Associates: Compare Your Job to Your Time with TFA Forum

[A. Nony Mouse]

I'm not saying teaching is/isn't better than biglaw, but don't go getting ridiculous. Lots of teachers work long hours. All of them? Probably not. But going home at the end of the day and grading things sucks. Again, more than biglaw? I have no idea. But you don't have to say "teaching is a cush job" to prove biglaw sucks. False dichotomy, bro. There are lots of different ways that crappy jobs can suck.

A lot of people with sweet gigs work a lot of hours. Doesn't mean they have to. Working long hours on your own accord isn't a stressful activity.

Sitting up late/on the weekend grading still sucks. I didn't say it was stressful (in the sense biglaw is stressful), but it definitely sucks. Besides, I was countering DF's point that teachers don't work long hours. I didn't say they weren't on your own accord (except that generally they're not really of your own accord. Just because it's your classroom and you don't have a tyrannical midlevel handing you work doesn't mean the work doesn't still have to get done). Whether you work long hours as a teacher depends more on where you're teaching, not choice once you are teaching.

And DF, I think it's hard in the sense that guaranteeing good results is hard, and there are tons of variables entirely out of the teacher's control which they still have to deal with. And in some contexts the hours are long, just not all. Not biglaw long, but that's not saying much. I guess I'd say the hours are long compared to 1) pay (in a lot of places, I know it varies), and 2) the "it takes 9 minutes to prep a school day for 8 year olds bro" camp. But no, not biglaw long.

[WheatThins]

Is this a joke?

What is harder? Hopscotch or the Bhutan Death March

WTF do you think is the Bhutan Death March?

[patogordo]

Is this a joke?

What is harder? Hopscotch or the Bhutan Death March

WTF do you think is the Bhutan Death March?

tbf marching from bhutan to anywhere would be pretty brutal.

[smallfirmassociate]

A lot of people with sweet gigs work a lot of hours. Doesn't mean they have to. Working long hours on your own accord isn't a stressful activity.
Sitting up late/on the weekend grading still sucks. I didn't say it was stressful (in the sense biglaw is stressful), but it definitely sucks. Besides, I was countering DF's point that teachers don't work long hours. I didn't say they weren't on your own accord (except that generally they're not really of your own accord. Just because it's your classroom and you don't have a tyrannical midlevel handing you work doesn't mean the work doesn't still have to get done). Whether you work long hours as a teacher depends more on where you're teaching, not choice once you are teaching.

And DF, I think it's hard in the sense that guaranteeing good results is hard, and there are tons of variables entirely out of the teacher's control which they still have to deal with. And in some contexts the hours are long, just not all. Not biglaw long, but that's not saying much. I guess I'd say the hours are long compared to 1) pay (in a lot of places, I know it varies), and 2) the "it takes 9 minutes to prep a school day for 8 year olds bro" camp. But no, not biglaw long.

I'm appreciating the conversation, but I'll continue along the path I've been on, especially re: bold. I went to a school with a lot of "disadvantaged" (poor, single-parent) kids like me and a dropout rate around 50%. I think that's precisely why I don't see teaching as difficult. I had a lot of teachers--more than half--who regurgitated plans every year. I had teachers who spent the entire class period literally having the students read off of transparencies that have been in use for years, if not decades. I had English teachers who assigned reading and had us read during class, with maybe 5-10 minutes of discussion per day, on average. I had math teachers who assigned worksheets, others who had whole workbooks done up that we worked on throughout the year for the majority of our class time. My gym teachers did "stations" -- roll out some basketballs, footballs, jump rope, etc. and sit down while the kids do one of the above on their own. And at least once a week, the majority of teachers played a film of some sort in class.

The best part is that when like 63% of your kids are doing shitty in your class, everyone just blames it on the kids, poverty, bad parenting, etc., so you escape criticism virtually entirely.

I had a few good teachers who held lively discussions and tried to actually get us engaged with the material, but they were the exceptions. And when it's perfectly acceptable to NOT perform at that level, how stressful can it really be to meet bare minimum standard, or work a few hours on your own accord to exceed it, but know that you don't have to in order to keep your job for infinity.

Teaching at a private school would actually be much more stressful. The problem with teachers in TFA is their personality. TFA selects for a certain type of person: self-motivated, detail-oriented, competitive, high-achieving, idealistic youngsters. THAT'S why it's stressful--because of who you were at that age and in that role, not because the role was that difficult.

[Desert Fox]

I'm not saying teaching is/isn't better than biglaw, but don't go getting ridiculous. Lots of teachers work long hours. All of them? Probably not. But going home at the end of the day and grading things sucks. Again, more than biglaw? I have no idea. But you don't have to say "teaching is a cush job" to prove biglaw sucks. False dichotomy, bro. There are lots of different ways that crappy jobs can suck.

A lot of people with sweet gigs work a lot of hours. Doesn't mean they have to. Working long hours on your own accord isn't a stressful activity.

Sitting up late/on the weekend grading still sucks. I didn't say it was stressful (in the sense biglaw is stressful), but it definitely sucks. Besides, I was countering DF's point that teachers don't work long hours. I didn't say they weren't on your own accord (except that generally they're not really of your own accord. Just because it's your classroom and you don't have a tyrannical midlevel handing you work doesn't mean the work doesn't still have to get done). Whether you work long hours as a teacher depends more on where you're teaching, not choice once you are teaching.

And DF, I think it's hard in the sense that guaranteeing good results is hard, and there are tons of variables entirely out of the teacher's control which they still have to deal with. And in some contexts the hours are long, just not all. Not biglaw long, but that's not saying much. I guess I'd say the hours are long compared to 1) pay (in a lot of places, I know it varies), and 2) the "it takes 9 minutes to prep a school day for 8 year olds bro" camp. But no, not biglaw long.

I'm just not going to believe that someone talented enough for a biglaw job would have to take anywhere near 70 hours to teach a regular middle-school job.

70 hours is (assume a 9am start time) working til 10:30pm (with 1.5 hours for lunch/dinner/commute) Mon- Friday, and then an EXTRA 10 hours on the weekends.

Just LOL at any teach EVER doing that. Not to mention teachers work like 190 days a year instead of the 230 days someone with 3 weeks Vacay does.

Almost all teachers are doing it all under 50 hours.

[Desert Fox]

Is this a joke?

What is harder? Hopscotch or the Bhutan Death March

WTF do you think is the Bhutan Death March?

DFinglish for Bataan Death March.

See, I went to a decent school system can't read good.

[kcdc1]

I'm just not going to believe that someone talented enough for a biglaw job would have to take anywhere near 70 hours to teach a regular middle-school job.

70 hours is (assume a 9am start time) working til 10:30pm (with 1.5 hours for lunch/dinner/commute) Mon- Friday, and then an EXTRA 10 hours on the weekends.

Just LOL at any teach EVER doing that. Not to mention teachers work like 190 days a year instead of the 230 days someone with 3 weeks Vacay does.

Almost all teachers are doing it all under 50 hours.

Assuming a 9 AM start? Really? Again, let's keep the uninformed speculation at a minimum. It's pretty unremarkable for a teacher to work weekdays 6:30 AM - 6 PM + lesson planning and grading all day Sunday.

[Desert Fox]

I'm just not going to believe that someone talented enough for a biglaw job would have to take anywhere near 70 hours to teach a regular middle-school job.

70 hours is (assume a 9am start time) working til 10:30pm (with 1.5 hours for lunch/dinner/commute) Mon- Friday, and then an EXTRA 10 hours on the weekends.

Just LOL at any teach EVER doing that. Not to mention teachers work like 190 days a year instead of the 230 days someone with 3 weeks Vacay does.

Almost all teachers are doing it all under 50 hours.

Assuming a 9 AM start? Really? Again, let's keep the uninformed speculation at a minimum. It's pretty unremarkable for a teacher to work weekdays 6:30 AM - 6 PM + lesson planning and grading all day Sunday.

Are you counting the moment they wake up + commute or something?

[kcdc1]

Negative. But on the plus side, commute is pretty quick when you wake up at 5:30.

[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.

[WheatThins]

Is this a joke?

What is harder? Hopscotch or the Bhutan Death March

WTF do you think is the Bhutan Death March?

tbf marching from bhutan to anywhere would be pretty brutal.

Actually, Bhutan has some of the best trekking in the world. It'd be pretty sweet, imo.

[Cogburn87]

Why would they allow death marches in the happiest country in the world!?

[WheatThins]

Why would they allow death marches in the happiest country in the world!?

They don't! No death marches in Bhutan!

[sideroxylon]

DF, could you stand through a day of teaching?

[Desert Fox]

DF, could you stand through a day of teaching?

Sure, I'm fat but not that fat.

[Julius]

Most of the TFAers I know are the kind of people that are antecedently disposed to talking about how hard they had it ("commute is pretty quick when you wake up at 5:30!") so I think the best perspective on this issue would come from non-TFAers.

Anyone ever meet a non-teacher, non-biglawyer who'd think the TFA job was the tougher of the two?

[A. Nony Mouse]

@smallfirmassociate: I guess I don't get why having had crappy teachers means that the job is easy. Most jobs are easy if you don't actually do what you're supposed to. Not being held accountable for not doing the job doesn't mean that the job is easy - just that you can get away with not doing it properly.

@fl0w: I do think teaching college and middle school are different, time-wise, but that sounds about correct for someone who has no research or service obligations. I just think the middle school schedule is different. I would never say that teaching college is as hard as biglaw in terms of hours. I think there are sucky things about it in a totally different way from biglaw, but not the hours.

Though I'm not sure who threw out 70 hour weeks, unless that was just the comparison with biglaw. The TFA people I know have had horrendous workloads, but a lot of that seems to get better after a couple of years.

But then, hours aren't the only things that make a job hard. Biglaw hours suck, but lots of people here have said a trained monkey could do the actual work.

[jrthor10]

Imagine you have to deliver a 6.5 hour presentation. How long would it take you to prepare for said presentation?

If it's to 8 year-olds? Roughly nine minutes. I spent a whopping half-hour preparing for my last contested three-hour hearing in front of a crowded courtroom, two opposing parties, five attorneys, an ornery judge, and a client who is paying me a lot of money to look good. (And yes, I won.)

I always hear these mythical stories about teachers having to work all the time, but all the teachers I know have a shit ton of time off and are out and about every weekend. Funny how that works.

I don't think a teacher has ever, in the history of the world, canceled dinner plans for work.

Hell teaches don't even have meetings after hours. If there are meetings, they cancel school that day. Just lol.

If big lawyers billed hours how teachers count theirs, we'd each bill 3500 a year.

DF you literally have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to teaching. Not really surprised, though. I used to find TLS interesting and potentially helpful. Since you decided to start posting every two minutes in every forum imaginable it has really forced me away. You either spew nonsense on topics you have no clue about, or you start topics to "warn" others, which ironically, only serve the purpose of convincing more people you are weird, and you're advice should be ignored.

[Desert Fox]

Imagine you have to deliver a 6.5 hour presentation. How long would it take you to prepare for said presentation?

If it's to 8 year-olds? Roughly nine minutes. I spent a whopping half-hour preparing for my last contested three-hour hearing in front of a crowded courtroom, two opposing parties, five attorneys, an ornery judge, and a client who is paying me a lot of money to look good. (And yes, I won.)

I always hear these mythical stories about teachers having to work all the time, but all the teachers I know have a shit ton of time off and are out and about every weekend. Funny how that works.

I don't think a teacher has ever, in the history of the world, canceled dinner plans for work.

Hell teaches don't even have meetings after hours. If there are meetings, they cancel school that day. Just lol.

If big lawyers billed hours how teachers count theirs, we'd each bill 3500 a year.

DF you literally have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to teaching. Not really surprised, though. I used to find TLS interesting and potentially helpful. Since you decided to start posting every two minutes in every forum imaginable it has really forced me away. You either spew nonsense on topics you have no clue about, or you start topics to "warn" others, which ironically, only serve the purpose of convincing more people you are weird, and you're advice should be ignored.

I hope you were the guy I helped ding for an SA.

[playpowerball]

varies widely depending on where you're teaching and how involved you are with/how much you care about the kids

[smallfirmassociate]

@smallfirmassociate: I guess I don't get why having had crappy teachers means that the job is easy. Most jobs are easy if you don't actually do what you're supposed to. Not being held accountable for not doing the job doesn't mean that the job is easy - just that you can get away with not doing it properly.

Well, not being held accountable for a job means you can really suck at it, so that reduces the stress and overall difficulty of doing the job. I mean, 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.

But then, hours aren't the only things that make a job hard. Biglaw hours suck, but lots of people here have said a trained monkey could do the actual work.

A trained monkey who can complete law school. The trained monkeys who can complete undergrad at a bad school are a whole different animal. There's a good study out there about how poorly-educated our teachers are. Basically, they are underachievers from disproportionately terrible undergrads. Statistically, education is one of the easiest jobs you can do with the fewest barriers to entry and the worst quality control.

[DELG]

If a trained monkey could do my job I would be the proud owner of several trained monkeys.

[WhiskeynCoke]

ITT: People who have never taught speak authoritatively on how "easy" it is.

For those of you who apparently have the reading comprehension skills of a disadvantaged 8 year old, the OP clearly asked for a comparison between biglaw and teach for America, NOT teaching "in general."

TFA does NOT equal "regular" teaching. TFA is its own beast, with it's own variety of insurmountable difficulties. Unlike other posters here, I won't pretend to truly understand the challenges that TFA presents, as I have never done TFA myself. However, I have enough close friends who have done TFA to know that it can be extraordinarily difficult and emotionally destructive. TFA people are sent to the worst school districts in the country where they have NO ties. Think about it.

For example, a close friend of mine spent 2 years on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. Come back and talk when you've had to deal with 11 year olds who are already alcoholics in your class, drug-addled parents who blame you for all their child's problems and nearly assault you, unsupportive administration, having inadequate resources, being 22 and having no idea what you're doing, having to come up with everything from scratch, being in the middle of nowhere, etc.. The hard part isn't the actual "teaching," it's everything else.

Though biglaw is still probably worse, the point is that you guys clearly have no idea what you're talking about. You aren't qualified to comment on this subject. You should be embarrassed. Seriously.

Edit: Also, as a biglaw attorney you make well over 5x what a TFA grunt does... so, yeah....

[6lehderjets]

Imagine you have to deliver a 6.5 hour presentation. How long would it take you to prepare for said presentation?

If it's to 8 year-olds? Roughly nine minutes. I spent a whopping half-hour preparing for my last contested three-hour hearing in front of a crowded courtroom, two opposing parties, five attorneys, an ornery judge, and a client who is paying me a lot of money to look good. (And yes, I won.)

I always hear these mythical stories about teachers having to work all the time, but all the teachers I know have a shit ton of time off and are out and about every weekend. Funny how that works.

I don't think a teacher has ever, in the history of the world, canceled dinner plans for work.

Hell teaches don't even have meetings after hours. If there are meetings, they cancel school that day. Just lol.

If big lawyers billed hours how teachers count theirs, we'd each bill 3500 a year.

DF you literally have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to teaching. Not really surprised, though. I used to find TLS interesting and potentially helpful. Since you decided to start posting every two minutes in every forum imaginable it has really forced me away. You either spew nonsense on topics you have no clue about, or you start topics to "warn" others, which ironically, only serve the purpose of convincing more people you are weird, and you're advice should be ignored.

Never thought I'd be backing DF, but he keeps the on-topics bearable. TLS has become a forum full of "Partner and I wore the same color tie during CB. Does this mean offer?" type threads. It's mostly neuortoic posters, and it's not informative at all any more. At least he keeps it interesting.

[DELG]

ITT: People who have never taught speak authoritatively on how "easy" it is.

For those of you who apparently have the reading comprehension skills of a disadvantaged 8 year old, the OP clearly asked for a comparison between biglaw and teach for America, NOT teaching "in general."

TFA does NOT equal "regular" teaching. TFA is its own beast, with it's own variety of insurmountable difficulties. Unlike other posters here, I won't pretend to truly understand the challenges that TFA presents, as I have never done TFA myself. However, I have enough close friends who have done TFA to know that it can be extraordinarily difficult and emotionally destructive. TFA people are sent to the worst school districts in the country where they have NO ties. Think about it.

For example, a close friend of mine spent 2 years on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. Come back and talk when you've had to deal with 11 year olds who are already alcoholics in your class, drug-addled parents who blame you for all their child's problems and nearly assault you, unsupportive administration, having inadequate resources, being 22 and having no idea what you're doing, having to come up with everything from scratch, being in the middle of nowhere, etc.. The hard part isn't the actual "teaching," it's everything else.

Though biglaw is still probably worse, the point is that you guys clearly have no idea what you're talking about. You aren't qualified to comment on this subject. You should be embarrassed. Seriously.

Edit: Also, as a biglaw attorney you make well over 5x what a TFA grunt does... so, yeah....

TBF I did teach on a rez, with all the awful, emotionally-trying bullshit. It wouldn't have been easier at 5x the pay. Money can't buy you mental health.