The Teaching Experience - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

My mother was a math teacher whose last position was at a private business school. When a family emergency arose and she had to travel to the mid-west for two weeks, I took over her two classes, one in "Business Arithmetic" and the other in "Remedial Arithmetic". Each class was one hour long and they were in quick succession in the course of the day, one right after the other.

There were no discipline problems because the students were all mature adults. There was no lesson planning problem because Mom had prepared everything in advance. All I had to do was take the attendance, follow her lesson plan directions and grade the homeworks in the evening. I didn't have to write any exams or administer them or grade them or do anything else that teachers have to do on their own time, for hours and hours on end, unpaid. Oh yes, I had it easy!

In spite of that, the experience was utterly exhausting. I have never expended so much personal energy on anything as I had to expend to serve in her stead. Anyone who would say that teachers have it easy has absolutely no touch with reality on the issue. None at all.

Some of the students had medical issues. One young man was under drug treatment for epilepsy. I was told that he would seem to be in a trance and not paying attention, but that he was very much paying attention and sure enough, his handed-in homework was top notch.

One young woman had visual issues. When she was reading, her visual perception would do a mirror-image, horizontal flip. Her eyeglasses had the heaviest lenses I'd ever seen short of being telescopic. She too did excellent work in spite of her difficulty.

However, there was this one memorable moment when I was explaining the concept of significant digits.

I told the class that in this really large number I'd put on the board, the umpteen trailing zeros it had were not significant digits. This one woman who always seemed to be in a sour mood said: "Like H...L they're not."

"Ooh, I didn't say they weren't meaningful.", I replied. "There's a whole lot of difference of meaning between $10 and $10000. When I say that some digits aren't significant, what I mean is that when I use a number like this in an arithmetic example, the significant digits are only the ones with which I have to do any work." and this lady grudgingly acknowledged me.

The confrontation was over very quickly, but I really felt stressed.

Kermit the Frog sang: "Its' not easy being green.", but I say: "It's not easy being a teacher."

 

Comments

[John Dunn]

Just to push the point a little, I have too often heard resentful and ignorant tirades citing teachers' six-hour workdays and three months off each summer.

Aside from class hours, teachers need to perform other tasks, often on an unpaid, casual overtime basis. With some variation, teacher responsibilities include:

1) Lesson planning.
2) Examination preparations.
3) Examination gradings.
4) Marking-period and end-term grade preparations.
5) Attendance records.
6) Open school night meetings with parents.
7) Making telephone and/or e-mail contacts with parents.
8) Continuing education and professional development activities.
9) Guidance activities.

With all of this, forget about forty-hour work weeks!