[dzsaigirl]

I don't have time to read this entire post (I am a teacher after all...I don't have much time for ANYTHING.)

I just wanted to add that I was at my school for 14 hours yesterday. Yes - 14 hours.

Should I mention that was a FRIDAY?

I teach K-5 music (certified PK-12). I have friends who thought that all I did was "bang on my drum all day" and that I didn't have to really "work" because I was "only a music teacher."

Then I recruited some of them to help me put up the backdrop and props for a musical. THEN they came to see the musical...

They now stand corrected. I am responsible for 933 students. I have to give a progress report on each one every 3 weeks and two report card grades for each student every 9 weeks. I cannot remember a week (other than Christmas) that I have not had some sort of training to attend. Also, I have yet to have a summer off since I started teaching 3 years ago.

I live near NASA and almost every one of my guy friends is an engineer there. They have fully admitted that they basically sit on their ass all day and get paid twice as much as I do.

I think that teachers should get paid more for what we do. It is really not a fair salary for the amount of work, regardless of the seemingly "cush" calendar.

That being said, I enjoy my job. I did not initially go to college to become a teacher, nor did I "default" into this career, as many people seem to believe is the case for most teachers. On the contrary, I felt a calling to work with children. In addition to this, I am happy that for MOST of my day, I don't have to deal with a-hole adults. (the operative word is MOST)

If teaching were so easy and the pay were so fair, why does the average teacher last about 3 years in the profession?

***Edited to add: I taught in a unionized district in RI for my first two years and now I am in a non-union district in TX (which is how they almost all are here). I will go on record saying that I feel that the teachers unions breed mediocrity and keep crappy teachers in the profession. Here in TX, you get fired if you suck. Period. And the quality of public schools is MUCH, MUCH higher. When I was in RI, anyone with any means whatsoever sent their kids to private school.