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anon dpm April 5, 2022

@anonymous in response to your post. Apologies it is so long to read but hopefully may give further understanding and answer your questions:

1. The solution she offered was more time. For instance in Finland the top education system in the world the teachers have one day per week for the admin and planning as opposed to our 2.5 hours. Currently teachers are asking for more time so we can spend more time planning meaningful, engaging learning experiences as this has been taken away by the amount of admin that is unrelated to actually improving student outcomes.

2. Work til 5? You say this like that would be a bad thing? 8:30-5 with a one hour lunch break? Doesn’t sound too bad considering my work hours as a teacher (8-5 with no time for a lunch break except to gobble something down in 5 minutes as I have too much to do, plus the 8-10pm at night once my own kids have gone to bed! Not to mention the weekend work hours that I do mostly at home.)

3. Not sure if you realise that a fair portion of our holidays is actually spent working and prepping and doing a lot of admin things. I am a dedicated teacher and don’t complain about my work but my husband and family knows I take a week off at most each 2 week holiday and 2 weeks off at Christmas. The benefit is that this part of the work is flexible. I can do it on the weekends while the hubby has the kids or if I spend the day doing things with my own kids the work is done in the evening and at different opportunities through the day whenever I can. Sick days are spent on a computer from 6-7am at least, frantically sending through communication for the casual teacher if there is one, and overnight excursions, evening occasions like parent teachers, concerts, assemblies are all just part of the deal which I don’t mind. But I have family members and friends who make mention of the endless holidays I get and I’ve given up correcting them. Meanwhile some of the same family members work in roles with 4 weeks annual leave plus RDOs each fortnight (so an extra 26 days off=approx 5 weeks). Additionally get public holidays off which is about 8 days this year that all fall into teacher’s ‘annual leave’ anyway. So 10+ weeks of holidays which they not expected to work at all in, yet they believe teachers enjoy endless ‘holidays’ just because students get 11 weeks!? This is what is frustrating. Luckily I love my students and teaching because it is a kick in the guts every time when I work my butt off and then have comments about how luxurious it must be to work 9-3 and have so many holidays. There are never any comments about how an RDO every fortnight means a life of luxury on top of 4 weeks annual leave. I don’t make comments and assumptions about other professions I haven’t tried myself but everyone seems to believe they know everything about our profession and this is part of the problem.

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