Teaching is the cushiest and most overpaid job, right?

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Earlier today I was introduced to one of the coolest ideas I’ve come across in a long while.

With education reform debates raging on – and the unfortunate cuts being felt by education budgets, something that often comes up is that teachers are overpaid.

Especially since they have summers off!

For anyone that has actually spent anytime in the classroom teaching, we know this is absolutely false. And this guy is out to set the record straight!

Charles Ripley is a high school English teacher that has started a new blog to record all of the hours he spends related to teaching over the next year.

Watch his video or read his introductory post here.

For anyone that is equally inspired to do the same, leave a comment or email [email protected] and we will hook you up with a free Pro blog for the year so you can join in!

We love the creative use of blogs here and wish Charles luck over the next year!

16 thoughts on “Teaching is the cushiest and most overpaid job, right?

  1. I had an experience with a man who also claimed teachers were over paid especially since we had summers off. First of all as an educator I spend a large portion of my summer developing curriculum, developing programs etc. I then asked him how much he would have to get paid to let someone spit on him, hit him, call him names, and vomit on him (referring back to my elementary teaching days). His response was “there isn’t enough money for all that”. Well then enough said.

  2. Great idea! It’s disheartening when people assume educators don’t work many hours because of summer vacations. They fail to see all the hours educators put in during non-school hours. It’s dumbfounding that teachers have become the scapegoats for our budget problems.

  3. Great idea! I currently teach in the UAE but have similar judgements made of me – as do many of our fellow teachers… I’d like to also log my hours – I think an average school week would be close to 60 hours (at least that actually – 12 hour school days is completely normal)… so that’s over 2000 hours already – not counting the hours of research, prep, Professional Learning etc that I will be doing over the holidays… Thanks for sharing Ronnie AND good luck Charles Ripley – I will be following your progress!

  4. When will someone point out that teachers do NOT have the summer off? They are unemployed and are forced by school systems to accept their pay in 12 installmenta instead of 10 so the school system can earn interest on the money or as one Human Resource person once told me- we don’t think you teachers know how to manage your money so we take care of it for you. Right – I can’t figure out how to budget my money so that I save enough to tide me over the summer? Right.

  5. Hi Charles

    I echo your sentiments. I’ve been a primary/middle school teacher in the UK for over 20 years and I’m tired of the way that the teaching profession seems to be continually bashed and abused by various governments.

    Like you, I think that as a profession we don’t always help ourselves but the vast majority of teachers work exceedingly hard to provide a high quality educational experience for our students.

    Here in the UK we have a notional 1265 hours that are directed for us by the Headteacher of each school. I’m going to log my hours over the next year because I work many, many more hours than that!

    Steve

  6. What a great idea! I plan to join you. I’m excited to really see how much I put in to my career. Thanks for rallying all of us to get some solid evidence of what exactly we do!

  7. Thanks for posting this, Edublogs. Being a teacher here in Wisconsin has been a bigger challenge than usual this year due to the US and state political climate, budget challenges, and the seeming lack of support for public education. We need to support each other and share the teaching and learning that go on every day in our classrooms.

  8. I am a retired carpenter and used to be HS science teacher.I ran in to the same thing here in Portland OR. I was listening to plumber spout off during break about easy teachers had it. Very nearly got into a fight. He didn’t appreciate either the lecture or maybe it was the language, the nicest thing I said was that he was dumber than dirt.

  9. Fantastic idea! I think so many of us have felt this way over the past year, and even have had a bit of a defeatest attitude about it. This gives us a solid point to start with. Thanks for the rally!

  10. Well done for speaking out. We are not angels, but neither are we demons. We are just working, like everyone else, but probably, hour for hour less paid than most in the private sector. Not complaining, it’s my dream job too, merely asking not to be complained about.

  11. Similar experiences abound…… increasing class size or cutting support services is not an answer to tough economic times.

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