Accounting for Teachers' Time

The author ignores the fact that teachers are giving up their personal time with every hour spent on campus, not merely the time spent teaching. More importantly, he forgets that teachers spend time planning classes, grading papers, calling parents, and sitting with kids in detention.

In the teachers' lounge the talk is about how hard the work is and how much stress there is in comparison to the reward. I doubt more pay in exchange for more stress would make anyone happier. Also, most teachers feel they cannot serve the large number of students - often 160 for a high school teacher - that they deal with each day. Many of us have switched to private-school teaching. The pay is far less but the real rewards are much greater. In sum, most of us want more satisfaction and less stress.

If the author values us for our time spent in the classroom and nothing else, then that is exactly the kind of "respect" we do not look for. If he measured the value of all professionals the way he proposes we measure it for teachers, he would probably find judges and college professors are "on-task" less than we are. George C. Gastil, Rindge, N.H. Social Studies Teacher, The Meeting School

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