Misnomer

I think the term "Teacher Workday" is a big misnomer. Why? Let's take a look at my day today as an example.

7:45am: Arrive at the school just in time to board the bus, to get to another school for our county wide "Celebration" (read as: pep rally for the teachers, including the screaming and the cheering, and there was even an instance of body surfing)

8:15am: Arrive at aforementioned 2nd school and mosey into the auditorium amidst a plethora of overly enthusiastic elementary school teachers (see previous mention of body surfing).

8:30am: The "Celebration" begins! Mostly, they tell a few bad teacher jokes, give us some stats about the county school district, and attempt to inspire us to work even harder this year.

10:00am: Release from the mandatory celebration. That we were all told to wear the faculty shirts for, so we were all dressed alike. I mentioned this to my mom and she said it sounded an awful lot like Communism...

10:10am: Board the bus that was parked forever away to get back to my school.

10:35am: Finally arrive at my school. All right! Time to get some work done! After I walk up to the office, sign in, and check my mail box.

11:00am: Return to classroom after being wrapped up in various conversations on the way to and from the office. I think I promised to do several things which I can't remember at the moment. Hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass later...

11:00am-11:40am: All right! I actually did some work in this time. I...copy and pasted last year's parent letter and edited out about 20 words, and added a paragraph. Did the same to my classroom procedures note.

11:40am: Hey, we have a faculty meeting at 1pm. Better go get some lunch. We'll just go to Quizno's and bring it back.

12:05pm: Back from Quizno's, time to eat.

12:35pm: Check email, answer questions from the new employees that have stopped in my room. Run to printer to pick up printed drafts of parent letter and procedures.

12:45pm: Oh, damn. Time to head up to the media center for the faculty meeting. Hope I'll have time to do some work after the meeting. Can't imagine it will be more than an hour and a half, right? right?

1:00pm-3:35pm: Faculty meeting, in which I'm pretty sure I didn't actually learn anything new that wasn't also provided to me in printed form, which I could surely read on my own. I only have a Master's degree, though...so maybe I wouldn't be able to understand it. Or maybe it's just a requirement for us to sit in faculty meetings for a certain number of hours per year. I did get some quality doodling done. Graph paper is good for this. It almost makes me feel artistic.

3:45pm: Check mailbox and run back to room, quickly packing up so I can head home. I'd stay, but I have to drop my bike off at the shop before the mechanic leaves at 5pm.

3:55pm: Leave school.


So. There was what, 45 minutes of work time in there? Sure, I didn't have to go out to get food for lunch. I could have just packed a lunch or something, but when you only get to go out to lunch a handful of times per year, you like to take advantage of things. But honestly, I'm curious about how I'm supposed to get any *work* done on my workday when they schedule meetings that take up so much of my time. Thankfully tomorrow I only have one meeting. And another faculty meeting on Thursday, which just baffles me. 2.5 hours that I'll never get back apparently just weren't enough...

Ahh, I love teacher workdays.