Teaching Isn't Selling Sporting Goods...Or Anything Else

While we're on the subject of how teacher pay compares to other professions, another issue that often comes up in the debate is the fact that many teachers nominally work less than an eight-hour day, since the average school day is about 6.7 hours long. The usual rejoinder from the teacher perspective is that good teachers put a lot of time in before and after the school day, which is certainly true. The response to that is that lawyers and accountants and other professionals also do their share of work on nights and weekends. Then both sides start snarling at each other.

But what gets less talked about less is the way those hours are spent. I've worked in a variety of jobs since finishing grad school in the mid-90s, both in the public and non-profit sector, the basic components of which are pretty much the same: reading, writing, analyzing numbers, talking on the phone, sending email, going to meetings and events. Before that, stretching back to high school, I worked as a lifeguard, construction worker, department store cashier, waiter, sporting good salesman, camp counselor, etc. All different jobs.

But one thing they all have in common is that you're not actually working every minute of the day. For example, betwen the time I typed the words "the" and "words" in this sentence, I got up, poured a cup of coffee, chatted with a co-worker, and then spent another five minutes reading about how the Wizards somehow beat the Celtics again last night, in Boston no less. To the outside observer, I was working continuously, but actually it ebbs and flows, and this has been true on some level in every job I've ever had.

Spend some time in the classroom of a good teacher, by contrast, and you'll quickly notice that they're working the whole time. Not most of the time, but all of it. That's what it takes to succeed; you have to be constantly paying attention, planning, reacting, making decisions, keeping the whole intricate complex process on track. Somehow this needs to be taken into account in discussions of how much teachers work.