The average teacher`s workday is ten hours and forty minutes a day, according to Primary Sources: America`s Teachers on the Teaching Profession, the report released this month by Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The working day is even longer for teachers who advise after-school clubs and train for sports – an average of 11 hours and twenty minutes. As one Kentucky teacher interviewed said, “Our work is never done. We bring grading home, stay for a long time, answer phone calls all the time, wake up and think about how we can make a difference to meet the needs of students. “All teachers should have only one assignment per school year. You should not receive different activities or assignments on different days unless there was an approved school option (SBO). If you receive more than one assignment per school year, you should discuss this with your section head. However, if you taught 5 hours a day (and probably spent 2-3 hours of your time preparing and labeling), you would only be considered a part-time employee in Spain. Your preparation time can only be taken away in an emergency: a teacher`s unavailability to cover a class is an emergency, and a supervisor can ask another teacher to cover that class during their preparation time.
However, the covering teacher must be compensated for any preparation time lost after unpaid coverage per semester. When I write about teachers` salaries and teachers` work, I get a lot of feedback. In particular, I am inundated with two answers presented as arguments as to whether teachers deserve a higher salary. If necessary, school heads may refer teachers or paraprofessionals to activities on the list of contracts, but according to the contract, this instruction cannot be given regularly and must be the exception rather than the rule. After about 14 weeks, I attended my first union meeting. I learned that we were immersed in contract negotiations and were having difficulty reaching an agreement with our school board. The union felt that we needed to send a strong message. For a few weeks, we documented in a journal all the work we had done outside of our contract hours. Then, at the end of the month, we all went on strike working only contract hours. Enter at 7:30 am, leave at 3:00 am.
Have your 20-minute lunch every day (no meetings during this time) and do all your preparation work in the remaining time. The importance of full solidarity was stressed – otherwise teachers would face resentment if they stuck to contract hours, and it would take much longer to settle our contract negotiations. Teacher: How many hours do you work per week? Is the number increasing or decreasing? Join the conversation and participate in the Scholastic Teachers survey on Facebook! It was my first year of apprenticeship. I had an excellent mentor teacher, a strong team at the school level and a supportive administration. Of all my wonderful children, a handful came with really tough behaviors or significant academic needs. But I was fine for a first-year teacher. I stayed for a long time almost every day – until 6:30pm, at least sometimes, 7pm, 8pm or even 9pm. (Yikes!!) I knew it wasn`t quite healthy, but I felt I had an important task to do and I was willing to do it.
I designed bulletin boards, laminated material, and created almost every lesson and assignment from scratch. I called the parents to congratulate them positively and followed without hesitation, I browsed the school library looking for the perfect mentor text or a series of perfect books for reading groups. But no matter how long I stayed, I had an endless to-do list. In individual schools, the regular school day for teachers and paraprofessionals is 6 hours and 20 minutes, including a duty-free lunch. The boundaries between work and personal life are so important for long-term sustainability, and I hope we get to a point where our contracts are equal to the reach of our actual work (and we get paid accordingly!!) For teachers who benefit from working with contract hours – it`s so fantastic that you`ve found a solution that works for you! I am confident that you will get incredible benefits from managing your time this way. “Where I work, we have working hours and lessons – so preparation/administration time is (theoretically) covered. I try to stick more or less to my working hours – especially at certain times of a course not always possible. I wasn`t always so disciplined and sometimes worked crazy hours – but it wasn`t just me who lost.
I think the key is to find a balance. On average, teachers spend an additional 90 minutes at school beyond the school day to receive mentorship, provide extracurricular help to students, attend staff meetings, and collaborate with peers. Teachers then spend an additional 95 minutes at home grading, preparing for classroom activities, and performing other work-related tasks. Suan Chong is a teacher of General English and Business English and a teacher trainer with a degree in Communication Sciences (Audiovisual and Electronic Media) and a Master`s degree in Applied Linguistics and English Lessons from King`s College London. But another teacher who worked for a Singapore Polytechnic had a different story to tell: a business English trainer told me, “Many TEFL teachers are hired simply because they speak English and speak the language. You may not have had an education or only a month of CELTA training. You are then allowed to deal with the students after 4 weeks of training. No wonder they are not well paid. Compare this to teachers in the public school system (in each country) who need to be trained for years and are therefore paid accordingly. “If you believe that, then you probably don`t know many teachers. As the infographic shows, most teachers spend a good part of their summer vacation preparing for the next school year. This includes two to four weeks for continuing education, three weeks for curriculum planning, and another four weeks for training, classroom development and preparation.
These hours continue to increase when considering the time teachers spend learning how to use and integrate technology. Even if the average working time between teachers and others is not much different, do we find teachers more than others who work unusually long hours while another group of teachers work much fewer hours? The quick answer illustrated is “no.” Here is a picture of the distribution of weekly working hours for teachers and non-teachers. There is simply no significant difference between the two groups. “Teaching is not a bell-to-bell job,” Alexander said. “As the study shows, teachers are deeply involved in their work beyond the school walls – they plan great learning experiences and connect with students and families outside of the school day. Their students are remembered during their increasingly long working days. Despite the conventional wisdom that K-12 teachers work shorter days (the average school day in the U.S. is 6.7 hours, according to the National Center for Education Statistics), the BusyTeacher.org chart shows that the average teacher`s workday is much longer. In addition to a full day in front of the classroom (the graph defines the average school day at eight o`clock), teachers must arrive at school at least one hour before school starts, and many stay an average of three to five hours beyond the traditional school day for meetings, grading, and other administrative or volunteer activities. This doesn`t even include the time they spend advising students, serving as role models, and doing work that goes beyond the traditional job description.
This sentiment is shared by public school (not TEFL) teachers in English-speaking countries such as the UK and Singapore. And for those of you who may be more like me in my first year, intimidated by the idea of sticking to your contract hours, remember that this is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Your contract can arbitrarily define what you can do and when. So, design a schedule that works for you and your family. Create balance and don`t forget to recharge. It`s not about making the last statement, it`s about taking steps that work for you over time. The respondent above stated that as a relative beginner in the TEFL industry (she has been a TEFL teacher for three years), she feels the need to be doubly prepared and spend a lot of time preparing lessons. A recent arbitration protects members` contractual rights and will create a new opportunity for secondary school teachers to work on targeted loan recovery instead of their professional activity under Circular 6. Credit recovery is not a professional activity, as loan recovery is an apprenticeship period and the DOE-UFT contract stipulates that professional activities cannot be additional teaching time.
For more information about this position, talk to your chapter leader. For those who prefer numbers to images, we calculated the number of working hours at the bottom (10th percentile) and top (90th percentile) for both groups. But of course, not all TEFL teachers in Spain have had the chance to work for a school like the one mentioned above. Another TEFL teacher in Zaragoza commented: Please note that other professional work performed during the period specified in the collective agreements of teachers and paraprofessionals for other professional work should be directed by the teacher or the paraprofessional himself from the menu of activities set out in Article 6 or Article 4B. .