Associates: Compare Your Job to Your Time with TFA Forum

[kcdc1]

Yeah, but she didn't have to do much that that. Your fiance was really busy because of her personality, not her job. That's what TFA knows, and it's why they recruit people like her. She could have mailed in a lot of that stuff. I mean, if she was doing lesson plans until 9 or so for a revolving door of kids, most of whom aren't learning much and won't be assessed much, and whose assessments won't be held against her given the circumstances around the kids, then that's commendable and all, but it's her choice.

You could put some 20-year vet career slacker teacher in that role and she'd be like, "Fine, I'm gonna do what I do and they're either gonna learn or not," then she's gonna order two fried fish sandwiches over lunch and waddle out of work at 3 p.m. and not think one thought about it until the next morning. That's not an option in biglaw, and to the extent that it is, you certainly won't be employed for more than a few years.

I think you're underestimating (or just not aware of) the swing toward accountability/data in education over the last ~5 years.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Rhee

In her first year on the job, Rhee closed 23 schools, fired 36 principals and cut approximately 121 office jobs . . . Rhee fired 241 teachers, the vast majority of whom received poor evaluations, and put 737 additional school employees on notice.[27] Of the dismissed teachers, 76 were dismissed in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act because they lacked proper teaching certification. Twenty-six other teachers were dismissed because their students had repeatedly received low scores on the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System. Teachers were observed by administrators and outside professionals for five 30-minute sessions during the year, and the teachers' performance was rated during those sessions. Teachers who received fewer than 175 out of 400 points were deemed ineffective and were dismissed. Teachers who received between 175 and 249 points were deemed minimally effective and given a one-year warning to improve their performance.

[smallfirmassociate]

I think you're underestimating (or just not aware of) the swing toward accountability/data in education over the last ~5 years.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Rhee

In her first year on the job, Rhee closed 23 schools, fired 36 principals and cut approximately 121 office jobs . . . Rhee fired 241 teachers, the vast majority of whom received poor evaluations, and put 737 additional school employees on notice.[27] Of the dismissed teachers, 76 were dismissed in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act because they lacked proper teaching certification. Twenty-six other teachers were dismissed because their students had repeatedly received low scores on the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System. Teachers were observed by administrators and outside professionals for five 30-minute sessions during the year, and the teachers' performance was rated during those sessions. Teachers who received fewer than 175 out of 400 points were deemed ineffective and were dismissed. Teachers who received between 175 and 249 points were deemed minimally effective and given a one-year warning to improve their performance.

I don't think so. That one person is the exception to the rule. And even with her, the numbers are shady (if she's "firing" teachers for lack of credentials, those aren't likely full-time, union teachers). Looking at an entire state (California), 2.2 teachers per year in the entire state, out of 275,000, are dismissed for poor performance. A union teacher is more likely to be struck by lightning than be fired for ineptitude.

Around 50 out of 75,000 teachers in NYC have been fired for poor performance in the past twenty months. That's actually a huge improvement from before, but it's still obviously basically nobody. There are teachers who have admitted to sexual harassment and abuse who still have their jobs working with kids.

There are tons of articles about this using The Google.

[A. Nony Mouse]

considering you can basically half-ass your entire career and still get full benefits and regular raises, there's not a lot of pressure on teachers.

1) pressure isn't the only thing that makes a job bad. 2) this is a huge generalization based on your experience with crappy teachers 3) yet again, this doesn't say anything about whether it's hard actually to teach rather than just suck at your job.

Are you honestly claiming that public school systems do a good job of firing teachers who half-ass their jobs?

And are you honestly claiming that your experience with bad teachers was representative of all teachers?

Give the biglaw lawyers a few days to research and prepare before the first day of the school year, and a lot of them will do fine. Certainly no worse than my teachers did. Give the teachers a few days to research and prepare for biglaw, and almost all of them will be totally lost. I mean, the average schoolteacher scored like a 23 on the ACT in high school. We joke about how dumb some lawyers are, but you do realize that even bottom-half students at tier-three shithole law schools scored higher than that, right?

Statistically-speaking, with some reasonable assumptions (e.g. that ACT scores correlate moderately with LSAT scores), well over half of teachers couldn't sniff admission to the top 100 law schools.

Honestly, though, why does that matter? Teachers aren't lawyers. I don't think saying "but lawyers are all smarter" really means anything when you're talking about very different professions.

[smallfirmassociate]

And are you honestly claiming that your experience with bad teachers was representative of all teachers?

The question is whether teachers have any pressure to perform. The answer is that they have very little, and the pressure that exists is largely self-imposed. Whether my experience was representative of all teachers is a strawman and doesn't answer that question.

Honestly, though, why does that matter? Teachers aren't lawyers. I don't think saying "but lawyers are all smarter" really means anything when you're talking about very different professions.

Well you brought it up; the "lawyers are smarter" statement was responsive to you talking about whether lawyers could handle teachers' jobs. Smarter people, in the aggregate, are more adaptable and able to work more efficiently. They have major workplace advantages over people who are less smart. It's reasonable to think that a group of people who are far more intelligent than another group could adapt to the latter group's job easier than the opposite.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

A lot of jobs that have low pay because they don't require any skills are nonetheless pretty difficult.

I'm betting the amount it would take someone in Biglaw to pick oranges in Florida for 60 hours a week would be six figures.

[A. Nony Mouse]

And are you honestly claiming that your experience with bad teachers was representative of all teachers?

The question is whether teachers have any pressure to perform. The answer is that they have very little, and the pressure that exists is largely self-imposed. Whether my experience was representative of all teachers is a strawman and doesn't answer that question.

Honestly, though, why does that matter? Teachers aren't lawyers. I don't think saying "but lawyers are all smarter" really means anything when you're talking about very different professions.

Well you brought it up; the "lawyers are smarter" statement was responsive to you talking about whether lawyers could handle teachers' jobs. Smarter people, in the aggregate, are more adaptable and able to work more efficiently. They have major workplace advantages over people who are less smart. It's reasonable to think that a group of people who are far more intelligent than another group could adapt to the latter group's job easier than the opposite.

My comment was more about biglaw partner's emotional intelligence than their IQ, honestly.

[kcdc1]

I don't think so. That one person is the exception to the rule. And even with her, the numbers are shady (if she's "firing" teachers for lack of credentials, those aren't likely full-time, union teachers). Looking at an entire state (California), 2.2 teachers per year in the entire state, out of 275,000, are dismissed for poor performance. A union teacher is more likely to be struck by lightning than be fired for ineptitude.

Around 50 out of 75,000 teachers in NYC have been fired for poor performance in the past twenty months. That's actually a huge improvement from before, but it's still obviously basically nobody. There are teachers who have admitted to sexual harassment and abuse who still have their jobs working with kids.

There are tons of articles about this using The Google.

Keep in mind that TFA'ers and other alternative certification'ers generally do not have permanent licenses -- much less union protections. Even in a school system where experienced teachers can get away with slacking (fewer districts year-by-year), the alt. certs. need to hit performance metrics to get their licenses (i.e. keep their jobs). It's not just invented stress.

[sparty99]

Stupid thread. Teachers get several weeks off in December. A week off in the Fall if its a school in Minnesota. Then 3 months off in the summer. Ooooooooh. Hard. Challenging.

[Desert Fox]

And are you honestly claiming that your experience with bad teachers was representative of all teachers?

The question is whether teachers have any pressure to perform. The answer is that they have very little, and the pressure that exists is largely self-imposed. Whether my experience was representative of all teachers is a strawman and doesn't answer that question.

Honestly, though, why does that matter? Teachers aren't lawyers. I don't think saying "but lawyers are all smarter" really means anything when you're talking about very different professions.

Well you brought it up; the "lawyers are smarter" statement was responsive to you talking about whether lawyers could handle teachers' jobs. Smarter people, in the aggregate, are more adaptable and able to work more efficiently. They have major workplace advantages over people who are less smart. It's reasonable to think that a group of people who are far more intelligent than another group could adapt to the latter group's job easier than the opposite.

My comment was more about biglaw partner's emotional intelligence than their IQ, honestly.

Not sure why it would be different than teachers. Both professions hire noobs out of school. Hell schools probably hire on a government hiring matrix and overall a lot dumber.

[rdawkins28]

No but I know the retards who do.

Classy.

[Anonymous User]

Ok so I didn't read this entire thread, but from my experience, your first year sucks with both. The thing is, with TFA your second and onward is ezpz. Your first year with TFA, the problem is you have no experience so you're unprepared and literally making/changing your lesson plan day by day. Also, another big difference, is in TFA, nothing is really at stake if you fuck up. So your plan sucks that day, ok it's easily fixable and the students don't and it's NBD. In big law, a major fuck up could cost you everything.

Teaching gets easier each year, while I'm guessing big law does not.

[Icculus]

Is this a joke?

What is harder? Hopscotch or the Bhutan Death March

Did you actually teach?

No but I know the retards who do.

Didn't read the whole thread. I've done both and I can say without a doubt teaching is not nearly as hard, especially after the first year. Does grading suck? Yes. But, most of the prep needed for school is done the first year or two and then you merely need to tweak it as the years go by. I taught 8th grade social studies and I basically did the same assignments every year with minor changes here and there. The english teacher and I basically gave the same research paper assignment every year and that took up like a month of class. The shitty part about teaching is reading the same fucking papers and answers over and over again. Math was the same, the teachers basically had the curriculum set and the pain in the ass part was grading. And let's not forget the three months vacation built into the school year.

And don't get me started on TFA. I know all you guys mean well but you are basically untrained (and training does help when dealing with adolescents). This was always one of my favorites:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/my-yea ... e-a,28803/

[Anonymous User]

I don't know if yall are assuming teaching middle school math/english is harder than teaching freshman level intro to computer science but I guess maybe having only done the latter doesn't qualify me to speak on the topic? Unclear if just because it wasn't TFA means I don't know what I'm talking about.

But for me the vast majority of my prep for the semester course was done in the 3 weeks before school was in session. I made sure to get half of the semester concretely laid out before the semester started. So that's 3 weeks of working just 9-5 at my own pace. Then classes start and each day before teaching (didn't teach every day because this is freshman in college) I prep for an hour. I spend 1.5hrs in class. 1/2 hour after class on questions. That's 3x a week. The other two days I do 9-5 work on getting the rest of the semester solidified. Then i have one day where i have 3hours of office time reserved for students. When I have a lab that I need to grade (one lab per week) that adds about 20hours into the week.
so...

(1 + 2.5 + .5) x3days = 9hours prepping to lecture and in-class time
8*2days = 16 hours of prepping material
3*1day = 3 hours of office hours
====
28hours per week + 20hrs grading labs = 48hours per week
plus the three weeks of 9-5 prep before the semester started.

I was not a tenured prof and had no research obligation. I was hired by the department to teach an intro level course.

If I had any week as an associate where I only did 48 hours of work I'd be stressed that I'm going to get chewed out for not being on track with billables.
But no, this isn't TFA experience.

I'm discounting this experience because I'm guessing no one ever threw a desk at you. I have no doubt this was a challenging experience but college is just a whole new game because no one is forcing someone to be there against their will.

[hdunlop]

Michelle Rhee got fired and like half those teachers got hired back

[Anonymous User]

My fiancé did TFA. She woke up at 5:30am every day, got home at around 5:30pm, and worked on her lesson plans till around 9 or so, sometimes later if I couldn't cook her dinner. She woke up at 5:30am the next day and did it all again. Her job was to teach 25 kids at two different grade levels how to speak English. All of the kids spoke Spanish, and my fiancé did not. Throughout the year, her class grew by ten, all of whom spoke no English, thus making it difficult for her to make a lesson plan that applies to the kids because they were of all different ages and education. She received little to no support from the administration or other teachers because they all had beef with TFA. If I recall, TFA trained her for about a month before throwing her into the fire. She earned 38K in a school located in a shitty inner city neighborhood. She also worked summers, at marginal additional income.

Yeah, but she didn't have to do much that that. Your fiance was really busy because of her personality, not her job. That's what TFA knows, and it's why they recruit people like her. She could have mailed in a lot of that stuff. I mean, if she was doing lesson plans until 9 or so for a revolving door of kids, most of whom aren't learning much and won't be assessed much, and whose assessments won't be held against her given the circumstances around the kids, then that's commendable and all, but it's her choice.

You could put some 20-year vet career slacker teacher in that role and she'd be like, "Fine, I'm gonna do what I do and they're either gonna learn or not," then she's gonna order two fried fish sandwiches over lunch and waddle out of work at 3 p.m. and not think one thought about it until the next morning. That's not an option in biglaw, and to the extent that it is, you certainly won't be employed for more than a few years.

Having done TFA, and not being sure I would recommend it to others, I want to add this: it's absurdly hard to generalize a TFA experience. Even within my school experiences differed widely, certainly within the district. I think I put in the bare amount of effort required to have something that was remotely acceptable and wouldn't result in kids fighting each other during class (see below for why this bar was decently high). (First year) I got to school at 7 am and left around 4:30. Once a week I didn't leave till 8:00 because of terrible TFA learn nothing training. I worked probably a hour and a half on average 3 nights a week. Friday and Saturday I would do nothing. Sunday I would grade/lesson plan for like 3 hours. That's a no bullshit time counting 58 and a half hours a week, and like I said that was the bare minimum I could have done. At least in my district you couldn't just order fish sandwiches and not do shit because I was in one of those crazy Michelle Rhee districts (no teacher union to speak of).

Anyway I think non-TFAers have a tendency to assume that it's like what the teachers they/their kids had/have do, which, I agree, isn't that bad of a job. I also think TFAers have a tendency to forget about how much time off you have while teaching, which you will never get again.

I don't doubt that being a first year lawyer is tougher, but I have heard some descriptions of what a TFA teacher could do/does that don't match my experience at all (lol at no manditory meetings after school).

OP I can tell you at 1L is a breeze compared to teaching. So was my 1L summer government job. Neither of those are even somewhat comparable to Biglaw. Also this:

"If you've done time in a Peruvian prison, can you compare it to doing time in a Russian one?"

[Desert Fox]

Subtract lunch time and your months of vacay.

[Frayed Knot]

The question is whether teachers have any pressure to perform. The answer is that they have very little, and the pressure that exists is largely self-imposed. Whether my experience was representative of all teachers is a strawman and doesn't answer that question.

I think part of the disconnect ITT is that self-imposed pressure isn't necessarily any less stressful.

In one situation (BigLaw), you have "I could chose to slack off, but then I'd be fired from this job (that I hate?)"

In the other (TFA), you have "I could chose to slack off, but then I'd be betraying these kids I care about."

Either way, you can make choices about how hard to work and those choices have consequences. Some people might not care about certain consequences—DF might not care about the kids, someone with no debt might not care about losing BigLaw. But for people who do care about the consequences, there's plenty of reason to work hard. (That said, I didn't TFA.)

[Anonymous User]

Subtract lunch time and your months of vacay.

Right. 30 minute lunch (and bells make sure that I can't take a second longer) which I probably didn't work straight through 3 and a half days a week. So take an hour and 45 minutes off of what I had above. The vacation is absolutely huge though. I worked 187 days in a calendar year. As a said above, that makes a massive difference.

[smallfirmassociate]

Subtract lunch time and your months of vacay.

Right. 30 minute lunch (and bells make sure that I can't take a second longer) which I probably didn't work straight through 3 and a half days a week. So take an hour and 45 minutes off of what I had above. The vacation is absolutely huge though. I worked 187 days in a calendar year. As a said above, that makes a massive difference.

So crediting you with the full 56 3/4 hours per week you claim, that puts you at 1516 hours per year. Not "billable," but total hours worked. Pretty sweet gig. That's barely more than a half-time job in the legal world.

Being busy kind of sucks, but it's not nearly so bad when there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Especially when there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the weekend, another light representing a state or federal holiday in the next week, a bunch of lights for Fall break and Christmas vacations, the dazzling lights of Spring break, and the blinding light of summer.

[fl0w]

I don't know if yall are assuming teaching middle school math/english is harder than teaching freshman level intro to computer science but I guess maybe having only done the latter doesn't qualify me to speak on the topic? Unclear if just because it wasn't TFA means I don't know what I'm talking about.

But for me the vast majority of my prep for the semester course was done in the 3 weeks before school was in session. I made sure to get half of the semester concretely laid out before the semester started. So that's 3 weeks of working just 9-5 at my own pace. Then classes start and each day before teaching (didn't teach every day because this is freshman in college) I prep for an hour. I spend 1.5hrs in class. 1/2 hour after class on questions. That's 3x a week. The other two days I do 9-5 work on getting the rest of the semester solidified. Then i have one day where i have 3hours of office time reserved for students. When I have a lab that I need to grade (one lab per week) that adds about 20hours into the week.
so...

(1 + 2.5 + .5) x3days = 9hours prepping to lecture and in-class time
8*2days = 16 hours of prepping material
3*1day = 3 hours of office hours
====
28hours per week + 20hrs grading labs = 48hours per week
plus the three weeks of 9-5 prep before the semester started.

I was not a tenured prof and had no research obligation. I was hired by the department to teach an intro level course.

If I had any week as an associate where I only did 48 hours of work I'd be stressed that I'm going to get chewed out for not being on track with billables.
But no, this isn't TFA experience.

I'm discounting this experience because I'm guessing no one ever threw a desk at you. I have no doubt this was a challenging experience but college is just a whole new game because no one is forcing someone to be there against their will.

Neat. I wasn't really trying to compete for who has it worse. I was just offering an example since nobody, at that point, had broken any TFA time out like that.

I'm sorry about your /deskface

[Desert Fox]

Even if you spend 58 hours a week (which I doubt) that is objectively longer than most teachers work. You are as much of an outlier as those who bill 3k hours in big law.

[DELG]

Doesn't TFA schedule a bunch of shit for all your breaks

[skri65]

The topic was asking about comparing Big Law to TFA. Not Big Law to teaching generally. Your graph is about as helpful as one comparing the hours a 1st-year TFA corps member spends working to the hours worked for anyone involved in the legal profession. It just isn't relevant.

Also notice that I didn't try to make any claims about how many hours a TFA teacher puts into their job--I merely pointed out that you are making a lot of assumptions when you suggest that such a TFA teacher would never miss dinner for work-related responsibilities or that TFA teachers don't have meetings except on days that school is canceled. Those things are very, very false.

TFA is just being a first year teacher. So I'm not sure what your point is.

If you don't understand why doing TFA is qualitatively (and significantly) different than being a first year teacher, perhaps you should educate yourself before making statements you have no business making.

That is what TFA is. So why don't you explain it.

You make it seem like most first-year teachers have as little background in teaching as those in TFA, which like I suggests how little you understand about TFA and teachers. Look up the criticisms of TFA and you'll see one of them is that TFA teachers are objectively less qualified to teach in their first year of teaching than most other teachers.

TFA seems to bypass the type of training and certification that most other teaches get BEFORE becoming a teacher. All states require you have a level of training or certification BEFORE you become a teacher which usually includes extensive student teaching, whereas in TFA you essentially get few weeks of bogus "training." Compare this with a large percentage of teachers who got a degree in education and fulfilled student teaching requirements.

This difference in training is exacerbated by the fact that TFA teachers usually teach at a school that serves an underserved community...the types of schools where it would be difficult for teachers who, you know, actually prepared to become a teacher.

[Anonymous User]

Subtract lunch time and your months of vacay.

Right. 30 minute lunch (and bells make sure that I can't take a second longer) which I probably didn't work straight through 3 and a half days a week. So take an hour and 45 minutes off of what I had above. The vacation is absolutely huge though. I worked 187 days in a calendar year. As a said above, that makes a massive difference.

So crediting you with the full 56 3/4 hours per week you claim, that puts you at 1516 hours per year. Not "billable," but total hours worked. Pretty sweet gig. That's barely more than a half-time job in the legal world.

Being busy kind of sucks, but it's not nearly so bad when there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Especially when there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the weekend, another light representing a state or federal holiday in the next week, a bunch of lights for Fall break and Christmas vacations, the dazzling lights of Spring break, and the blinding light of summer.

All of which I believe I acknowledged in my original post. The days off are huge and something teachers never bring up.

ETA: so the billable to hours worked breaks down pretty quickly in the anology but at least 90% of that 1516 has to be "billable" under any definition.

[Anonymous User]

Doesn't TFA schedule a bunch of shit for all your breaks

Different in every region. Mine did four all day saturdays a year (which I didn't include in my count).