May I be excused?
July 28, 2015 4:10 AM   Subscribe

"Using the Restroom: A Privilege—If You’re a Teacher" (SL Atlantic.com)
"Educators seldom have enough time to do their business. What’s that doing to the state of learning?"

"[...]a substitute teacher recalled asking a colleague about restroom policies and emphasized that the inadequate time can amount to much more than an inconvenience:

She told me to call the office because teachers are not allowed to step out of their classrooms, not even to go into the hallway. In this case, to 'keep an eye on' a neighboring class. She said that teachers may loose [sic] their license if they are caught doing this …

Anyhow, I have IBS [irritable bowel syndrome], and I will spare everyone the nasty details. I called the office, and asked for coverage for a bathroom break and the receptionist said that she couldn't find and administrator to cover for me because certified office staff cannot cover for certificated employees. To top it off she said, 'We don't have extra people floating around for those things.'

Needless to say I waited another 45 minutes feeling nauseous and miserable and questioning whether teaching is really the profession for me."
posted by CheesesOfBrazil (48 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
New rule, applicable in any and all circumstances: If an authority figure refuses your request to use the bathroom, you may drop trou and do your business on the spot. Ideally on the authority figure's shoes.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:19 AM on July 28, 2015 [29 favorites]


So, uh, first bus drivers and now teachers? Why is it such a huge deal in this country to let people take care of the things that all mammals must do? (That's only somewhat of a rhetorical question.)
posted by fireoyster at 4:33 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


If you have IBS, then teaching is not for you. Anything that cannot or should not be interrupted is not for you. IBS makes it so that doing surgery or fighting fires is probably not for you, either.

Some professions revolve around activities that health problems can disqualify you for. If you can't stand for long periods of time, being a waiter is not for you. That's the nature of things. Find another profession. No one is stopping this person from a career change into a field that easily accommodates the interruptions necessitated by a health condition.
posted by alphagator at 4:42 AM on July 28, 2015 [6 favorites]


No one is stopping this person from a career change into a field that easily accommodates the interruptions necessitated by a health condition.

From TFA: And inadequate bathroom time can be particularly strenuous for pregnant teachers. Given that roughly three-fourths of teachers are females, and that close to half are under age 40, a significant percentage of classroom educators have likely been subject to that extra strain.

Okay. Now what?
posted by Room 641-A at 4:51 AM on July 28, 2015 [48 favorites]


Most conversations about school bathrooms these days focus on policies for students: The Internet is peppered with teachers exchanging tips, analyses of how much kids’ bathroom use should be regulated, news reports on lawsuits filed over draconian restrictions or transgender kids’ rights.
There it is, third to last paragraph. Ever since I saw the title of the article, I was waiting for the mention of trans people. Because, you know, somehow having issues accessing bathrooms is a zero sum game and if we talk about it one context, we think no one else ever has problems using a bathroom when they need to. (And there are no trans teachers?)

I sort of feel like this article could be summarised with "and this is why we need unions". I doubt there's a great solution out there that enables teachers to always be able to use the bathroom when they need to, but a predictable schedule seems within reason. (Though only being able to pee on schedule does screw with your brain--it turns into "I don't think I need to pee. But what if I need to pee before the next opportunity?")
posted by hoyland at 4:54 AM on July 28, 2015 [7 favorites]


This article also doesn't speculate how women teachers find time to change their tampons, which can become a pressing problem when you're on your feet (and not sitting) for 5+ hours straight.
posted by lilac girl at 4:57 AM on July 28, 2015 [23 favorites]


Some professions revolve around activities that health problems can disqualify you for.

Uh, I don't think that this is a case of a blind person wanting to be a fighter pilot. As per the excerpt above, the requirement is purely bureaucratic; even if it's necessary to have an adult in the classroom at all times to maintain discipline, there is no physical reason why someone who doesn't have a teacher's certificate could do so long enough for the teacher to walk a few yards to a restroom and drop trou.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:57 AM on July 28, 2015 [41 favorites]


Because, you know, somehow having issues accessing bathrooms is a zero sum game and if we talk about it one context, we think no one else ever has problems using a bathroom when they need to. (And there are no trans teachers?)

I used to be a teacher and all the schools in which I've worked have had a single-stall staff bathroom not restricted by gender (for which you usually need a key) so this is actually one case where hopefully circumstances are already comfortable and appropriate for trans people.

The rest of this is true to my experience, especially the point lilac girl raises about tampons. If you're standing up/kneeling/sitting on the floor alternately for hours around second graders and you're having your period, the last thing you want is any spotting or leaks on your clothes and yet you actually cannot leave the room. There's seriously no one who can or will cover for you. I've had legit classroom emergencies involving fighting &c. where no administrator came and teachers are a pretty low priority for a lot of the administrators with whom I've worked so yeah, no one's going to do anything about how much you need to pee or how much you need to change your tampon. It really sucks.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 5:20 AM on July 28, 2015 [8 favorites]


Shit like this is why we're supposed to have unions.
posted by schmod at 5:23 AM on July 28, 2015 [36 favorites]


If you have IBS, then teaching is not for you.

Having to go to the toilet sometimes frequently means you shouldn't be a teacher? Rather than, say, the place where you teach having sensible policies in place around human bodily functions? What an odd viewpoint.

Shit like this is why we're supposed to have unions

Yep.
posted by billiebee at 5:32 AM on July 28, 2015 [28 favorites]


Teacher unions don't really seem to fight for working conditions.
posted by smackfu at 5:36 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


IANAL, but it sounds like IBS teacher would have an excellent ADA suit on their hands if the school doesn't allow a reasonable accommodation for their Epic Shitting.
posted by dr_dank at 5:45 AM on July 28, 2015 [11 favorites]


It's weird how little we as a society think about teachers as human beings. We all had that weird moment when we were kids and came across a teacher outside school, just out in the world being a person, and it's like we never get over that.
posted by Etrigan at 5:48 AM on July 28, 2015 [39 favorites]


Shit like this is why we're supposed to have unions.

I can't speak to the rest of the country, but in DC the teachers' union is profoundly under attack. Charter schools are a big part of this, of course, because they are schools paid for by taxpayers at which the teaching staff is almost never unionized, but I think that organizations like Teach for America are also undermining unions.

With many alternative teacher certificate programs, you have an influx of minimally-trained people, many of whom are from a more privileged background, coming in and teaching for two or three years, so they aren't invested in the profession or the union like many long-time teachers. This also (again, just in my experience) can create a rift between older teachers, often of color, who have lots of experience, earned their teaching degrees (often from a dedicated teachers' college) and take their union membership really seriously and a group of much younger, frequently white, inexperienced teachers who are working on Master's degrees for which they are not themselves paying (and which, since they're earning them during their first year of teaching in title one schools, they are not taking super seriously because shit, who has time?).

Teacher evaluation systems are also chipping away at unions; although they have been demonstrated to be invalid in every case about which I've read, they provide a way to fire teachers based on "results" (these are almost always affected more by students' socioeconomic status than by their teachers) and classroom observations which are, no matter how many rubrics they publish, pretty subjective (and, again, profoundly affected by classroom population -- I have had TERRIBLE evaluations because a couple of my kids, who should not have been in a general education classroom, came in without taking their medicine that day).

This also doesn't even take into account Michelle Rhee's horrible actions (she brought a film crew with her to record her firing a principal. Yes, really.) and the bullshit she said about people she had fired being teachers "who had hit children, who had had sex with children" -- she paints all 266 teachers she fired at one time as horrible people who shouldn't be in a classroom and makes it seem like the union's primarily goal is protecting people who actively hurt children (if I ever want to feel a sense of hopeless, impotent rage, I read Michelle Rhee's wikipedia article. It makes me very angry.).

More and more pressure is put on teachers to perform to virtually impossible standards and, instead of providing support, school systems (at least some of them) have chosen to fire people who don't reach a ludicrous goal instead of holding themselves accountable for reaching this goal. Part of what allows you to hold teachers accountable instead of holding yourselves accountable is making it easier to fire them, and it's easier to fire them if you weaken teachers' unions.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 5:49 AM on July 28, 2015 [44 favorites]


you actually cannot leave the room. There's seriously no one who can or will cover for you.

When I was a kid (80s and early 90s), in our public high school, teachers would designate one or two of the most responsible students as their backups in case of emergencies. I remember being called on a few times for that. We all knew to keep an eye on each other, and usually the teacher would give us a reading or writing assignment on top of that. This is seriously no longer the case??

Tangential, but how are kids supposed to learn independence if they never experience it before adulthood? And what are we teaching them about adulthood when their own teachers aren't allowed basic bodily autonomy?
posted by MarionnetteFilleDeChaussette at 6:00 AM on July 28, 2015 [15 favorites]


When I was a kid (80s and early 90s), in our public high school, teachers would designate one or two of the most responsible students as their backups in case of emergencies. I remember being called on a few times for that. We all knew to keep an eye on each other, and usually the teacher would give us a reading or writing assignment on top of that. This is seriously no longer the case??

I would literally have been fired if I'd done this, and possibly sued, especially because, at least in some schools (again, where I have worked) the kids get in literal, physical, often violent fights even with teachers in the room. A middle school where I taught banned kids from using the locker rooms because of the fighting and bullying that happened there.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:09 AM on July 28, 2015 [4 favorites]



Once again folks. Follow the money. It would cost an additional $18,000 annually per school to have a non contracted substitute on duty each day. A piddling amount by today's standards.

There are additional duties said subs could assist in. Grading papers and tests come immediately to mind.

But the bottom line is money. We are too cheap to fund the needs of those charged with raising and educating our children. Besides cheap we are also stupid.

Apologize for the rant.
posted by notreally at 6:10 AM on July 28, 2015 [30 favorites]


Shit like this is why we're supposed to have unions.

Recall that in "right-to-work" states, it is generally illegal for state employees like teachers to unionize. Also recall that assholes like Scott Walker are increasing the number of states where this is true. And this is in addition to the charter school nonsense.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:16 AM on July 28, 2015 [7 favorites]


New rule, applicable in any and all circumstances: If an authority figure refuses your request to use the bathroom, you may drop trou and do your business on the spot. Ideally on the authority figure's shoes.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:19 AM on July 28 [9 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]


Eponysterical.
posted by Fizz at 6:19 AM on July 28, 2015 [3 favorites]


I taught high school a time ago.

Not only did I have to get myself & all my gear from room to room during class change, I was supposed to watch the students in a certain area during class change. Already my time was overbooked--of course there was no time for anything else. Lunch was similar; I was allowed to eat my own lunch but I had to be supervising students the whole time.

I have had chronic UTI's since the first few weeks (lasting long after leaving the school), and I'd never had one before that.
posted by galadriel at 6:20 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


How can you expect to bring in charter schools to turn around failing schools if you don't make sure the schools fail first?
posted by dr_dank at 6:30 AM on July 28, 2015 [11 favorites]


Recall that in "right-to-work" states, it is generally illegal for state employees like teachers to unionize.

There are only five states where teachers can't unionize, and only four where other state and public-sector employees can't, out of 25 right-to-work states.
posted by Etrigan at 6:37 AM on July 28, 2015 [4 favorites]


IBS affects between 25 and 45 million people in the United States (10 to 15% of the population).

Given the huge difference that even _one_ good teacher can make, even if the above source is overestimating the number of affected people, I think we should really make accommodations.

Secondly, I would want teachers to have compassion for students who also have various, sometimes health-related, problems. I do not think that requiring all teachers to be in top physical condition is the way to achieve this.

Thirdly, having two people in the classroom most times seems like a great way to help assure individual attention for students AND let teachers be human beings with personal needs.
posted by amtho at 6:39 AM on July 28, 2015 [7 favorites]


There are only five states where teachers can't unionize, and only four where other state and public-sector employees can't, out of 25 right-to-work states.

I have had the misfortune of living most of my life and working as a state employee in two of those: North Carolina and Georgia. I am delighted to hear that folks in other states have it better. But I have no doubt that those in power in many of those states would think it is a great idea that should spread.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:40 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


When I was a kid (80s and early 90s), in our public high school, teachers would designate one or two of the most responsible students as their backups in case of emergencies

When I was in High School in the 80s, we had a history teacher who would literally just wander out of the room from time to time, sometimes halfway through a sentence about the fall of a civilization, or whatever. He never designated someone to watch us, or even mentioned that he was leaving. We all just quietly did our own thing for a few minutes until he reappeared and picked up his speech like he'd been there all along. It baffled me at first, until someone explained to me that he had issues that sometimes made bathroom visits an urgent thing. No one cared, and no one complained. Probably this had a lot to do with the age of the class -- all juniors or seniors, but still, the apocalypse never occurred during any of his vanishings.

I'm guessing this wouldn't fly today.
posted by instead of three wishes at 6:44 AM on July 28, 2015 [7 favorites]


But I have no doubt that those in power in many of those states would think it is a great idea that should spread.

Oh, totally. Public-sector unions (including but also often separate from teachers' unions) are the major attack point for union-busting on a legislative and societal level, because they're the biggest unions left.
posted by Etrigan at 6:47 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Thank you for posting this. I've taught high school for a decade, and I've often thought that not being able to use the bathroom when I need to is the least civilized part of my job. This coming school year, I am going to have zero opportunities to use the facilities between 7:30 and noon every day; this is way TMI, but I have very heavy periods and I am honestly worried about how I'm going to handle them with this schedule. But how do you talk to a middle aged male administrator --and in the case of the parochial school where I teach, a priest --about needing some sort of "accommodation" for this a few days a month? I've taught through two pregnancies and one miscarriage, and there were times when I had morning sickness such that I puked 10-15 times a day. Sometimes I had to just step into the hallway and retch into a garbage pail (I told my students I had a mysterious food allergy for a while), and at one point I had to tell a male colleague who I barely knew what was going on because he was the only person I could turn to for help if I needed to leave my class. Since I'm in a private school and I teach rather obedient and docile 17 and 18 year olds, I have left them maybe three times (in a decade!) when the situation was dire, but if an administrator had shown up for an impromptu observation I would have been in grave trouble. I have a colleague with Crohn's and I don't actually know what he does, though I do know he has a classroom near a faculty bathroom. Look, I love teaching; I think it's mostly quite rewarding, and I'm very glad I don't have to sit at a desk and stare at a computer all day. I know there are people with more challenging jobs than mine who get far less time off and who are more poorly compensated. Still, this is a genuine issue that is rarely even acknowledged.
posted by katie at 6:59 AM on July 28, 2015 [41 favorites]


Apologize for the rant.

It's not a rant when it's the truth.
posted by Beholder at 7:00 AM on July 28, 2015 [8 favorites]


I spent 2 years as a teacher, and when I left that line of work I thought, "I just want a job where I can go to the bathroom whenever I like." Then I got a job as a P.A. in feature film production, where I still had to discuss it with colleagues because you couldn't just get up and go whenever you like. Later I got an office job and thought I was home free, speaking of toilets, but had the world's worst boss who wanted to be notified basically anytime anyone got out of their chair. Eventually that got cleared up and I could pee whenever. Yippee. Then I started raising a human being from scratch, and mostly staying home, where I can pee whenever I want...except that there's always a tiny little human staring at me while I do. Baby steps.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:56 AM on July 28, 2015 [17 favorites]


This makes me think of people buying a house who later realize all the questions they should have asked, like, "why is the back bedroom the only room in the house to have been freshly painted?" I now feel like high on one's list of questions about possible careers should be, "can I pee / poo when I need to?"
posted by taz at 8:12 AM on July 28, 2015 [14 favorites]


Wow, I had no idea it was this bad. I've noted that when I teach labs full of college freshmen it can often be a bit of a struggle to impart to them that I genuinely do not care if they need to leave to go to the bathroom and that I'd rather they not interrupt lecture by asking permission to go. They're adults, I assume they have a good reason to go and if not, well, it's their grade that will take the hit. I don't usually feel comfortable going to the restroom myself and leaving the doors open but at least I can lock the students out of my classrooms if I need to run out during a passing period.

Suddenly I am so grateful not to be teaching K12 instead of a few college courses. Eeeeesh. The level of bureaucratic interference and lack of personnel support that teachers receive, especially teachers who serve low-income schools, is absolutely fucking criminal. If all you can hire are people who can go 7 hours without peeing or needing to change a tampon or in any way needing to have an honest-to-god break, and are willing to put up with relatively low pay and high demands on education, and are willing to be made responsible for all the social ills of the state's children, and are willing to invest in heavy hours of uncompensated emotional labor as they're expected to be de facto social workers.... well, wow, the hiring pool keeps on shrinking. Who'da thunk?

No wonder so many states are opting for the pump-and-dump strategies that programs like Teach For America espouse. Doesn't matter if you wear out a teacher if they're an enthusiastic twenty-three-year-old who won't be around for more than three years anyway, you know? Of course the students and existing teachers who stick around suffer, but it would just be too expensive to provide teachers some actual support and respect, so this is what we get instead.
posted by sciatrix at 8:42 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


(Educators are, moreover, known for their tendency to complain about and perhaps over-exaggerate their stress levels.)

...Really? We are?

(Known by whom? She cites sources when she makes that statement: a two-paragraph political blog entry called "Why do Teachers Complain So Much?" and a study comparing teacher stress levels in Australia and Scotland. I can't see the full text of the study, but the abstract looks pretty unrelated.)

It's worth pointing out that the teachers you're quoting are anonymous Reddit users, but do you have reason to doubt they're telling you the truth about their own day-to-day experiences? How is undermining the credibility of an entire profession helping you?
posted by sleepingcbw at 9:23 AM on July 28, 2015 [8 favorites]


It's really easy to trivialize this issue, but there are so many reasons why access to a bathroom matters: periods, personal comfort, on-going or transient stomach/bowel issues, pregnancy, middle age and its possible pee-related changes, medication effects—I once took a medication that caused dry mouth, so I drank water constantly and had to make the correspondingly high number of trips to the bathroom. Fortunately, I taught at the college level. But there's also something about personal dignity, and about having the ability to take care of yourself.

I used to be a teacher and all the schools in which I've worked have had a single-stall staff bathroom not restricted by gender (for which you usually need a key) so this is actually one case where hopefully circumstances are already comfortable and appropriate for trans people.

I don't want to derail, and we've discussed this on Metafilter a number of times, but I don't want to just let his pass. Using the staff bathroom is not necessarily comfortable and appropriate for trans kids. It draws attention, sets them apart, and may be located so far from their classroom that it turns quick bathroom breaks into extended times away or gets them questioned by staff who wonder what they're doing in that part of the building or, for older kids, be impossible to get to and use in the limited time between classes. This is a "solution" that is often proposed by schools but it is not usually the best option for the kids themselves. Generally, using the bathroom associated with their preferred gender is.
posted by not that girl at 9:42 AM on July 28, 2015 [3 favorites]


I don't want to derail, and we've discussed this on Metafilter a number of times, but I don't want to just let his pass. Using the staff bathroom is not necessarily comfortable and appropriate for trans kids. It draws attention, sets them apart, and may be located so far from their classroom that it turns quick bathroom breaks into extended times away or gets them questioned by staff who wonder what they're doing in that part of the building or, for older kids, be impossible to get to and use in the limited time between classes. This is a "solution" that is often proposed by schools but it is not usually the best option for the kids themselves. Generally, using the bathroom associated with their preferred gender is.

Oh yes I'm totally with you on that! I was responding to "And there are no trans teachers?" -- bathrooms for school staff represent the "hopefully circumstances are already comfortable and appropriate for trans people" I meant. I agree that it's not an acceptable solution for kids.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:50 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


Mod note: Maybe let's bracket the trans bathroom issue for the moment, acknowledging there are ongoing problems there, but it's not really what this post is about?
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:55 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


If you have IBS, then teaching is not for you. Anything that cannot or should not be interrupted is not for you. IBS makes it so that doing surgery or fighting fires is probably not for you, either.

Some professions revolve around activities that health problems can disqualify you for. If you can't stand for long periods of time, being a waiter is not for you. That's the nature of things. Find another profession. No one is stopping this person from a career change into a field that easily accommodates the interruptions necessitated by a health condition.


Everyone benefits when qualified people with disabilities are provided with the accommodations necessary to perform their jobs. Enabling people with disabilities to enter professions that were traditionally off limits to them increases diversity, enriches the lives of all involved, leads to increased productivity, and as the cherry on top is simply the right fucking thing to do.

Dr. Michael Ain was told repeatedly to pick a different profession. He couldn't reach the operating table or see eye to eye with his patients. Doctors and admissions staff told him he could never meet the physical demands of surgery and would never earn the respect of his patients. He's now one of the foremost pediatric orthopedic surgeons in the entire world. As the director of the orthopedics residency program at Hopkins he is also responsible for the training of future generations of surgeons. He provides compassionate care and true empathy to young patients with achondroplasia and other musculoskeletal conditions.

Please take some time to think about your views on how people with disabilities should participate in our society. While you're doing so, consider that the lifetime risk of becoming disabled for a young adult today is 1 in 4, even though most people estimate their risk of ever becoming disabled as less than 2%.
posted by telegraph at 10:18 AM on July 28, 2015 [36 favorites]


I'm not a principal but I do supervise 20 or so teachers at my school.

When I was teaching, I always thought the thing about staying in the class even if you had severe bathroom needs was ludicrous. Students at our school are capable of focusing on their work for five minutes while you run to pee. Our school's main worry about leaving our very well behaved students alone is being sued if "something happens."

If I really needed to go, I went. I have no idea how much trouble I might have gotten in to, but the right to pee is a hill I'm willing to die on. Yes I tried to wait for free time but sometimes that's not an option.

To that end, if any faculty member under my watch needs to go to the bathroom and can't find me or my assistant to watch their class for a few minutes, I'm all right with them just going. I'll gladly put myself on the line for their right to urinate. I'd be very happy to make a parent or administrator who had an issue with this feel like a jackass.

Honest to God we shouldn't be trying to control people's bodies.

That said I know there are schools where leaving students unattended is not an option. It surely wouldn't take much work to come up with a humane policy that accommodates basic human biology. It's ludicrous that there isn't a standard rule about this.

And our school's policy on trans kids is that they should use the bathroom they're comfortable using. My school rocks.
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:39 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


When I was in high school, one of our teachers had a car accident on the way in to work. As this was before the days of cell phones (let alone ubiquitous cell phones), she was unable to alert the school. She always wrote the next day's reading and homework on the board before the left, and had a standing rule that if she was not in the room when class started, we were to find the assignment for our class period on the board and start working on it. (I guess, now, that sort of absence would have been bathroom breaks, etc.) Failure to do so would result in a pop quiz and her being disappointed in us. Two class periods came in, worked on their assignments, and quietly left at the end of the period. The school only realized she wasn't there because in third period another teacher poked his head in to ask her something. I guess things have gotten stricter since then.
posted by Karmakaze at 11:44 AM on July 28, 2015 [10 favorites]


right-to-work

Gah. Is there a better term we can use for this that actually describes what it does?
posted by schmod at 3:03 PM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Right to fire?
posted by sciatrix at 3:25 PM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


The world would be a better place if there were two teachers in every room.

In my experience it's the schools in working class neighborhoods that are really bureaucratic like this: they don't have the money from taxes *or* government for support staff, so classroom teachers end up taking up the slack.
posted by subdee at 3:55 PM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


INSTRUCTIONS:

Go to bed not sleepy, slumber fitfully and wake up exhausted, hours before your body is ready. Give yourself that first jolt of caffeine, shave yourself sore, scrub and swipe chemicals across your stinky spots, put on stifling clothes. Go sit in miserable morning traffic to get to a job where you're forced to be on your feet all day and fuck up your spine, or you have to sit all day so you get fat and fuck up your butt. Keep yourself functioning with regular caffeine infusions, crapping and pissing when the boss says you can crap and piss and never exceeding your allotted craps and pisses. Act "normal", smiling and not weeping, behaving within the required restraints of your assigned gender, engaging in conversations about pop culture ephemera and politely overlooking the more unacceptable or backwards attitudes of your co-workers. Get stuck in miserable traffic again, then come home too tired to do much but sit and dick around online while you watch TV with 30% of your brain. That is, if you didn't bring home a big pile of work that needs doing before you go to bed not sleepy.

Do it all for 40+ hours per week, for less than you deserve and probably less than you can retire on. And never seriously question it, because it's just how things are done.

Know that if you can't make it happen, if you fall off the conveyor belt for any reason and you can't get back on, you are fucked.

SPECIAL NOTE FOR TEACHERS: Crap and piss are to be retained during working hours, discharged in volume at the end of each school day and freely during the summer months. Work damn hard while getting diddly shit for it, because children are the future.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:47 PM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


You forgot the whole part about making sure you don't do anything remotely controversial in your private life (including holding any political opinions) because that can get you fired, but otherwise accurate.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:49 PM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


telegraph's comment is bang-on.

See also: Jane Paulson, Canada's first blind doctor, who wrote The Doctor Will Not See You Now.

She was particularly good at listening to patients, and managed diagnoses where other doctors had dismissed certain complaints as a result of a failure to listen.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:03 PM on July 28, 2015


I now feel like high on one's list of questions about possible careers should be, "can I pee / poo when I need to?"

I once worked for a psychiatrist in a small town clinic who had come from a larger practice in the city. She told me one time that before she accepted the small town job she told her potential boss, as a condition of taking the job, "I get to go pee, and I get to eat."

Apparently her previous job scheduled her appointments so tightly she was not able to go to the bathroom or have lunch most days. She said she had gotten terrible UTIs due to the lack restroom breaks.

This was 15 or so years ago. Sad that this is apparently becoming more common.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:17 PM on July 28, 2015


I used to have an office job where I could use the bathroom anytime I liked. It's the one thing I miss about that job -- I just finished my first year of teaching and switched from tampons to a Diva cup midway through the year because I found I wasn't able to change my tampon with any regularity during the school day.

Re unionizing: our charter network unionized two years ago. Before the union, teachers had lunch duty in the cafeteria every day and thus never had a lunch break. They also didn't have protected prep periods, which meant that they often had meetings or were expected to observe in other classrooms during their one break during the day. Since we unionized, we get 5 protected preps per week, and are down to two lunch duties per week, which still means that on those days I do not sit down at all for ~5 hours. It's still not great, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was.
posted by coppermoss at 5:28 PM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


The world would be a better place if there were two teachers in every room.

That really is brilliant. I wish Democrats would push for this. I think it would receive broad support from the public. Right wingers would be against it, but they're programmed to oppose anything that doesn't directly benefit the super rich.
posted by Beholder at 6:25 PM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Florida citizens passed a state constitutional amendment putting a cap on number of students per teacher (because 40 kids really should be the max in a high school class, don't you think? No, wait, that's still pretty outrageous...)

Jeb refused to enforce it, whining that the people who passed it did not realize it would mean increased taxes. (No, you jackass, raise the damned taxes, this needs doing!)

Then he spearheaded a campaign to pull the amendment in the next election. It was full of scary language about raising taxes for no reason and didn't actually say "we don't want to have to cap class size at FORTY STUDENTS per teacher." Amendment got pulled.

I am depressed by the mere notion of trying to make "two teachers per class" happen. Beautiful idea.
posted by galadriel at 6:23 AM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


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