Dissertation Interest

My interest in teacher workdays originates, in part, from lessons and ideals that were instilled during my youth. My father, the youngest of eleven children, was raised in a home where farming and hunting provided the substance that kept them alive. Everyone had to do his or her fair share to survive. After completing a tour in Vietnam, my dad spent his entire working career at the same company. He was a skilled, blue-collar worker that grew to despise co-workers who did not pull their share of the workload. In our family there were clearly defined chores assigned to each of the five children. Laziness was considered a sin and worthy of a good switching. A hard day’s work was the golden standard of worth.
Ironically, it was my dad who insisted that I try for the North Carolina Teaching Fellows scholarship. Despite the value of manual labor, it was my father’s wish for his children to get an education that would lead to a life of high pay and limited physical requirements. My mom went back to teaching when I was in high school, and Dad made it no secret that he believed teaching was not “real” work. When I was hired for my first teaching assignment, my dad was happy for me, but he frequently made comments about how I should not be tired after a day of talking to kids.
Not long into the school year, I found myself a little appalled at the laziness of some of the teachers in the building. I could hear my father’s voice inside my head pointing out the ways that teachers were lazy. Some taught from a chair, and some barely planned lessons. Others simply wasted much of the class time by talking about issues that were not even remotely related to the subject being taught. People in the teaching profession, by and large, certainly had a different work ethic than the one I was accustomed to seeing displayed. Sure, I have been exposed to all kinds of slackness, but here were relatively well-paid professionals displaying a nonchalant attitude toward their duties.
The first few workdays after the school year had started also provided some insight into the world of educators. The few that were actually present in the building seemed more content with taking care of personal tasks and taking long lunches rather than preparing for the next few weeks of school. Two-hour lunches were not uncommon for some of these teachers; furthermore, I witnessed on numerous occasions where people signed in on the office payroll sheet and then left the building not to return. I remember asking some fellow teachers that I trusted about how people got by with such actions. There was no system of accountability for these workdays; therefore, teachers did as they pleased. I tried the extended lunch a few times, but I always felt guilty of ripping off taxpayers for paying me to do a job I was not doing.
When I became an assistant principal, I realized the need to utilized teacher workdays for staff development. Workdays became a precious resource I needed to help the school improve student achievement. This was the same time that the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation reducing the number of workdays overall and protecting some of the days that were left from being controlled by LEA’s. Now not only were workdays still being wasted, but there was legally nothing I could do about it. I remember being embarrassed when parents called the school for a teacher during a workday only to be told that the teacher was not there.
As a principal I found that the problem is in all schools, but nothing has been done to address the problem. The school calendar law clearly prohibits all but a few days before the start of the school year or at the end to be used for staff development. Teacher organizations still lobby to reduce or protect the rest of the workdays that are still required. Current legislation made it even easier for teachers to stay home during workdays by allowing teachers to use personal leave vacation on workdays without penalty. I have an awesome responsibility placed square on my shoulders to run a school effectively and continue to make leaps and bounds in student achievement; however, the tool, teacher workdays, I need to make these improvements keeps being further limited. There are numerous factors that drive these decisions concerning teacher workdays, but none appear to be in the best interest of students. North Carolina is squandering one if its most precious resources; moreover, there appears to be no one that is championing the cause to improve this situation. I would like to be part of a movement that would be able to reverse these conditions. I believe that the general public would be outraged if they knew the full extent of how workdays are wasted. Outrage is the only vehicle that I know of strong enough to turn this tide. My plan is to study what teachers actually do during teacher workdays. I believe that a successful study, while it would be widely unpopular with educators, would provide sympathetic legislators, or those with an axe to grind against the political party that empowers these actions, with enough ammunition to begin the process of change.