Teachers - The Secret Underworld

Where to begin?

Let's talk about the preconceived notion of a teacher as you look at them through your little beety childhood eyes.

I’ll put my idea out there and you see if we mesh.

Teachers have it made, they work 7 to 3:30, get a lot of holidays off and 3 months off in the summer. They don’t seem to really care, ok, some do but others seem to be getting through day by day until retirement.

Now,

As you may or may not know, my girlfriend (aka Miss Melanoma) is now a teacher. LONG gone are my original childhood thoughts of teachers.

Facts:

1. They work – A LOT. I’m talking a 12 hour day, then home for more work. Insane.
2. They care, and I mean really care. Like stay at school with one student until they ‘get it” care.
3. They’re underpaid. YES, UNDERPAID. The amount of work just in and of itself is quite a bit in their argument for not being paid well enough. I’ve told Lori to keep track of her hours for a month, then we can see what her hourly actually is. My money is on around $5-6/hr. I’m not kidding, they work that much.

I honestly thought the school was asking too much of Lori. She’ll probably hate me for telling you this, but she has cried on more than a few of occasions because of work. I told her this is insane and no job should make you CRY.

The pressure to get your kids to pass the TAKS test is HUUUGGGEEE. Their contract for next year is threatened if their kids don’t pass. Never mind the fact that the school you’re assigned to have high risk kids and a huge amount of them are going to fail no matter what.

It’s enough to say “enough”. But I digress. Teachers are a different breed than I, possibly you too. Think about where your “enough” bar is set at. I bet that a teachers is a lot higher. These people are working their asses off for less pay than they should be getting. I’m amazed they can still find people to do it.

Don’t even get me going on meetings. The amount of meetings teachers have to endure is insane.

Now, I being the analytical type laid all of this out for Lori. She said I don’t understand that I don’t get it. And let me tell you, I’m the first to admit I may be wrong at something.

I kept telling her to call Julie, a friend of ours who has been a teacher for the last few years. Lori reversed it and said I should talk to her.

I said I would. I wanted to get to the bottom of this. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Lori. It was that I didn’t believe that people would put up with this much.

So I called.

Julie was gracious enough to answer all of my questions honestly, straight forward and without sugar coating. Apparently Lori’s first year is going exactly as most teachers do. Apparently it’s quite normal to cry from your job on occasion. Apparently it’s normal to have 3 meetings after work, including SATURDAYS. Apparently it’s no big thing. This is the life of a teacher.

I was wrong. And Lori had that I told you so grin, and rightfully so.

There are two types of people in the world, teachers and the rest of us. I however couldn’t do it. Kids failing, parents mad, insane work hours and constant threat of losing your job.

And on top of this they have to teach kids, they are TEACHING your kids. They need to be thanked and they should be on the higher end of the pay scale instead of the lower.

I’m Snobby Bobby and now you know how I feel.