How Teachers Pay Teachers Hurts Educators
Why should schools pay for our time when we are willingly paying other teachers for theirs?
Most of the early career educators I know buy materials from Teachers Pay Teachers, and I would never judge them for this. In fact, borrowing lessons from other teachers is a time-honored tradition in the education field.
But I dislike the whole premise of TPT.
Planning lessons, creating study guides, preparing materials for student use — this all takes time. Hours and hours of time.
But time is something new teachers, really all teachers, don’t have.
Public school teachers are paid by contract yet monitored hourly. For example, I’m expected to get all of my work done. If it takes longer than the eight-hours per contract day that I’m paid for, well, then it does.
There is no overtime pay.
However, if I need to miss school, say, leave an hour early to get to a dentist’s appointment, then I’m charged with an hour of sick leave.
So teachers are “on-contract” when it’s convenient for society, and hourly when it comes to needing time away from the classroom.
