Monday, December 1, 2008

Why We Get Paid the Big Bucks

I found this on a teacher friend's facebook, and I think it's hilarious. It may not be funny to those not in the education profession, but those that are... enjoy!

Okay, I think we're all fed up of people saying that teachers don't work hard enough and don't deserve our holidays. I reckon we do the most varied and demanding job possible. A list of teacher's skills/jobs (often all used or performed in the same day):

1. Wielding sufficient authority to get a basketball from a teenage boy and return it to its rightful owner.
2. Planning work for at least three different ability levels in one class.
3. Remembering who nearly got into a fight in the lesson last week and changing the seating accordingly before the lesson and with minimal disagreement.
4. Reassuring 15-16 year olds that their injections really won't hurt all that much and it'll all be fine once they get there.
5. Cajoling large youths into wearing their blazers properly and tucking in their shirts - yes, *all* the way round.
6. Defusing gossip about a child pulling out a knife on another child.
7. Organizing a colleague's cover work.
8. Making tea/coffee.
9. Writing cover work in such a way that even the most vacant-brained cover teacher can understand it (with diagrams).
10. Using all kinds of ICT programmes, e.g. Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Sims (no, not the game).
11. Keeping bluetack from being stolen by children.
12. Confiscating any number of electronic gadgets/newspapers/mirrors/afro combs.
13. Keeping a spider plant alive.
14. Organizing assemblies.
15. Having to write the whole assembly because the children can't get their arses in gear.
16. Constructing seating plans (and not losing them).
17. Remembering the names of the 400+ children that you teach (and those of the children you used to teach...).
18. Balancing coffee in a crowded corridor.
19. Creating exciting and colourful displays for the corridor.
20. Remembering *not* to eat anything in front of the boy with Prader-Willi syndrome.
21. Covering books perfectly with sticky-back.
22. Recording and uploading audio files.
23. High speed photocopying with a minimum of paper wastage.
24. Planning trips abroad and all the chaos it entails.
25. Acquiring gluten-free meals for guest speakers.
26. Writing letters to parents.
27. Conversing with parents/answer machines over the phone.
28. Speaking in assembly to 300 children.
29. Designing worksheets.
30. Writing new schemes of work.
31. Understanding teaching jargon.
32. Preventing children from using illicit websites in the computer room.
33. Opening doors with one's feet.
34. Operating the sound/visual equipment on stage.
35. Dodging children in Sainsbury's.
36. Weight-lifting (i.e. taking books home to mark).
37. Football match refereeing.
38. Fixing printers.
39. Inventing games.
40. Lie detecting.
41. Breaking into broken lockers.
42. Rescuing lost squirrels.
43. Marshalling fire drill/the school photo.
44. Writing legibly on the white board.
45. Playing in the school band.
46. Marking and finding the strength to add constructive comments.
47. Photography.
48. Getting 50 children from school to central London on the tube.
49. Keeping track of the pens, scissors and glue.
50. Coercing children into writing reports for the school news sheet.
51. Writing receipts for cash received.
52. Advising trainee teachers both in and out of the classroom.
53. Counselling.
54. Fighting off the hordes to retain one's IT room booking.
55. Administrating the IT room booking sheet.
56. Impromptu drawing of maps/diagrams on the board to illustrate difficult points.
57. Justifying PSHE/the latest government initiative.
58. Enduring staff meetings.
59. Touch typing.
60. Oh yeah, that whole performing in front of a class of slavering beasts thing that I do at least five times a day... teaching, that'd be.
61. Collecting money for school trips.
62. Writing five page risk-assessments for trips, with contingency plans in case of: losing children, children falling into the Thames, central London terrorist attacks.
63. Applying for funding to numerous bodies in order to pay for school trips.
64. Undergoing the hell that is Ofsted.
65. Dealing with amorous approaches from teenagers going through major hormonal upheaval.
66. Interpreting numerous new words and new applications of old words.
67. Trying to give 19 children hugs before they leave for Christmas break, with out attracting head lice (mainly primary school!)
68. Attending to embarrased/crying children while calling for the caretaker to clean up "bodily fluids" on your carpet.
69. Writing IPP's, report cards, behaviour support plans, completing checklists, forms, questionnaires, surveys, reading files, attending PD sessions (AGAIN), resource group meetings, psychologist meetings, parent meetings, support group meetings, and staff meetings, all while trying to TEACH.
70. Answering to "MOM/MUM!", seventeen times a day, when you don't even have children.

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