Teachers and spouses of teachers unite!

[brentm77]

It included post-pandemic (he taught up until November 2023). And yes he found it much lower stress than a corporate job. Nobody sending urgent emails at all hours or super early morning calls to accommodate international colleagues, no working late or weekends to meet pressing deadlines—the work was on a predictable schedule with predictable job responsibilities. He also genuinely liked teaching kids and the kids adored him so I am sure that helped—whenever we’d run into his students outside of school they loved chatting with “Mr. D” and I could see he really inspired them and that was really rewarding and fulfilling for him to be making a difference with young people. Yes he had some troublemakers in his classes but he sympathized with them and tried to give them opportunities to make up their grades and at the end of the day he only had to deal with each difficult kid for an hour at a time (he taught high school). His mom taught middle school her whole career and absolutely LOVED her job as well.

It sounds like he was a great teacher. I hope he is able to go back to it, like you mentioned, because the world needs more teachers like him. Some of my highschool teachers left a lasting impact on my life. I still think about some of the things I learned from the good ones from time to time. Some of it was just every day things that my parents never taught me that had nothing to do with the curriculum.

Speaking of the corporate world, I have an urgent unplanned meeting, just as we enter the Daws Glacier area tomorrow. It seems to happen at least once every time we go to a "once in a lifetime" place. Same thing happened in Santorini. The high pay definitely comes with different expectations while on vacation. I still wouldn't trade my job for teaching though.

 

[justme0729]

I'm an accountant in a small non-profit. While theoretically, I can take time off when I want to, in reality, there are four board meetings, four audit and governance committee meetings and an annual general meeting per year that I need to prep for and attend. Year-end (March for us) and audit takes several weeks. There's an annual national conference that takes months to plan and in which I have a large part, and government reporting processes before the holidays in December. There are the budget planning and work planning processes that I'm responsible for, which take weeks. This essentially leaves me with 2 weeks in late January to early February, July and August although I have to work around other people's vacation schedules since at least one senior member of staff has to be available, early November and early December or over the Christmas holidays. And there are some dates through those times that may be unavailable because of specific activities that may crop up. While some of those times are low season for cruising, they are also low season for flights, which, for us, means fewer options, and that means higher prices. So the notion that only teachers have restricted times in which they can travel and that everyone else can just take off when they like to avoid peak season is not reality.

Which is why I said “most” my husband’s job is very flexible so I know there are many people out there who can travel in non-peak times. Of course there are exceptions.

Even so, it still sounds like you have some level of access to non-peak times for Disney cruises which is what we’re talking about in this thread, a Disney cruise discount.

 

[hrhdhd]

If being a teacher was the best job ever with the pay to match, we wouldn’t have a shortage of teachers.

I don't see anyone arguing that teaching is "the best job ever." Instead, they are pointing out that many (most? all?) jobs have pros and cons.

 

[starearedkid]

Teacher here--I am split between two schools-one of my schools is amazing. The other gives me anxiety the night before I go. It is definitely a difference between administration.

Up until recently-teachers in our district/state could ONLY use sick days for themselves. We get 10 sick days a year. And 3 personal. When I started and up until this past year---sick days were ONLY for you. You couldn't take it if your kid was sick. Or your you had to drive your husband/wife to surgery or anything. In fact, my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia and I couldn't use ANY of my sick days for her. Just my 3 personal days. That required a lot of undue stress on my part because if I did take a sick day, I had to call out the morning of and fake being sick myself.

Our districts by us due to severe budget cuts don't have a shortage of teachers, they just are letting them go right and left--but our class sizes are ballooning-so instead of 4 sections of a grade we are at 3 now. Also I have been teaching for nearly 18 years---the behaviors has been rough since 2020. Whether it is due to now having 30+ third graders in a class as opposed to 20, or just emotional regulation of kids or what not. I make a comment every year that the lessons I even did successfully 15 years ago, the kids would not be able to do them now--a lot has to do with lack of focus as well.

 

[LAS2AMS]

Teacher here--I am split between two schools-one of my schools is amazing. The other gives me anxiety the night before I go. It is definitely a difference between administration.

Up until recently-teachers in our district/state could ONLY use sick days for themselves. We get 10 sick days a year. And 3 personal. When I started and up until this past year---sick days were ONLY for you. You couldn't take it if your kid was sick. Or your you had to drive your husband/wife to surgery or anything. In fact, my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia and I couldn't use ANY of my sick days for her. Just my 3 personal days. That required a lot of undue stress on my part because if I did take a sick day, I had to call out the morning of and fake being sick myself.

Our districts by us due to severe budget cuts don't have a shortage of teachers, they just are letting them go right and left--but our class sizes are ballooning-so instead of 4 sections of a grade we are at 3 now. Also I have been teaching for nearly 18 years---the behaviors has been rough since 2020. Whether it is due to now having 30+ third graders in a class as opposed to 20, or just emotional regulation of kids or what not. I make a comment every year that the lessons I even did successfully 15 years ago, the kids would not be able to do them now--a lot has to do with lack of focus as well.

Sick policy is going to vary. Here in CA, you’re legally allowed to take sick days to care for yourself or family. It’s not customary to seek documentation. LA Unified pays subs $225/day, with the greatest need on Mondays and Fridays - I wonder why ?

I’m in my early 40s. I grew up in one of the wealthiest school districts in the country. All our class sizes were close to 30. Seems like the push to 20 has been a product of the 2000s.

I remember our school lunches. Mac and cheese that made Kraft instant a luxury. Smelly sloppy joes. Pizza that looked and tasted like cardboard. Overcooked baked potatoes with “cheese” sauce that tasted like water. Kids here these days get some pretty good food. They even bring in chain pizza (Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and others) and Chic-Fil-A. And it’s FREE - yet the kids still complain.