I-Search Final Paper

Achieving a Work-Life Balance: Is it Possible?

         Last Fall, 2012, I spent 35 of my total Practicum hours in a fourth grade classroom with a teacher, Miss B, who was about to lose her mind. She was in her fifth year teaching. I thought with grim apprehension, "Oh God, what is in store for me?" Granted, this teacher was a great teacher. Her kids were mostly respectful and well-behaved, they all knew their multiplication tables, could read beyond a second grade level, and were constantly recognized for having the least absentees. But I knew Miss B was great because her kids were always excited to learn. She captivated her students everyday with an ever-changing array of activities that were both challenging and fun. So when I arrived for my fifth day in her classroom, I found Miss B in her usual predicament: hair disheveled, dark circles under her eyes, towing a huge crate on wheels bigger than any suitcase I'd ever seen. She spent another near all-nighter getting ready for today's lessons. I asked her how many hours she spent working beyond the classroom and she just laughed. She said most nights she didn't get to bed until after midnight. As for weekends, she was lucky to have a day off every month.

         From my experience talking with my teacher-friends, this sounds pretty typical of the first year or two in the profession. But after that, isn't it supposed to get better? Can Miss B's experience be the norm? As an expectant mom, I'm really concerned about the amount of time I will have to put in to do my job well. The more teacher candidates I talk to, the more I realize: this is a concern we all have. So I set out on a quest to find out how many hours teachers really work, and maybe hopefully I'd learn a few tips on how to balance work and life along the way.

         To really investigate my concerns I reviewed journals and articles that tracked the amount of time U.S. teachers worked. Their data gave me a general idea of the work life of the "average" American  teacher. But I really needed a more personal, narrower field of vision to fully understand the job of a teacher, so I interviewed a close friend of mine who had just "graduated" from being a newbie teacher. I then interviewed another teacher, a close friend of my mom's, who taught for 31 years. To find out how to manage having a personal life while being a teacher, I turned to blogger, Sean Reid, and the authors of The Lazy Teacher's Handbook for advice on how to best budget work time.

         To answer my questions about how much a teacher actually works, I found the most conclusive information from a study that thoroughly researched the working hours of teachers compared to that of other professionals. The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) followed U.S. Teachers and other professionals for three years to determine how many hours they worked, where they put in the work, how much time they spent doing non-work tasks, as well as many other factors. Participants were required to log their data throughout the day in diaries. The most compelling data they found was that teachers and other professionals (non-teachers holding the same level of education) worked about the same amount of hours per year. Of course, this might indicate that since teachers don't work summers or school holidays, they make up for lost time by putting in extra hours when school is in session. However this isn't really the case as the study found that only about half of all full-time teachers take off for summer break (Krantz-Kent, Rachel). The other half taught summer school or worked other types of jobs during the summer. And most teachers were apt to put some time in preparing for the next school year during their summer break. Furthermore, the study compared the hours teachers and other professionals worked during weekdays and surprisingly found that teachers worked slightly less hours than many other professionals! This includes the time teachers put in outside of the classroom.           
       
            Teachers on the whole put in more time earlier in the day than other professionals (great news for early birds), meanwhile other professionals tended to work much later into the night. As for working on weekends? Both teachers and other professionals were as equally likely to work on Saturdays, whereas teachers were 20% more likely to work on Sundays (Krantz-Kent, Rachel). Another surprising bit of data the study found was that teachers older than fifty tended to put in more hours than any other age group. And teachers in their 20s and 30s...well they reported working the least! I always assumed that the opposite was true. What I took away most from this survey was that teachers really don't work more than other professionals, they just work a slightly different type of schedule. It was really quite reassuring to me.

         My friend, Marisa, teaches algebra, algebra II and geometry to high school students in a low income school district in Long Island. When I spoke to her about how much time she puts in, I was surprised to hear that she rarely works beyond the hours of a normal school day, which for her begin around 6:30am and end around 2-2:30pm (B., Marisa, personal communication, June 15, 2013). She is only in her fourth year of teaching. Marisa said that as a single mother of two small boys, she got to a point where she had to put her foot down on taking work home. Yes, her first few years were much longer than what she puts in now. It was necessary since she had lesson plans to create, she had to find her "groove," and it took awhile for her to learn the various programs her school required her to use for grading, attendance and progress reports. But once all that came together, the biggest opposition to her free time was the administration at her school.

         "When you're a new teacher, they will ask you to take on extra tasks and assignments: prepare a speech for the next board meeting, oversee an after-school club, attend the football games, tutor students, bring food to the PTA meetings, chaperone the school dance, oversee detention, and the list goes on and on." If you say yes, as most new teachers often do, your work day doesn't end 'til late into the night. When you get your grounding, you get support from teachers and staff. You should not feel compelled to do the extra tasks asked of you.            

         "Your job is to teach. Now that your performance as a teacher is evaluated solely on how many of your students pass the standardized tests (and she has much to grumble about this aspect) this is more important than ever. So you just find ways to do the job you came to do, and that's it. Don't let the administration bully you."

         Marisa states that she now does what she needs to do during the school day for the most part. Her tasks include revising lesson plans, grading papers, interacting with parents, and meeting with staff members. But she does add that if a student needs extra assistance and wants to meet during lunch or after school, she is more than happy to comply. Because to her, that is what her job is all about: being there for the kids.

         It seemed like my friend, Marisa, had it pretty easy as far as working hours were concerned, so I spoke with a family friend, Peggy Soltero, for a second opinion on the working situation of a teacher (Soltero, Peggy, personal communication, June 25, 2013). Mrs. Soltero has taught for 31 years in a variety of areas. She has taught in eight states and grades Kindergarten through eighth grade. She has also taught in both public and private settings, as well as Title 1 schools and "blue ribbon" schools. She has been around the block.

         According to Mrs. Soltero, she worked a pretty consistent schedule no matter what grade or school she taught in. She would usually begin work around 6:30am and leave work around 5pm. As a rule, she would never take work home. On weekends, she would usually spend a few hours on Sunday grading papers or preparing lessons, but she never, ever worked on Saturdays. That puts her work load at about 60 hours a week, which is only ten hours longer than the average teacher's work week, according to ATUS. But Mrs. Soltero never worked over summer break or holidays (another rule of hers) so that would put her work load per year on par with most teachers and other professionals. Mrs. Soltero had some advice for all the new teachers out there: Always set rules for yourself to keep your personal time yours. And never break those rules.

         Sean Reid is a blogger and professor at the University of Buckingham with oodles of experience teaching in the K-12 arena. He states that, "Numerous studies have shown that, above all other factors, it's the teacher in the classroom who inspires, cultivates and enthuses learning. How can you do that when you're surviving on four hours of sleep a night and on the verge of despair?" (Reid, Sean). It is just as important for teachers to look after themselves: their health, their wellbeing, as it is important to look after their students. Teachers need a social life, hobbies and dreams if they are going to be able to relate to their students and inspire positivism in the classroom.

         Authors Smith and Gilbert created a book for just such a purpose: The Lazy Teacher's Handbook. The title is more tongue in check; the authors don't excuse teachers from working hard. Rather it outlines how to craft student-centered lessons plans that put the work back on the student, where it belongs. Instead of spending hours creating worksheets and developing questions for quizzes, teachers should have the students devise questions and make worksheets which they can trade in class. This creates opportunities for cooperative assignments and group discussions. Furthermore, teachers shouldn't be standing at the front of the room lecturing all day. Instead, teachers should trade places with the students often. Studies show that students tend to learn more when they are the ones teaching content to others (Richardson, Morgan, Fleener), so why not? The bottom line is that the teacher's job is to guide, advise and promote a learning environment by intervening with all students. Providing this type of student-centered teaching comes with an added benefit. It takes a lot of the work and planning off the teacher.  

         Reid has a list of rules he says will save your career and your life. Plan free time into your day, everyday, and stick to it. Have at least one full day off a week, no matter what. Limit work emails to one hour a day and restrict emails to weekdays only, if possible. Give yourself free passes to leave work early at least once a week. And lastly, stop feeling guilty about what hasn't been done yet, or how something didn't meet your expectations. It never will. Teaching is not a job for the perfectionist. Rather, focus on what did get done and remember to find ways to enjoy each and every day instead of just counting down the days until the end of the year.

         From my investigations, both with the hard data and my personal communications, I have to conclude that a teacher has a lot of freedom in regards to how much time they spend working. My friend, Marisa, barely works 40 hours a week, while my mom's friend, Mrs. Soltero, put in about 60 hours. Then there's poor Miss B, who must work at least 75 hours a week. All in all, I think teaching is what you make of it. Using the advice of blogger, Sean Reid, and authors Smith and Ian, I hope to promote the ideal student-centered classroom, and in the meantime, hopefully I can achieve a perfect work-life balance and keep my sanity.

References

Adelman, Nancy E. (1998). Trying to Beat the Clock: Uses of Teacher Professional Time in Three Countries. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.

B., Marisa, personal communication, June 15, 2013.

Krantz-Kent, Rachel (2008, March). Teacher's Work Patterns: When, Where and How Much do U.S. Teachers Work? Monthly Labor Review, 131 (3).

Kuhn, John (2012, September 12). The Exhaustion of the American Teacher. The Educator's Room. Retrieved from http://theeducatorsroom.com/2012/09/the-exhaustion-of-the-american-teacher/

Reid, Sean. (2011, December). Can Teachers have a Work-Life Balance? The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/2011/dec/07/teachers-work-life-balance

Richardson, Morgan & Fleener (2012). Reading to Learn in the Content Areas. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Smith & Ian (2010). The Lazy Teacher's Handbook: How Your Pupils Learn more when You Teach Less. London: Crown House Publishing.

Soltero, Peggy, personal communication, June 25, 2013.