 (during which time I mark, plan, clean up, organize student materials, etc.). I run practice until 7:30. I go home, eat dinner (as though I’ve been in the outback starving for three days). After a quick supper break, I sit down with marking, or planning, or I work on my university courses until bed time. “Lights out” is usually around 11:00 on a good night, or later on a busier night.
So my day was 8:30-5:30 (nine hours), 5:30-7:30 (two hours), and 8:30 to BEDTIME (three-plus hours).
I’m not complaining about my job at all, but this is information that people need. So my reply to “I wish I had a job that started at 9:00 and ended at 3:30” is: “do you really want my job?” and, more harshly, “could you really do it, especially for a wage below rate of inflation?” /Anonymous
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