Teacher Bashing

Teachers work hard and do not get paid enough (neither do principals for that matter). Society loves to bash teachers all the time. It is ridiculous. Here are some things that the public does not understand:

Teachers get paid for NINE months of work. Their contractual day is usually seven hours and fifteen minutes with a thirty-minute lunch (which often is fifteen to twenty minutes by the time the teacher takes the class to lunch, gets their lunch, and walks to the teacher workroom. The salary is divided into 26 paychecks throughout the year. This ensures teachers receive a paycheck during the summer. Often, teachers are taking classes that cost more than their paycheck yields during the summer. College credit is continuously required to renew a license. In my area, the teachers must earn six semester hours of credit every five years. This is costly on top of many other expenses.

A big deal was made on social media about a teacher who did not have her classroom decorated to the hilt. I have since seen a pic of the room, and honestly, there was nothing wrong with it. The room was not over the top, but it was definitely fine. The parent attended open house with her kindergarten son and didn’t feel like it was welcoming enough. There is always a reason for the way things are and why decisions are made in a school. One scenario for that room was it may be decorated according to the teacher’s preference. Two, the teacher could have just been hired a few days ago or even that day. Three, the teacher may be working another full-time job until the time her contract with the school district starts. Most new teachers do not receive their first full paycheck until mid-September, despite starting work in mid-August. This would put the teacher in a bind in preparing for the new year. Many new teachers work unpaid for weeks to prepare for the start of school. New teachers typically do not have an income, as they have probably just graduated from college in debt.

Teachers get a small stipend for classroom materials. In our area, the amount is around two hundred dollars if they submit their receipts with the correct paperwork. Two hundred dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount spent to make the classroom feel like home. It is conservatively around $500 to $1,000 to get started in school. All of that comes out of the teachers’ pockets.

Teacher selection is not done haphazardly. Quite honestly, the school knows your child very well and must come up with a mix of boys and girls that can work together for nine months. A parent might be teacher-bashing because their child is not in a class with their friends. Or there may be a known discipline problem in their class. Believe me, every class has a known student with discipline issues. The parent may have talked to someone, and they said their child had problems with that teacher. FACT: Each child reacts differently with the teacher they are assigned to during the year. Just because someone else’s child had issues does not mean that your child will also. If a parent is online bashing a teacher, you can bet that someone at the school will see it and screenshot it to that teacher. So, instead of giving the teacher a chance to form a positive bond with the child, the parent has already undermined their relationship not only with the teacher, but has made the teacher feel that they are climbing a mountain to form a positive relationship with that parent.

I am just tired of parents bashing teachers AND administrators. When parents get their license and walk the walk, then they can start making informed comments.

Later…