My
last column "Teacher Absences vs. Student
Absences" received an avalanche of
extremely angry responses from teachers.
It clearly hit a nerve. One response was
the following:
“What
an angry and sad person you portray yourself
to be. Our unions here are simply for
the
purpose of collective bargaining and have
no influence on whether one is hired
or
not. One who hides behind his computer
spouting out inflammatory diatribe is
cowardly. Your
year of teaching in public school hardly
qualifies you to criticize persons in
the
teaching profession. If you think I'm arrogant,
I'm quite okay with that. I also graduated
with honors from an ivy league school
and
hold two master's degrees besides. I choose
not to continue this pissing contest
with
you. You sound like a perpetual victim
who has no other defense than to tear
others
down. How very sad for you. Respond if
you wish, but I can assure you, I will
not waste
my time reading it”
Most
responses were very conscientious and
provided
me with 2 or 3 pages of details. After
answering a few individually I started
responding
with the following core message:
I
should have rephrased my entire discussion
about "doing away with personal days".
Unfortunately I am only supposed to write
a short column and can't go into the
comprehensive
details I would like.
How
would this sound to you--allowing teachers
to take the same number of personal days
they do now at the same pay rate. But if
a teacher chooses to not take personal days
they get paid the same rate extra for each
day they don't take off. In other words,
a teacher who takes no personal days off
would earn about 2% more than the pay they
were entitled to.
Here
is the core of my concern. A great many
teachers probably do not take any personal
time off because they love their children
and don't want to be absent. When I taught
for a year in Florida I never missed one
day. I loved my children. But it is also
true that there is a universal
attitude toward personal leave days of "use
it or lose it." Why should we penalize
the teacher who doesn't take personal leave
and give him or her the same salary as
the
one who does? Why not develop a system
that minimizes the use of personal leave
days?
Keep
in mind that at the center of my argument
is that the teacher is valuable and unique
and can't be replaced. The most perfect
substitute in the world doesn't have personal
relationships with his temporary students
and is blind at knowing where they are in
the learning process. Teachers are irreplaceable
which is why teacher absences should be
minimized, as they are far more deleterious
than student absences. The two teachers
my child has had have missed a significant
number of days.
You
give many valid reasons why teachers may
need to miss some school days. But I really
find it offensive that as parents we are
not given the same courtesy. Parents have
the same emergencies teachers do. When we
have emergencies it is usually better to
have our children with us. We brought our
3-year-old daughter twice to an Emergency
room at 3 am . Of course we had to bring
our son with us.
I
received e-mail from a single mother
of
three children who had to work two jobs
to support them. The three children all
went to different schools with different
starting times. One of her children was
often tardy by five or ten minutes. This
woman is now a criminal and had to pay
a
$500 fine, which hardly helped her children.
Her principal and teacher never communicated
with her or in any way tried to help
her.
I think this is a disgrace
and I have no doubt it happens hundreds
or times each year. I support the idea
of
a truancy law. But it should be used as
a last resort and only where the parents
or child have demonstrated bad behavior.
I
have no doubt that you are an excellent
teacher. Your letter screams conscientiousness
and concern all over it. But I really don't
feel the majority of teachers today are
that way. At my boy's school most cars of
teachers are gone by 4.
I
found teaching to be incredibly rewarding
and fun. I would probably be teaching today
but I couldn't spend the extra two years
taking education courses that would have
been required for me to teach in Texas .
When
I hear the horror stories of teachers working
long hours under horrible conditions I have
to wonder if any of them have held normal
jobs. There are no easy jobs and
there are fewer high paying jobs than people
realize. Do you really think your life would
have been easier or more rewarding if you
worked selling real estate, in a bank, as
an executive assistant? What are these wonderful
jobs that you could have gotten were you
not so loyal to education? Every
survey I've seen about teaching shows that
the overwhelming reason teachers quit their
profession is because of harassment from
administrators.
You
do work long hours. So does everyone else
I know. When I got my first job in the legislature
I was told that a condition of my employment
was that I take no sick days and no personal
time off. And like when I was a teacher
I never missed a day and neither did any
of our staff. In the legislature it is understood
that when needed you work seven days a week
at all hours, often going past midnight.
In Law School I once went to the Law Library
to study at midnight on a Saturday night.
The place was packed. Every seat was taken.
Every
successful person I know burns the midnight
oil. I have been up working until 1:30 a.m.
every morning and I must get up at 6:30
a.m. to take my son to school. I've never
seen teachers at work on Saturday or Sunday
and I'll bet they almost never work till
midnight. Yet large percentages of successful
people in very boring careers do. We would
love to have the problems you teachers complain
about.
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