I voted 13-20. I figured about 3 times per week + throw in an extra day for maybe grading or something on a Sunday. I'm an experienced HS teacher. I've talked about the increasing difficulties with this job, on the board before. I've never been a guy that was overly concerned about pay. In another post, I mentioned that I may be moving back home to the PNW. While looking for jobs, I found teaching positions open at a local high school for $46k a year. A job as a -dishwasher- at a resort, in the same town, was offering a salary scale, that ended at $49,500.
When I originally looked at this poll, No joke, I thought it was going to be "how many hours in the day?" are "tough" and then I realized that it was "days per month" and it kinda hit me hard.
This happened today:
I ask students who are tardy to remain outside while I get the rest of the class settled and started. This usually takes 60-120 seconds of time, before I open the door for the tardy kids. It is more of a "get here on time" message than anything else. I never yell or scream or raise my voice about it, or about anything that goes on in the classroom.
Today, a student that was not tardy, went to put his backpack to the side of the room (which is another expectation of mine, and a previously held, school-wide rule). As he did so, he put his hand on the door knob to open it for the late students. I told him, "Hey, don't let those guys in yet." He looked me dead in the eye, and said, "Oh, no, I'm letting them in." I stood up, and told the 3 tardy kids to remain outside. They all did, and didn't say a word about it.
We were taking a test today. The kid who straight up disobeyed me, finished his 30 question test on Modern Foreign Policy in under 5 minutes, and scored a 90%. His friend, who sits behind him, took 2 seconds longer, and got an 86%. I sent a private message to the student who got the 90% and had openly disobeyed my earlier request, that I would not be accepting his score, but that we could discuss him doing a re-take exam at another time.
After receiving this message, the student then stood up (in what was a silent, testing environment), and attempted to start what I guess I would call a "mutiny" against me, because I have standards and ask kids to follow, very simple, reasonable rules. I did not yell, I did not scream. I literally just let the kid go off, I said "I'm sorry you're so upset" several times, until he eventually sat down, as no other students seemed willing to join his "cause" against me.
After class, he came up to me and said "I apologize for that little act of defiance, earlier." I said, "yeah, you were really upset." He then began to berate me a second time as the bell rang. He told me that "I have to uphold a standard, and that I 'damn well know' that those kids should be let into the classroom." I told him calmly that I was not going to allow him to simply stand at my desk and yell at me, and that he needed to leave. He did.
I went to look up his information to call his parent about the incident and the last note in his file was from another teacher I know. The note said that she called home, the Mom answered, the teacher explained the issue to the Mother, the Mom said, "shut up" and hung up the phone. I chose not to call.
I'm a chill, laid back dude. I've been teaching at a public high school, in a working class neighborhood for 13 years. It is absolutely insane in classrooms right now. Check out Teacher Subreddits for more stories. Believe the posts you read. It's crazy.
I've been applying to jobs in other industries this Spring. I do not want to be back in the Fall. It sucks.
