Division and subtraction: the sum of quantifying a teacher's work

Throughout twelve years of teaching in three jurisdictions, I have never given a more than fleeting consideration to the element of time in my teaching practice. If a particular task, assignment, or project was in the best interests of student learning, then it would be implemented—regardless of whether it required one hour or eighteen hours of time outside of the school day to facilitate.

I have never before thought about my job in terms of “my time = money”; I have always thought in terms of “my time = benefitting my students and the greater good.” I have always understood my profession in this way: in contrast to making widgets in a factory, which is a concretely quantifiable job that can be reduced to output of widgets per hour, my job—a more abstract endeavor marked by harder-to-calculate qualitative outputs—is not the proper realm within which to entertain thoughts of keeping a ledger showing how many hours I have worked to achieve desired ends.

The employer’s recent partial lockout has, however—for the first time in my career—begun to shift my personal calculus around how I perceive my role in the education system. While this shift is neither welcome nor easy, neither is ignoring reality—and the current reality is that I am being directed to work less and to commensurately receive less money. This evolving equation—this much less time = this much less money—is beginning to make me feel more than a little foolish: it turns out my work can be quantified, and the thought creeps in that perhaps I have been—by the hour, for many years—much less valued than I ever allowed myself to fathom. Plato was correct: enlightenment is painful.

While it of course is true that the partial lockout is simply an employer tactic in the context of ongoing collective bargaining, it is also true that suggestions made or policies enacted in the short term are not always easily forgotten in the long term. Moving forward, the danger here mostly has to do with the obvious pitfalls inherent in characterizing the teaching profession as one that can even begun to be quantifiable in terms of work hours. We are faced with the potential of a treacherously steep and slippery slope: we do not want such a mentality to become the “new normal.”

Teaching is a passion, not a paycheque. It is a lifestyle, not a job. It is—at its heart—a calling, not a clear-cut transaction of fees for services rendered. Which stakeholder in the education system—students, parents, teachers, administrators, government, society at large—desires a “nine-to-five,” “paid by the hour” mentality to pervade the thinking of our teachers? None, of course. The result would only be a “race to the bottom” in terms of time invested in order to yield the highest results in terms of dollars earned per hour—such calculations have no place in education. Yet, the black and white details of the partial lockout suggest such calculations and invite such interpretations.

Is it with such a mentality that I want to perceive my own work? Is it this attitude that I want my own children’s teachers to embody? The answer is a clear and simple “no.” Is this the manner in which my employer suggests my work might be viewed? The answer is clear and simple and unfortunate: “yes.”