What is a Teacher?

For the past 22 years, I've had conversations with people I meet that sound something like this:

New Person: So, what do you do for a living?

Me: I'm a teacher.

New Person: Oh, really!  Wh\at do you teach?

Me: I teach language arts and computers.

New Person: Oh, wow!  Language arts!  So you teach things like writing and spelling and vocabulary?  Reading, too?  You have kids read novels and things?

Me: Yep, I sure do.

New Person:  So that means you must keep yourself pretty busy, especially with teaching writing.  You must have to grade a lot of essays.

Me: Yes, that takes up a lot of my time!

New Person: There's a lot of stuff to cover in language arts.

Me: Yes, I have to do my lesson plans every week, and often they change because I tend to over plan!

New Person: What grade do you teach?

Me: Junior high, 7th and 8th grade.

New Person: Yikes!  You're brave!  I give you a lot of credit!  That's a hard age to teach!

Me: Nah, I love that age!  The kids are a lot of fun!

Now that I've started my new position with the district, conversations have gone more like this:

New Person: So, what do you do for a living?

Me: I'm a teacher.

New Person: Oh, really!  What do you teach?

Me: I'm the instructional technology resource teacher for my district.

New Person: Oh.  What's that?

Me: Well, I help teachers and students integrate technology into the curriculum for learning and instruction.

New Person: Oh, like computers, iPads?  Things like that?

Me: Yep!

New Person: Oh.  So what grade do you teach?

Me: Well, I work with teachers and students grades kindergarten through 8.

New Person: Oh.  So you don't have your own classroom of students?

Me: No.  I have an office.  But I do get to come in to other teachers' classrooms to work with them and their students.

New Person: Oh.  So you're not like a regular teacher.

And this is where I don't know what to say.  I consider myself a teacher, but am I?  I don't really have any of the "markers" that indicate I'm a teacher --  I don't have a classroom or my own class of students, I don't use textbooks, I don't make lesson plans, I don't grade papers.  So, am I still a teacher?

One of the things was was the most difficult to me when my daughter was getting ready to leave for college was finding a "new identity".  I had spent 18 years being lots of things -- Jim's wife, Becky's mom, a teacher -- and I felt like having my child leave home to go to school was almost like taking away one of my identities.  I wasn't the mom of a kid anymore.  This is how I am starting to feel about myself and my job.  Am I losing my identity?  Am I not a teacher anymore?

Don't get me wrong -- I like my new job.  I get to do some really fun things (and I admit -- some not-so-fun things, like do NOT talk to me about Apple Configurator!!!!) and I get to work with teachers that I haven't had the chance to work with before but I admire very much.  But I don't teach every day.  So what am I?  What makes a teacher a teacher????

Contorting Danielson

I really wanted to title this "The Bastardization of Charlotte Danielson" but I was afraid that might be too harsh.  But I kind of think it fits.....

A very good friend and colleague of mine sent me this post that came from Huffington Post.   The author discusses concern with who Charlotte Danielson actually is, what her qualifications are, and how her framework is being used and misused all over this country in school districts creating teacher evaluation rubrics based on her work.  It's a pretty interesting read, and it raises some very interesting points.

I am far, far from any type of "Danielson" expert, but I have a smidge of experience with her framework. (Check out the framework here.)   As of right now, I am on a committee in my district that is developing and teacher evaluation rubric that is based heavily on Danielson's framework, as was our previous rubric, which I also helped develop.  When I worked on my master's degree, we studied Danielson's framework and I did an extensive self-evaluation project using the framework.  But I'd like to share my feelings about her work and what it means for teachers.

I truly believe that of all the things I have done to make myself a better teacher, the self-evaluation project I did was the single largest contributor to helping me continuously improve.  I took my self-evaluation seriously and as a result, I am still constantly striving for ways to be the best teacher I possible can.  Regardless of how much classroom experience Danielson has, that framework has value, in my opinion.  It can be a fabulous tool of construction or destruction, depending on how it is used.

Sadly, as is pointed out in the Huff Post blog, Charlotte Danielson's work is being twisted into things it probably was never intended to be.  Instead of teachers using it to find their strengths and weaknesses to improve, administrators are using it to nit-pick teachers and down-evaluate them in an effort to say they are holding teachers to higher standards.  In worst-case scenarios, the evaluations are being used as the steering wheel to boot teachers out of their jobs.  Now, let me make it clear that I ABSOLUTELY WANT BAD TEACHERS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM!  I have been quoted as saying how fed up I am with teachers who are content to sit around on their tenured asses.  In order to make the good teachers -- both young and old -- get treated like the professionals they are, it is imperative that the bad teachers get weeded out.  But I also believe it needs to be done fairly, and while Charlotte Danielson's framework really does have value, I also think it has been bastardized to the point in many districts that it now just being used to eliminate teachers; there's not a lot of interest in using that framework on good teachers because, well, they're good.

Which brings me to a question that comes out of this discussion: what really is the purpose of teacher evaluation?  There is great hand-wringing over evaluations that aren't designed to help teachers improve.  But is that really what they are supposed to do?  Here is what I have always honestly believed about teacher evaluations:

An evaluation is done by my principal to determine how "good" I am, and it is up to me to decide what I do with any information gleaned from the evaluation.  I can file it and be done until the next time, or I can review it and take it upon myself to use the evaluation to improve myself.  I have never expected any principal to help me improve professionally based on an evaluation.

Which begs another question: how can a teacher really be fairly evaluated?  For tenured and non-tenured teachers alike, the idea of a truly fair evaluation is almost laughable.  To me, in order for my evaluation to be truly fair, the following things need to occur:

• My principal needs to be in my classroom all the time to see everything that happens.
• Other teachers need to come in to my classroom often to see what happens.
• Students need to offer constructive feedback about what it's like to be a student in my class.
• Parents need to offer constructive feedback about their experiences working with me as their child's teacher.
• I need to seriously reflect on my teaching and the feedback I receive about my work as a teacher and then find ways to improve.

You can stop laughing at how ridiculous this is now.  I know it's literally impossible.  But until these things happen, or at least a good portion happens, evaluations are going to be unfair.  There is simply not enough time or people to do a truly high quality teacher evaluation.  And I didn't even bother to go into principals teachers, students, and/or parents being objective (leaving out any personal bias that might exist against a teacher because that ain't gonna happen, either, as long as we teachers continue working with and interacting with human beings).

Getting a decent, fair, meaningful teacher evaluation is probably a virtual impossibility.  I don't know exactly how to make it happen, but I'm fairly certain it won't happen by twisting something of value like Danielson's framework into a weapon; it won't happen by administrators adopting a "gotcha" attitude with ANY teachers; and it won't happen if teachers don't take their own professional growth seriously.

You Can't Have it Both Ways

Last December I read with intensity the stories about the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. This week, I am doing the same thing regarding the Oklahoma tornado. Both of these terrifying events involved stories about schools and students who had experiences that will impact them for their entire lives. And stories of students who died. As a teacher, I have keen interest in what the teachers in these horrific situations did. I identify with each and every one of them. I know how they must have felt on some level. The teachers in both situations are lauded as heroes. These are people who refer to the students as "my kids", who shelter their students with their own bodies, who take great risks to protect the kids in their care. They literally put their lives on the line to protect the children from a gunman hellbent on murder or a tornado unleashing unimaginable destruction. When the situation becomes stable, the teachers stay in protective mode, making sure their kids are accounted for, carrying them to safety, hugging them, reassuring them, comforting their parents. (Here are two stories hailing teachers as "heroes" -- Oklahoma tornado and Sandy Hook.) These brave teachers push down their own terror and ignore their own feelings of self-preservation in order to protect their students. They wouldn't handle these situations any other way. They are these kids' teachers, and they feel that this is just part of the job.

But while society and the press and politicians talk out of one side of their mouths about these selfless heroes, they talk out of the other sides of their mouths about how greedy, lazy, and selfish teachers are. Do you know how many times I have heard, "You only work 6 hours a day for 180 days a year. You're way overpaid. Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. My tax dollars pay your salary"? It makes me laugh through my tears to think that these people will rave about the hero teachers but vote for laws or lawmakers who want to do everything in their power to demoralize those heroes -- call their unions evil, strip them of collective bargaining rights, and slash their fat pensions because they're so overpaid anyway. (See an example of this thinking here.)

So here is my challenge: decide. You can't have it both ways, World. You can't say, "Teachers are lazy, greedy, selfish, under-worked, overpaid -- except you hero teachers." It smacks of the conversation between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere when she tells him how she's a robot with a man -- oh, except for him. What are we -- heroes or villains?

Measurements

How does one measure the quality or value of a teacher? This is the big question in the field of education right now. Among those who seem to talk the loudest about this topic, the answer would be standardized test scores. After all, we use test scores to compare our students to other students internationally, to other students nationally, to other students locally, and many states are now using student testing data as part of a teacher's summative evaluation with many other states planning to implement this in the future. But is testing data the only way or the best way to measure a teacher's worth?

I love coming to work in the morning. My students come into my classroom and they are smiling and laughing. They greet me pleasantly. They ask what we are going to be doing today. They tell me about what they did last night. They ask questions about me and my life, especially my pets! We chit chat about books we read or television shows we watch or songs we like. They pay attention during class. They follow directions. They laugh at my jokes. By all outward signs, they seem to enjoy my class. Since they seem to enjoy my class, I make an assumption that I must be doing something right, that what I am doing in my classroom with these kids has some value.

I teach gifted students, yes, but that doesn't mean that they all automatically get straight A's. Some of the kids struggle with challenging material. But I try to give them ample information, use formative assessments to check for understanding, and use more formalized assessments when appropriate to get an idea how well what I have taught them has been mastered. I try to use varied and numerous assessments to get as complete a picture as possible. Overall, my students grades are good. Report card averages tend to be all A's and B's. Good classwork scores, good test scores, and good report card grades seem to be outward signs that my students are learning what they are being taught, so I make an assumption that what I am doing to help the kids learn has some value.

In my school district, we use MAP as our local assessment. All of my students consistently test above grade level on the MAP reading and MAP language usage tests throughout the school year (the test is given three times each year). I make an assumption that since my students are testing above grade level on a consistent basis, my teaching must have some value.

When my students take the MAP test, it is not uncommon to see their scores drop from one testing session to another. It is not always clear to me why their scores drop. Maybe the student rushed through the test. Maybe the questions were too difficult. Maybe the student didn't feel well or had other things on his or her mind. Maybe I didn't cover everything that was on the test. Maybe I didn't teach something well enough for students to address it well on the MAP test. Maybe some students slipped through the cracks when I was teaching something in class and I didn't recognize it. But the bottom line is that since it is not uncommon for MAP test scores to drop from one testing session to the next, I make an assumption that I am not being an effective educator.

When I look at my students' MAP scores from fall to spring in particular, I am hoping to see their scores go up and see their national percentile ranking go up, too. Seeing those increases indicates that there was academic growth over the course of the school year. I have never once had all of my students show growth. I have always had students whose MAP scores went down and whose national percentile rankings went down. It is rarely only one or two students. Sometimes it is as many as a dozen. When that many students have scores that don't show growth, I make an assumption that I didn't teach what I needed to or how I needed to during the school year, so I am not being an effective educator.

Which one is it? Am I effective or not?

Ready, Aim, Fire

When I was in 6th grade, I met the love of my life. His name was Mr. Eltiste and he was my math teacher. As luck would have it, math was my worst subject, but I endured it because Mr. Eltiste was my teacher. Not only was I weak in math, but I was also weak in the organization department. I lost my math book one day and was therefore unable to do my homework. In class, I told Mr. E (as we all liked to call him) that I had left my book at home and my homework was in my book. Because he loved me (at least, that's what I told myself in my mind), he told me to turn it in tomorrow. He believed my lie. Lucky me. Or not. Because later that day, someone found my math book and turned it in to Mr. E, thus exposing my lie. He tracked me down in the library and threw the book at me and yelled at me to never lie to him again. I was terrified. I had just avoided being hit with a flying book, I was yelled at in the library, and Mr. E probably didn't love me anymore. I went home that night and told my mother that Mr. E had thrown a book at me. When she asked why he would do such a thing, I told her about my little lie. She asked if the book actually hit me; I told her no. Her response: "Too bad."

First, a couple caveats. One, was he right to throw a book at me? Of course not. Two, should he have yelled at me in the library in front of other students? Pretty sure that's also a no. But it was the 1970's and education was different back then. I can also tell you that as a result of that incident, I never lied to Mr. Eltiste again and I worked my rear end off to get him to respect me again (okay, love me again). I was most scared of disappointing him again in the future. Had he not been so upset with me, I probably would have calculated it out in my mind that if I got away with a lie once, I could do it again. Instead, I learned a valuable lesson. I also learned that I wasn't getting any sympathy at home. Apparently, I did wrong first so Mr. E's anger was justified.

Flash forward to 2013. What the heck, you don't have to flash forward that far. You can even flash forward to the late 1990's, I suppose, but definitely flash forward to the past 5 years or so. I am sure had the same incident taken place, it would be newsworthy and the teacher would be fired and in the middle of a lawsuit. I'm not going to debate whether that is right, wrong, or other. Instead, I want to look at the reaction of my mother. Her first inclination was to take the side of the teacher, not her child. At least that's what I could see. If she thought he was a horrible teacher because of that incident, she sure never let on to me that she felt that way. She also didn't let me feel like my wrong doing could be excused somehow by what he did. She subtly let me know that I screwed up and deserved to be punished. My mother held me responsible for my actions. She also knew Mr. Eltiste well enough to know that he was a partner with her in my education. When did that change in education? When did some parents (yes, some, because many are so wonderful and some are....not) decide that teachers were no longer partners with them, wanting what's best for the child, and instead decide that teachers were the enemy? When did it become acceptable and preferable to be out to get a teacher for showing one ounce of human behavior? Yes, human behavior. Mr. Eltiste was mad he had been lied to. he lost his temper. Human beings have been known to do that. When did teachers have to start to candy coat everything they say and do? Why can't I tell a student that he is being rude when he talks back to me? Why can't I tell a student she is being lazy when she drops a wadded up piece of paper on the floor and refuses to throw it in the garbage, and that she's being arrogant when she tells me that's the janitor's job? Why can't I tell a student that it is disgusting to eat a Kleenex? (Yes, these are real stories here, folks.) Teachers DO get in trouble with parents and principals for saying these things to students. Parents think a teacher is lying when he calls home to talk about an issue with the child. Do parents really believe that teachers are pathological liars who have nothing better to do than sit around and make up stories about children? We teachers care about the kids we teach. We teachers want to be an assistant to the parents, and we want the parents to be assistants to us. After all, don't we all want what's best for the child's education? When did open season on teachers start? And why? I wish someone could explain it to me.

More Common Core

Anymore, I live, eat, breathe, and sleep Common Core. It pervades every moment of my life -- even when I am not at work. I know it's impacting me when I am not at work because I feel the residual stress in the form of headaches and upset stomachs. Why does something like this cause me so much angst? I have no clue. I'd like to think it's because I take my job that seriously, but maybe it's not me, it's them (meaning: the standards).

In theory, I love what the CCSS say and what they aim to do (for the record: I am speaking of the ELA standards because that is my subject area; I cannot speak knowledgeably about any other subject area standards). In practice, the CCSS seem impossible to implement with the integrity they need to be implemented with. They are so ambitious that I am not sure how I can thoroughly cover them to the extent that the learners in my classroom will meet them solidly. What's more scary and frustrating is knowing that there will be a "lag" in seeing true results from implementing the CCSS. That is because we only will have our curriculum fully aligned at the end of this year and start teaching in earnest to those standards next school year (fall 2013). That means that the expectations and requirements for all students will be "stepped up" next year but the only students who will get the full impact of the CCSS will be next year's kindergarteners because they start at the ground floor. That means for me, as a 7th grade ELA teacher, I will be plugging "holes" in learning until those kindergarteners get to me in 8 years. If that isn't daunting, I don't know what is! (As a side note, I believe this could be even more problematic for math teachers, based on what little I understand about the math standards.) To make matters worse, it will be just a couple short years until students are assessed on these standards and my evaluation of effectiveness will be impacted by the scores of those tests. Kids will be expected to score well on a test that they haven't been fully prepared for over the course of their education, and I will be judged based on those scores. It smacks of stress and unfairness. And it's demoralizing.

I believe in providing a challenging curriculum for my learners. I believe in holding students to higher standards and expectations. I believe in pushing myself professionally. But I am not convinced that the CCSS are going to challenge my students or hold them to higher standards and expectations. And it would probably be my fault if that happens because I feel like my ability as a teacher is pushed beyond what I can reasonably do to effectively put those standards into practice. And when I fail to do that, I fail so much more than myself; I fail those kids who come into my classroom every day and look to me to guide them on their educational journey.

The Way it Is

I consider myself a normal teacher. I'm not teacher of the year, but I'm not a slug. I do my job and I take it seriously. One of my friends and a great educator once told me, "Everybody has been to school so everyone thinks they're an expert in education." Unfortunately, going to school doesn't mean anyone is an expert in education. Going to school and doing the work of a teacher are not at all the same things. I'd love to give you a glimpse into what my job is like. This promises to be a long post, but I challenge you to read it through to the end.

I currently teach junior high kids. My English classes are gifted 7th graders; my computers classes are heterogeneously grouped 8th graders. My school district is in a middle to upper-middle class community that is not terribly diverse ethnically. Our test scores have always been the top or near the top in the county we are in. We consistently earn an award presented to schools for having high standardized test scores while having a low per pupil expenditure. Our school district is financially stable and fiscally responsible. We really are considered a good school district, and I feel that way, too.

My first class is a 90 minute block of time; my second class is also a 90 minute block of time. These are my gifted English classes. My class sizes this year are quite reasonable -- 22 and 21. In the past, I have had as many as 34 in a class; there are consistently teachers (in my building, at least) who have classes in excess of 30 students. This year, I am lucky. In my English classes, I have to plan very carefully how to use that large block of time. I strive to have an activity change every 15-20 minutes as well as one activity where kids can get up and move -- their seats are not terribly comfortable :-) I cover reading of literature, spelling, vocabulary, analogies, grammar/writing, and speaking/presenting in some way nearly every day within that 90 minute block of time. When students have projects to do, including their book talks, essays, and speeches, I provide class time for those to be completed. We have a district-wide policy that covers what types of projects students are allowed to work on at home and what kinds of projects need to be completed using class time. In order to teach this 90 minute block of time, I have to create lesson plans, and I have to be able to make some predictions as to how long each activity is going to take yet be ready to adjust plans on the fly depending on how students respond to the material. It is common to have my plans look one way on Monday and have them completely re-adjusted by the time Wednesday rolls around and re-adjusted again as I head into Friday. Teaching is fluid because it needs to be responsive to the learners. I do all the same work the kids do, for the most part. I read the same things they read; I do the same homework assignments they do. I do this because I need to understand the tasks I am presenting them with so I can anticipate any questions or problems that might pop up when the kids begin their work. Also, as any teacher knows, relying on answer keys is a bad idea -- they are NEVER accurate! Beside that, I tend not to rely on pre-made materials for what I teach. I often use them as a jumping off point, but since my students are not standardized, I can't use canned activities; they need to be customized to the learners. So I tend to create a lot of my own materials. For instance, all of my literature tests and vocabulary assessments are created by me; I do not use assessments that come with the materials. They are all pretty uninformative to me as a teacher -- all multiple choice, matching, true/false kinds of things, only asking lower level thinking questions. Of course, I have to grade all the work I assign. Sometimes I have the kids grade their own work during class because I can get some quick, immediate feedback about how they did so I can figure out if it is safe to move on. However, even if kids grade something in class, I still collect their work and review it because I clearly get more meaningful insight into their individual work if I see it. I can look for commonly made mistakes and holes in their learning to figure out where I need to go back and re-teach. I can't get an idea of how the kids do individually if I don't look at their work personally. A grade really doesn't tell me much. I also need to work on incorporating technology into my lessons and into the work the kids do for my class. Sometimes I have to adjust and re-arrange things I plan to do in order to gain access to a computer lab. We have about 110 computers available almost every period of the day for kids to have access to, which sounds like a lot. But they are broken up into two labs, one portable lab, and a little over a dozen machines in the library. If a science class uses the portable lab, another English class has one lab, a health class has another lab, and another English class has the computers in the library for research, I can't get my kids on a computer. This is a common occurrence. In our district, we are not set up for students or teachers to bring in any of their own personal technology devices to use at school. I also use flexible grouping when structuring activities for my students. I use the most current testing data as well as student interest and strength data to create groups and differentiate their work accordingly. It's sometimes tough to do since my English classes are homogeneously grouped; they all tend to perform at a similar level. This makes it more challenging to find ways to differentiate according to their strengths and weaknesses. It is not uncommon to have to work around student absences and students who do not complete the homework they were assigned, which tends to be minimal; our school district tries to lessen the burden on kids and parents by setting guidelines about types of homework and amount of homework. This will also hopefully mean that we get a more accurate picture of what the kids truly know since more independent work is done at school and less at home where the work may be corrected by a parent, or work done on the bus, copied from a friend.

After those two morning classes, I have a 30 minute lunch period. I admit it -- I use my lunch period for lunch; many of my colleagues use it to work or meet with students. Not me. I eat. However, by the time I get things squared away in my classroom, get down to the staff lunch room and finally sit down to eat, I tend to have 15-20 minutes left, so I wolf my food down (a habit which I tend to have at every meal; my husband often gently reminds me to relax if we go out for dinner somewhere). I try to get into the stairwell near my classroom before the kids get out of lunch to keep an eye on the jostling that happens in the stairs. In fact, I try to be in the hallways during all passing periods, just to keep an eye out to make sure everyone is getting to class on time and with little issues. Sometimes I am not in the hallway. My time to use the bathroom is during the 3 minute passing period, so at those times, I don't monitor the hallway. I will also admit that sometimes I am not back in my classroom when the bell rings. I cannot always navigate a hallway full of kids, use the bathroom, and get back to my classroom in 3 minutes. It is during those times I have to hope and pray (yes, in a public school -- haha!) that there are no issues in my classroom because I will be in huge trouble if something happens to a student in my classroom and I am not there.

After lunch, I spend 30 minutes monitoring the computer lab during study hall for any students who need computer access to work on something for school. Sometimes I have only a couple of kids; sometimes I have nearly all 30 machines being used. I make sure they are working and not playing on the computers; I also help them with login issues, saving their work to the right location, and finding and using programs such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and cloud-based apps like Prezi and Google Docs. I need to make sure they are printing to the right printer and troubleshoot URLs (often overheard: "Mrs. Bogacz, this website isn't working." After I look at the URL that was typed, "You spelled this wrong," pointing to the screen.). It tends to be pretty busy in the lab during that 30 minute study hall period!

After study hall, my next two classes are 42 minutes each -- 8th grade computers. I do very similar tasks for my computer classes as I would for my English classes in terms of lesson planning, preparation, grading, etc. But I have the added element of technology, which can make my life easier or worse! I need to be prepared for what to do if our network crashes and kids can't go online or save to the network, or if a website is down. I have to learn things on the fly, like discovering that Google Docs doesn't play well with Internet Explorer, so I have to make sure I remind kids to use Chrome when working with Google Docs then inevitably help a kid who gets into a jam when he or she doesn't her me or doesn't remember to use Chrome and is now dealing with some mess because Internet Explorer got used; or I discover Prezi updated their interface and now I have to re-learn how to use it in order to teach the kids how to use it. Sometimes it is only one kid who needs me at a time; sometimes I look up from helping one kid to discover 5 more hands are up. Fortunately, my computers classes tend to be small -- less than 20 -- so I am not as overwhelmed as I would be if I had 25 or 30 kids or more in the lab. This course is a 9 week course, so I get a new batch of students every quarter. Also, since these students are heterogeneously grouped, I tend to have a wider variety of students to interact with. I often have kids with IEPs so I will have to make sure I am familiar with those IEPs and make the necessary accommodations. I have had students with IEPs in my gifted English classes before, but the fact of the matter is there tend to be more IEP students in the general population than in the gifted classes. Teaching kids with IEPs isn't a problem; it just requires a different level of understanding that student in order to help him or her be successful. But it does add an extra layer of responsibility on the teacher.

My last period of the day is a 42 minute plan period. I tend to use this time to put together homework for students who have been absent or get materials ready for the next day -- make copies, staple papers, do filing, etc. This is also the time I would normally use to contact parents when I need to do that. I might have miscellaneous work to do -- fill out a student of the month nominee form, send a couple of emails, check my mailbox, sign out a computer lab, things like that. If I am lucky, I can get a set of papers graded and enter grades into my online grade book. This is a blessing and a curse. I can access my grade book anytime, anywhere, but so can parents who sometimes are upset about grades not being updated as often as they would like or concerned about a single homework grade. It is a great tool to keep parents up-to-date, but like anything, it can also have a bad side.

After school, sometimes I have time to myself to work; sometimes I have meetings. Once a week, I have a grade level team meeting. Once a month, I have a department meeting, a faculty meeting, a school improvement team meeting, and a building leadership team meeting. In addition, I am on my building's technology committee and my school district's technology committee, handbook committee, insurance committee, and evaluation committee. On top of that, I am our union's vice president. Some of these roles have been assigned to me; some of them have fallen on me by default; some of them I have volunteered for. Almost all of these meetings take place after school when they are held. Of course, there is work that needs to be done for each of these meetings and committees. I try to use my plan period at the end of the day to work on those responsibilities.

My contracted work day is 7:50 AM - 3:20 PM, which makes for a 7 1/2 hour work day. I tend to arrive at school at 7:30; the first bell for kids to go to class rings at 7:45; kids are in our classrooms by 7:53. Meetings I have routinely run beyond 3:20; I rarely, if ever, get up and leave a meeting at 3:20 because my contracted day is over. If I don't have a meeting, I tend to leave school between 3:30 and 4:00. I try to get as much work done as possible at school because everything I need is there in my classroom; I may not have everything I need at home. It is a more efficient use of my time to work at school.

There are other things I need to do as a teacher that fall under my job description that also need to be done. For instance, we have a form that needs to be completed and turned in to the office if we see any instance of bullying. We have forms to fill out for kids who we believe are in need of RtI services. We have forms to fill out for kids who need a disciplinary measure like a working lunch, lunch detention, or after school detention. This year, we are starting a new evaluation process due to new laws enacted in Illinois, so we have been going through a number of training meetings after school to be fully prepared for the new evaluation process. (Read more about the new laws implemented in Illinois here.) In addition, we are still working on aligning our curriculum to the newly adopted Common Core State Standards, so this year we are working on that. We are developing units of instruction and aligning our assessments with all the English Language Arts standards. Feel free to read about the Common Core standards here.

I hope after reading this, you can see that all the work I need to do cannot be accomplished in my 7 1/2 hour contracted work day. When does all the work need to be done? Well, I need to do it at home. Outside of my contracted day. Some days, I have only an hour or so of extra work to do. Sometimes, especially if I am evaluating student writing, I might have a few hours of work to do. What would happen if I only worked within the constraints of my contracted work day? My work would not get done, my lessons would be terrible, my kids' education would suffer, I would receive poor evaluations, and I'd lose my job. I have no choice but to work beyond my contracted hours. I am not whining. I'm a teacher; I know what I signed up for when I took this job (this is a common remark spat at teachers by people who look down their noses at educators; they also tend to be the ones who think I am overpaid because I only work 180 days a year and can treat me how they like because their taxpayer dollars pay my salary). I take my job seriously so I willingly do my work outside of the contracted day.

This is what it is like to be an educator on a typical day. I didn't even touch on things like classroom discipline, student truancy, and workplace politics -- all of which impact my job and make it ever more challenging. I didn't even talk about what it is like to be a teacher in a school where poverty is rampant or the school has elements of danger -- all of which create an ever bigger challenge for the teachers in those kinds of schools. Going to school -- which everyone has done -- does not make anyone an expert in education, at least no more than going to the doctor or being in a hospital makes one a doctor or a nurse; filling out tax forms makes one an accountant; watching CSI makes one a detective; or watching the debates and voting makes one a politician. I end with a challenge I offer to people who are critical of teachers all the time: If my job is so easy, cushy, and simple; if I am underworked and overpaid, why aren't YOU a teacher? There must be a reason why such a simplistic task that you are so expert in wasn't your chosen profession. What is that reason?