"My 'You Should Just Become a Teacher'" Rant

I will apologize in advance. This is a rant for no other reason than for me to feel better. I yelled at my truck's radio this afternoon. Literally yelled. I am pretty sure I may have cursed in the process.

Doug Gottlieb had just uttered this statement, and I quote: "If you want to work just 8-3, become a teacher." He went on to say that he is never truly off the clock, and that that is how it is in business. But with teachers, "there may be some prep time, and they have to deal with parents, and they are grossly underpaid for the impact they have on our children, but when their workday is done, they are done" (Gottlieb).

He went on to dig the hole deeper, and I will paraphrase his comments here. Something about how there are blue collar jobs where people clock out and that is the last time they think about their jobs until they clock in the next morning, but that it just does not work that way in his business.

So, I yelled at the radio. Just one sentence, and then I was done. Besides, my phone rang at that point and Coach Warner offered to buy me a snowcone to finish off another day of working with athletes and then painting. Obviously, however, I am not over it. Stupidity bothers me. One may argue that Gottlieb is not stupid, and is simply ignorant. I would counter that when an individual chooses to speak from a place of ignorance, on national radio, in an effort to demonstrated how hard he works watching sports, reading about sports, and talking about sports, that is an example of stupidity. Doug, you watch sports, read about sports, and talk about sports for a living. For the rest of the world, that is what we do when we are off the clock. Having to check twitter so you can comment on how the injury to a linebacker will contribute to the Cowboys missing the playoffs (which is what he was discussing as one of the things that keeps him on the job around the clock) is not quite the same as coaching the backup linebacker so that he can step in and play, let alone being called in to perform surgery on the knee so a young athlete can continue his career.  And yet, you consider checking a score or tweeting being "on the clock". If you wanted to avoid that backbreaking labor, you could have just become a teacher, right? Yes, I know that Doug has to do research so he can talk about sports on the radio. That research consists of reading about sports and sports figures, as well as traveling to venues where major sporting events are played and speaking with people associated with sports. That must be terrible.

Don't get me wrong: I am not complaining about the time I spend as a teacher. As a good friend likes to say, "I chose my profession." The time I spend "on the clock" before and after my contract time states I am supposed to be at the school allows me to do my job at a level that I can feel good about. As most quality teachers will tell you, at least the teachers I know and enjoy working with, we do not consider that "extra" time as extra. It is part of what we signed up for.  I signed up for the long hours of grading because I chose to be an English teacher. I chose to read books all the time because I need to do that to effectively teach my students. And I like reading. I write lesson plans at 11 pm and 5:30 am because that is when ideas that might allow me to effectively reach kids hits me.  I chose to carry on weekend Facebook conversations with former students about their reading or essays they are working on for a history class because I am glad they are thinking and that i can be a part of that. I chose to converse with a student on email one evening about how to cite information in MLA format because wanted to make sure he was doing it correctly because that fact that he graduated last year does not change the fact that he is my student and I want his to do well. I guess I could go into a discussion about the other subject I teacher, football. You know, that area where you hope you do well enough to work extra weeks for free, but would not trade that time working with great young men to win a championship for anything. That time is what I signed up for, and to honest, that time spent is incredibly worthwhile for me. And in that respect, I am no different than thousands of other teachers and coaches across this country. No. I am complaining about Doug Gottlieb spouting off that teachers work 8-3 and do not do much of anything outside of those hours that is related to their jobs. Actually Doug, I know there are teachers who do not put in the time we are talking about, but honestly, those teachers are not very good at what they do. I am sure there are radio commentators who do not bother to inform themselves before they pop off about topics that they do not know the slightest bit about. They are not very good at their jobs either.

Ok, I feel a little better. I apologize for the rant. I hope I did not waste too much of your time, but since you are all "off the clock", I am sure you do not have anything you need to be doing anyway, right?


Gottlieb, Doug. "The Doug Gottlieb Show" CBS SportsRadio. 27 May 2014.