Teaching on a daily basis. . .

I mentioned in my last post that teachers are only allowed to do what their administrators direct them to do.  That is not totally accurate, teachers can do something that the administrators did not direct them to do at the risk of being written up or applauded depending on the outcome. Teachers are required to teach the curriculum as mandated by their state.  Teachers can not just "teach by the seat of their pants." Teachers are evaluated at least twice a year in the state where I teach.  Some teachers are evaluated multiple times depending on a program that they may be participating in or teachers can be evaluated as many times as the administrator wants to evaluate them.  I will address evaluations in a future post.

As a teacher, I do not think that the general public has a good grasp on what a teacher does on a daily basis. 

Teachers spend a significant portion of their time documenting what they are doing and how they are doing it.  As a teacher, there are some weeks when I work 6-7 days, on average, 8-10 hours a day.  Not every week is like that but I would estimate that  to be 2/3rds of the time.  I report to work usually at 6:30 to begin my day. I am not required to be there at 6:30, I do that so that I have time to prep for the school day, and this is a good time to do that.  I do not get called away to do something else.  The students begin arriving at 7:25 and then I have duties to complete.  I teach 6 classes (50 minutes) a day.  I have one planning period (50 minutes) to complete any task that has been assigned to me and to check on students in detention.  I do not use my planning period to plan, it is impossible, there is not enough time. I write my plans over the weekends, (I usually take work home everyday). Many times my planning period is used for parent conferences, communications (phone/email), meetings with other school personnel and possibly covering another teacher's class. My lunch is 23 minutes long, to include travel time to the cafeteria and back to the classroom. At each class change I am required to be in the hallway or by the restrooms to monitor student behavior.  At any point in time, my classroom my have a "walk-through" (quick evaluation by administrator).  I do not sit at my desk, I am constantly walking and monitoring the students.  Occasionally I will sit in a student desk or stool or chair, but not for any length of time.  The students are released for the day at 3:00.  I am then required to attend any meetings that have been scheduled or that are called.  Meetings can last from 15 minutes to an hour or more.  When the meetings are over, I then have time to grade papers, enter grades and data on the computer, plan lessons, copy materials, or another task I need to complete to teach the next day.  Often times I leave the school grounds around 5:00 or 6:00.  Recently, I have made a rule for myself to try and leave by 4:30.  That doesn't always happen.  I am officially released at 3:30 or 4:30 (depending on the day of the week).

With all the aforementioned, we teach students.  Before we can teach students, we must have classroom management procedures/skills in place.  That means dealing with discipline. During the school day, we are continuously dealing with events/issues that the students are having while teaching.  We have to be and remain extremely flexible for school events.  A drill (fire, severe weather, earthquake, etc), can be expected anytime.  We also have events which occur during the day such as club meetings, pictures, rewards time, nurse calls, office calls, any numerous interruptions, etc.  A teacher has to continue to teach and maintain the flow of instruction.

That is why we are all exhausted.  Absolutely no one teaches to "get rich" (our pay scales do not go that high). You have to love the job to do it.