Friday, December 21, 2012

The Case for Teacher Pay

It's that time of year again. We are all decking the halls, singing the carols, and wrapping the gifts. But as a teacher we are not only doing this, we are also trying to stop the children from crawling up the walls as they jump for joy from their candy cane comas. There's nothing like the holiday spirit to remind me that there are many things that come with my job that a. no one ever told me about and b. I should get paid better for dealing with. I'm not talking work overload or any of that, I'm talking the weird situations that come up on a daily basis that truly warrant a bonus. So while you are singing the 12 days of Christmas, I will now sing the 12 reasons teachers deserve better pay.

1. Noses- I don't know what it is but kids have an obsession with their noses. I can't even tell you how many times I've witnessed the pick and eat. It's disgusting and I'm pretty sure bankers don't have to deal with that.
2. Mouths- Kids are also obsessed with their mouths. I have a teacher friend who watched her student begin with one end of the paper and proceed to eat the paper inch by inch. Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure none of my college classes told me what to do in this instance.
3. Nudity- Yesterday I walked by a second grade classroom and a student had pulled his pants down and was just chillin with his naked butt in the seat. Why? No one knows.
4. Bathroom incidents- I clearly remember another friend's first year of teaching when she called me in a panic. Her student had pooped on the floor that day. Then the other kids had stepped in it and tracked it all over the room. When this happened in my own classroom we were lucky to discover it was canine. Again, things they don't teach you in college.
5. Spelling mishaps- Teachers should get a bonus check just for the interpretation of student's writing. Just this week a student wrote that, "The moon has phases because it's all a fart of our solar system." Changing lives, day by day.
6. Fighting society- A lot of things that kids know come from our society, of course this is not always a good thing. For example, I'm spelling a word for a student "per-pen-dic-u-lar," and he giggles. Okay, so he gets "dick" but he can't tell me what a triangle is? I'm mad at you society.
7. Teaching technology- Anyone who has ever taught 27 children at once to double click, save, and print knows what I'm talking about. Yesterday my teammate's student laid on his keyboard for a while thereby hitting the return key through 85 pages. Crazy that when he printed he couldn't figure out why the printer was only spitting out blank pages.
8. Tattling- Sadly I continue to deal with this in 4th grade. I really don't care if that kid is using a mechanical pencil, I care that you know how to write a summary. Ugh.
9. Snack time- Nothing says teachers need a pay raise like cookies for snack.
10. Faking enthusiasm- I can't even tell you how many times a day I have to pretend that I'm excited for a student. This sounds bad, but really I don't care that your dog did something silly that I don't understand, and I don't care that you picked out a new book to stack on your desk, and finally I don't care about a story that took 20 minutes to tell and there is no climax. That's some valuable instructional time right there.
11. Office supplies- I know, you're thinking what? Well let me tell you why teachers need more pay because of office supplies. First, I've had a child staple themselves twice, I've found numerous pencils sharpened down to less than an inch, and have had an entire stack of papers glued together because someone just loved squeezing the glue bottle. This is why office supplies can be a curse.
12. Parent teacher conferences- Now I'm not talking workload, because everyone already knows that these days equal 14 hours of work. I'm talking 20 minute speed dating with parents telling them what their child is doing is 5 subjects including homework and behavior. I should get a bonus just for filling the time so full.

Well, if I still haven't convinced you that teachers need more pay then you should probably give me a call. Actually, wait until after I finish my winter break :)