I just had a conversation with my sister, who teaches grade 2 French immersion (that's NO English all day long) in Maple, Ont, north of Toronto. We were talking a bit about the burn out she sees on the part of her colleagues with families. She has no children and as it is, she finds that she is exhausted at the end of the long days. She often is at school from 7 am (to beat the terrible Toronto traffic) until 8 pm (again to avoid traffic, but also to work on preperation, which she is not given much time to do during the teaching day). She wonders how teachers go from school to daycare or babysitters to get their children and then have a decent family life in the evening. Unfortunately, it is not just the teaching profession that impinges on family life in this way, by severely taxing the energies and just simply the hours available to parent. Professional life in general seems anti-thetical to good home life. What's frustrating is that I feel that it doesn't HAVE to be that way. Couldn't we re-conceive what we value most and re-shape the way we do business accordingly? They sure do it differently in France, with more holidays and parental leave, etc.
I wonder too how it will work out if and when I am lucky enough to find a full-time teaching job. Substituting might be a good beginning for me, since my kids will only be 3 and 5 when I get my licence. I would love to hear from teachers with families about how they make it all work. Do the demands placed on teachers in my area (the Willamette Valley) make teaching a profession that holds reasonable expectations for maintaining a good family life too?
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Life is Like a Box of Chocolates
14 years ago
Probably many current teachers will find this ironic but I actually changed careers INTO teaching mainly to have a more family friendly schedule. I was working in sales before and my wife(who is also a teacher)and I could not imagine raising a child around the type of hours that I was working. As for radical changes to school schedules that favour the family unit, I think it is very likely that we will be teaching all year round before our careers are over. Perhaps the types of changes that you are talking about will be trade-off when this happens.
ReplyDeleteMarty, you'll make a great teacher. I think teachers who were something "else" before becoming teachers have a good perpective and are possibly more dedicated, since they didn't simply become teachers for lack of anything better to do, but because they thought long and hard about making a change, and then went for it. Good luck on your teaching job market!
ReplyDeleteI also changed careers to become a teacher. I hated the shift work in health care and although I don't have kids, I find the hours WAY more conducive to life in general. I haven't been doing this for long, but the longer I do it, I notice that my use of time gets better. I could spend hours and hours doing odds and ends to teach, but one has to stop and really focus on a single task at once, plan it, and move to the next. Your sister sounds VERY dedicated- I teach next door to a Kindergarten FI class and the teacher spends most of her time changing english activities to french in order to make it work in her class.
ReplyDeleteTo respond to your thoughts about having kids and teaching, well I have to admit that I won't be having any. At the end of the day I've usually had about enough of kids... I really enjoy going home to peace and quiet... and a comfortable couch with a drink with no hassles.
I wish you all the luck in the world!!
thanks, Melanie. I bet there's a whole contingent of teachers out there who love kids in the professional realm but are choosing not to bring them into the domestic one!
ReplyDeleteHi Lynette,
ReplyDeleteI think every situation is different. My Mom was an elementary teacher almost the entire time I was in the house. I never felt that she was gone or missed out on things...Maybe because my Dad worked odd hours (very, very early morning) and was always home for work when we got home from school and could take us to afternoon lessons/activities. We are lucky to have spouses that have similar flexibility in their work schedules...they can fill in a bit when we can't....
Remind me to give you contact info. of a new friend I met at Lil Kickers who has two kids our kids' age and is a middle school teacher...I bet she has an interesting perspective.
post from Judy:
ReplyDeleteLynettte -- I tried to post this on the Blog but I wrote it all out before I realized that I didn't have the ability to post it -- so I'm posting it here -- sorry !
Hi Lynette -- your sister sounds like me. Teaching is more than just a career, it's a lifestyle. I'm now in my 10th year. Since I teach a grade 12 Environmental Studies course, I have to constantly stay up-to-date on current events, regulations, etc. I also head up two clubs -- one of which has over 100 members with a 16-member executive. It's a big job. I work at least 10-hour days Mon-Fri and I do at least 8 hours every weekend. The marking load at the high school level can do your head in -- essays, dealing with plagiarism, etc.
As for work-life balance -- it's hard. My husband works long hours as a marketing executive so he understands. When my weekends are spent marking, we will go to a local pub where I will mark and he will read the paper. This is how we usually spend our Sundays.
We are planning to have a children in the very near future. Things have to change.
For you, I think supply work is a GREAT option. I know quite a few teachers who took this route.
Good luck with all of this!!