Fact: The education system is built on the back of unpaid teacher labor.
We are a little over two weeks before the official first day of school, a little less than two weeks from when teachers are contracted to be back in their classrooms for pre-service days and many of us are already working. To be honest, there are those of us who never stopped.
It’s true, summer is a time of rest and reset; respite from the daily demands that a classroom of thirty students, five times a day, mid-year, on a bustling campus brings. The demands of which are so full-on, so all-consuming that keeping one’s head above water can feel like a herculean feat. It really is so much. Too much – that often, we drown. That’s just part of the job. And then, we come back to life, like one of the immortals in that Charlize Theron action movie I love – The Old Guard – where her partner Quynh was put into an iron maiden during the European witch-trails and thrown into the ocean only to drown and come back to life over and over again, in a never ending cycle of torture, for something like 500 years until she finally gets found. Like that. Only less torture and slightly less screaming.
I digress… see previous post.
Regardless, summer is a break, but it is not one where the next school year is ever far from mind, nor is it one that’s entirely free from the obligations of living a life. Beyond spending the summer attempting to recuperate energy and getting caught up on a wildly long list of to-dos, I inevitably find myself contemplating – often against my will – things like: how I want this next year to go, what I want to do differently, what my guiding questions will be, etc., etc., etc…. I’ll be hiking on a Tuesday and all of a sudden my brain will begin to tweak units and before I know it I am creating a new notes app on my phone half way to Blue Lake. I’ll be making a dent in my summer reading pile and realize that the essay I am absorbed in will pair nicely with this other thing I am going to do with the students next year. I spend many hours, ones where I could be lost in existential thought or crocheting or napping or being a mom or fixing the sink or or or, researching and reviewing the potential texts that I have been wanting to incorporate into the curriculum. It’s amorphous and not always on a schedule – which is what makes it feel like a break – but all of this mental gymnastics is still labor.
The reality of being a teacher – similar to that of a parent – is that the work is never done, it’s never left behind, not fully. The fact of which makes me feel both indifferent and despairing.
As I’ve said before, I love my job. My brain gets a certain amount of satisfaction thinking about and planning for my work. And during the summer months it feels luxurious to have the time and space to contemplate the restructuring of a lesson, or how an interaction with a student went, or that new thing I’ve been wanting to explore, without the weight of an impending tomorrow. It’s interesting and creative and…
it’s still labor.
And labor without pay is exploitation.
And so we have a conundrum, one that I believe has led, and continues to lead, to the aforementioned fact: that the education system is built upon the back of unpaid teacher labor.
Let me be clear, I do not blame any one individual for this conundrum, nor do I think any one person could fix it.
I also acknowledge that part of being a mature adult is deciding to behave differently when something isn’t working in the way you would like it to.
And lo, if it were only that easy.
I mean, how do you even begin to fix an issue like this?
You have a profession that requires an obscene amount of daily presence and planning, and you have people that actually like to do it – that care so deeply for their work and the impact it has, and you have a recipe for continuous burnout.
Not to mention the fact that the solutions – because yes, there are solutions that could make this better – are never brought to the bargaining table because the culture has told educators time and time again to stop making “unreasonable demands.”
The main demand? Smaller class sizes and just being responsible for fewer students overall. That alone would be a straight up homerun. That alone would give us some respite. The difference between marking 90 essays versus 125…? About five hours.
Also, higher pay would really help. When I am grading until 10 pm on a Thursday, I would feel slightly more at peace knowing my bottom line reflects that effort.
And let me be clear again, no educator should be grading until 10 pm on a Thursday – that should not be a stipulation of the profession, nor a requirement for higher pay. High pay should happen because we are professionals with unique expertise that contributes directly to a flourishing society.
But you know what those kinds of solutions demand? MONEY. Money to hire more educators. Money to build the infrastructure needed to accommodate more staff. Money that we are told time and time again we do not have – that we will never have.
And while this is true, in the sense that the district, or the state, doesn’t have the money in hand. There is money to be had, but it is allocated to other things – things that are deemed more valuable than education. When the nation needs money for things people in power deem important, somehow that money materializes.
While it can seem like I am screaming into the void, I do believe that society writ-large is aware of this issue. When I tell people I am an educator I usually get a response along the lines of: “Wow, that’s great.” “Thank you!” or “You’re a hero.” It’s nice to hear things like this – nice to be seen by people. And yet, it doesn’t change the reality of our circumstances. People give what they can: a compliment, some supplies to their child’s teacher, a coffee but that’s where the support ends. Not because I don’t believe people would want to help more, but because the issues and solutions, with all their nuances and complexities, are just too large to fathom.
This happens a lot. There is a problem and we would love to do something about it, but it is too big, too unwieldy for us to meaningfully manage. So what do we do? We look the other way because we have to. Because it is the only way to keep going and accomplish the tasks this moment insists upon. And because we live in a culture that demands that we keep moving ever forward no matter how fatigued we are, that has made us believe we are powerless, that tells us we aren’t actually seeing what we are witnessing with our own eyes, we simply can’t respond to the level that we may like to because we are too busy surviving today.
Fact: There are far greater injustices than unpaid teacher labor – ones that I care deeply for and try to do something about – but I also have a life that demands my presence and there are dinners to get on the table, a child to raise, toilettes to clean, and a lesson on diction to plan.
As much as I despair about it, the truth is that reality cannot be denied. As much as I wish that all of my caring and anxiety and hope and labor could manifest into instantaneous, generative change, this is the reality I currently live in – I cannot refuse it. None of us can.
So I guess the charge becomes something along the lines of: How do I face reality today and still work for a better tomorrow?
And then there is the question of whether or not I would I still want to be a teacher if nothing were to ever change – if the amount of my labor was never met with what I deem to be the equivalent amount of pay. After some distance from the school year and a few naps, I can say with certainty that the answer is a responding yes. And yet, that does not change the need – the sheer desperation – I feel at the necessity of finding more balance with my work.
But how?
I mean, I could try boundaries right?
Yet this is what happens when I think about setting boundaries – come with me on a journey (not an exhaustive list): When my mind is on a creative tangent related to work but it is not a time I am “supposed” to be thinking about work, do I stop that flow because I am not getting paid for it? I can’t imagine doing that. Is it about refusing to bring work home with me? That sounds more reasonable and yet what if I didn’t have time to get everything ready for tomorrow because of the other unexpected things that popped up today? Do I just show up to work unprepared? I could never. Do I set a day that I leave right when my contract hours are done and come home and get a small bit of alone time? What about random meetings and that stack of work that needs to be marked because I’ve had it for over two weeks? My students deserve better. And does it still count if there’s no consistency to any of it?
At this point in time, I literally have no idea how to do this job to the level I want to do it at, and not flame out time and time again. I have tried some of what I have mentioned above and yet I inevitably find myself giving into the work while sacrificing all else. Even my family. Most definitely myself.
And the dirty truth under all of this, is that while there are times I deeply resent all of the unpaid labor I’ve given – and continue to give – over the years, this behavior feeds my insecurities and their ravenous need for validation. I like martyring myself because that way I can feel superior to everyone else. When I work harder and longer than anyone, and then like it is a burden, I become righteous in the eyes of the public.
Peel back yet another layer and yet another truth is that I genuinely do love my job and just want to do a good job at it and give my students the educational experience they all deserve.
Fact: The education system is built on the back of unpaid teacher labor.
Fact: Many teachers love their jobs.
Fact: Most of us work too hard and too long.
Fact: This is not the fault of any one person.
Fact: There is nothing currently in place to change this reality.
Fact: Teachers will burn out this year – they will drown – and somehow they will come back to life and keep going.
Fact: This is what the job demands.
Fact: Because of the aforementioned facts, fewer and fewer people will continue to stay in the profession and fewer and fewer people will want to be teachers in the first place.
This is all true – all of it at the exact same time.
As I write this, I’m pondering the new year (because apparently I can’t not). The tendrils of excitement are beginning to rise. The anticipation of a new year and welcoming fresh classes of students feels like hope. And I know that the ease and delight I feel is in part because I still have the space to feel ease and delight. A month from now, the reality will be vastly different. Those feelings will still be there (they always are), but they will be under water, gasping for air.
Will I help bring them to the surface, or will I keep allowing myself to be pulled under?