Speaking of Teachers' FB Statuses....

New_MrsP

A friend of mine (HS English teacher) has this as her status: Only 100 exams to correct and then it's summer here I come : )

And that's why teachers complain about the last week.

In all seriousness though (and I hate to beat this poor dead horse) DH and I are teachers. We make good money and really enjoy having 9 weeks off together in the summer.

I'm currently pursuing my Master's and last night I was researching teacher workload for my course. There was a study done on teacher workload in my province in 2004 that found the average teacher devotes 52.32 hours a week to school and school-related tasks. Our rate of pay is based on a 40-hour week. That means we work approximately 12 hours unpaid overtime every week. The school year here is 195 days, which equates to 39 work weeks. So, in a school year, we "clock" 468 overtime hours, which equals 58.5 days or 11.7 weeks.

So my 9 weeks off don't actually cover the overtime I've worked, based on an 8-hour day/40-hour week.

I love teaching. I really do. But the last week is awful. One of the issues noted in the report I mentioned is how teachers are expected to write 25-30 report cards without being given any additional time to do so. You're expected to continue to teach, full-time, up to the last day. So when do these get done? After school, after dinner, after you put your kids to bed, after you should probably be in bed yourself.

And to anyone who still complains that we have it better than them: you chose your career, I chose mine. A lot of doctors and lawyers have it a lot better than me, but that's not what I wanted to do with my life.

Link to study below:
https://www.nlta.nl.ca/files/documents/reports/wrkldstudy_info04.pdf