Working just to the contract in the age of COVID

My district expects me to return to the classroom five days a week. I haven't decided if I am or not, but if I do, you can better damn well be sure I am working to the contract, not a second more and if it doesn't get done at school it doesn't get done.

 The entire education system depends on teachers giving millions of unpaid hours, sacrificing their time with friends and family, and what little money they have to make sure things keep moving. 

This year we have the added bonus of risking their and their family's lives too.

Enough, if we aren’t going to be treated with respect and compensated appropriately if our safety is not assured, then from now on, the system should just get an honest day’s work and nothing more, and then we can rush home with white Nuckles, so we can decontaminate ourselves.

Two things, you might be thinking you can’t do that, that your students desperately need all the extra you do, well friends, you need to survive, you need to get home to your family and if that means you don't do all the things you would normally do then GOOD!!!

In a good year, not working to the contract was a bad thing, sure you might think in the moment thought you were doing the right thing, but in the long term, you are hurting them and every student that will come afterward. 

The system before the pandemic had no incentive to change. It churned and burned through teachers, and we see how much they appreciated all the effort teachers did. They appreciated us so much that they now require many of us to risk our lives.  

For the last couple of years’ teachers all over the nation tired of being blamed for society’s ills and both paid and treated like second class, citizens rose up in protest and demanded more pay and better working conditions and they won too. 

Then when we in a weekend we switched to distance learning, we suddenly became heroes, well friends that acclaim was short-lived because now we are expected to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of the economy.  It is our responsibility to save society.

 Teachers, by their nature, are givers, and I am here to let you know that your altruism may cost you your life. 

It might sound counter-intuitive, but teachers need to be selfish, not because you want to but because that may help you get home healthy.

The truth is this teachers and education did not have an acceptable relationship before they decided we had to risk our lives, and now an already bad situation is made even worse. 

Teachers have now become disciplinarians and truant officers because administrations won’t get involved until you try multiple interventions or attempts, and we are paper-pushers, and boy oh boy do we push paper. When I started teaching just nineteen years ago my lesson plan was a little box on a calendar, now it’s a two paged, 8 font monstrosity, and then there is the data I am required to take on every student, in every class, every day. Data that, for the most part, just sits there helping no one. Teachers today often have fewer and fewer resources and more and more demands and responsibilities. These demands also often take away from the number one thing we are supposed to do, teach. Now let's add wear a mask and hope for the best to the list.

In short, in good years, teachers are given way too much to do and not nearly enough time and resources to do it, all while their actual pay because of the rising costs of benefits and inflation is decreasing.  That was in good years. GOOD YEARS!!!

Somewhere along the way, things changed. Teachers went from revered members of the community too, you're lazy and selfish if you don't think schools should solve all the ills of society and you care about your and your family's health. How dare you, what about the children?   

We need to stop working for free, especially now that we could literally get sick and die for doing so. If enough teachers did that, then this alone would send a big enough signal that things need to change.

So, teachers do you and your students a favor, work to the contract, and not one minute before and do whatever it takes to survive even if that is doing next to nothing. They want to treat us like baby sitters. Maybe we should act like them, especially if it keeps us healthy and alive.