Sunday, March 13, 2011

Let's Try Something

In response to some who have said teaching is a "part-time" job (either because it's not 12 months a year or because the days are short), I'm proposing an easy experiment. Keep track of how much you work this week. And, if you'd like, for the following weeks. You could keep track of time actually in your building, total time spent working, or both. If you're not a teacher, please list your profession as well. I know teachers work a lot, but I'm sure other occupations have very long weeks as well, though I'm not as familiar. Feel free to come back here and post weekly updates, so we can get a fairly decent sample from various weeks.

8 comments:

  1. I'll get the ball rolling with my last week's information. I spent 60 hours at the building (this was an admittedly long week). I didn't keep track of time working out of the building.

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  2. I have been able to narrow it down to 62 - 68 hours per week. (teacher)

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  3. Put this teacher in at somewhere between 45 and 50 hours this week. Do I get double time for the 4 hours I spent at school on Sunday preparing for the week?

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  4. Just to clarify, are you counting lunch time and other significant breaks where you are not doing school activities? Most careers don't include this time or alot for 2-10min break in a 8 hour day.

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  5. Carlye: Wow. That's crazy.

    Justin: I think that's about what most teachers work on average, if I had to guess. Kudos to you for the Sunday prep work, but I think double counting would sort of ruin the whole idea.

    Johnny: I think whatever is standard practice is how this should count. So if there are significant breaks, I would say not to count them. Lunch can be an interesting one, as that is often the only time to meet with colleagues, forcing it to be a working lunch. Of course, not every day is going to be this way, so that should be counted that accordingly.
    If that question was directed at me personally, I did count my lunches last week, but they are not always "countable," as they were last week. Either way, I only have 100 minutes of lunch a week, and my planning time is almost always used for school activities. I do take an occasional break to check my personal e-mail or just relax for a moment or two, so I'll be sure to exclude those from my time.

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  6. I spent 72 hours at school last week (this includes all the 'breaks' as I work straight through my prep hour with other teachers on curriculum everyday, grade papers during lunch everyday and am in the hallway between classes greeting my students and keeping my eye out for fights since we are short security right now) and put in a good 8 hours at home... so 80 hours a week at my part time job teaching... granted this was a long week because of various committee meetings that I am expected to attend but not paid to do so as they are all outside of my contractual time.

    I'll have to give you an update at the end of the year Brian... I've actually been keeping track since the beginning of the school year as my brother, an engineer, is always telling me I have a part time job. :)

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  7. This week was a different week, as we had a PD day on Wednesday, and then I went to MACUL on Thursday. Anyway, I know I'm not going to do any work today, so my total for this week (not including time at work that I was not working, and also not including drive time or lunch at MACUL):

    45 hours.

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  8. I worked 65 hours last week, between my assistantship in Student Activities in postsecondary education (typically 30 hr/wk) and my part-time job at a finance company (8 hr/wk).

    This was a long week because I coordinated a large-scale event on Saturday, which meant that I worked 11 am to midnight on Friday and 11 am to 2 am on Saturday. Also, because I went to a conference the previous weekend, yesterday was my first day off since March 9, i.e., I worked 9 days straight.

    So apparently it's not just educators in K-12 education who work a lot.

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