I-Search Proposal

Topic: Balancing Work and Life

Questions: How many hours are teachers really putting in, compared to other professionals? Is there a way to be a great teacher while working a "normal" work? Can work and life be balanced and how? How can new teacher burnout be avoided?

General Resources: Old Dominion's EBSCO's database of research and articles on education.

People to interview: I plan on interviewing my friends and family who are teachers, and possibly taking a survey from the people in our class who have experience teaching

Titles of articles planned to be used:

Trying to Beat the Clock: Uses of Teacher Professional Time in 3 Countries. By Nancy E. Adelmar

Teacher's Work Patterns: when, where and how much do U.S. teachers work? By Rachel Krantz-Kent

Teacher's Spend 10 hours More per Week on Work than Other Professional. By ATA News.

 Giving 110%: A Portrait of a Michigan Teacher's Work Week. Policy Report No 22. By Marisa Burian-Fitzgerald, Debbie Harris

Incentives and Effort in the Public Sector: Have U.S. Education Reforms Increased Teacher's Work Hours?

Can Teacher's have a Work-Life Balance? By Sean Reid

The Exhaustion of the American Teacher. By John Kuhn

Are Teacher's Paid Too Much? How 4 Studies Answered 1 Big Question. By Jordan Weissmann

What I already know:

            I experienced a lot of teacher frustration when I was doing my practicum last Fall. One of my teachers, who was in her fifth year, claimed to spend most of her waking hours working on lesson plans, grading, preparing supplies, going to meetings, and performing administrative tasks to name a few. She said she tries to have one day off a week for herself, but she said it doesn't always work out that way. Her school changes her grade level's curriculum objectives so much that none of her lesson plans can be reused for the next year. She's constantly having to start from scratch.

            From my experience speaking with other teachers, I have heard two sides to this situation. It seems the majority of new teachers will work very long hours and have little time for social life or family until they acclimate. That's understandable, but then some teachers go one to report that they still work much longer hours than other professionals outside the field of education. They claim they still have little time for family or friends, and spend much of their holidays and time off preparing. Meanwhile, others seem to get most of their "work" done during the school day and have time for an outside life. How do they balance their work and life? And does this jeopardize their students' education, or are they just better at time management? Perhaps its the grade level/content area that makes the difference. Or maybe it's just about the school district. Either way, I hope to find out which perspective is more accurate, as well as what the average amount of hours teachers need to put in (while still being successful teachers), and if there are things I can do to better balance my work and life.

            As an expectant new mother, being able to have time to raise a family is just as important to me as being a great teacher. I want to believe that non of my priorities need to be sacrificed.
The  journey to finding the sources for my paper began with a pretty ndirect google search. found articles from news companies as well as blog entries from teachers. The was a plethora of information available on the web, so I knew it was a hot topic. From then on, I researched Old Domion's library database for articles, books and research on this topic. Again, there's a lot of information out there on this topic