by Susan Grant-Suttie
Do not, under any circumstances, fall for the line that your employer and colleagues are your family. You may very well end up with a ‘teacher bestie’ but old fashioned commitment to one place of employment due to psychological attachment is self damaging.
Teachers are often asked to do volunteer coaching, overtime marking, over time meetings, and more. Teachers are not given overtime money and in most cases, are not given time in lieu off either. Even that makes no sense – time in lieu. That time was used at a most valuable part of your day but you are not given the same time off, it is now given to you during a less valuable part of the day. And those sneaky ‘stand up meetings’ which the administration tries to trick you into thinking it won’t take long, in most cases, you may as well bring your notepad. (Thank you to those who do only take ten minutes or less.)
When asked to put forth some over time, it is no wonder the word family creeps up in speeches given by administration. No one pays their family members, but they are given an allowance, sometimes. One’s position in a school often turns into a family loyalty issue. I have seen the new teachers always step up and do more volunteer activities than those who are entrenched staff. In such cases I can see the administration taking advantage of those who are vulnerable and wish to keep their job as they are considered temporary or casual. It can be construed that those who give more freely as opposed to doing their job professionally, are more likely to be kept on the payroll. The ethic here is a bit twisted. If the parents wanted an after school soccer practice or after school basketball game, then it is my firm belief that one parent from that group of students should also be present, not just the gym teachers or the new staff.
Furthermore, a family does not give a performance review at the end of the year, or go through the professional development deliveries to see if that family member improved themselves. Yet, lesson reviews and personal growth is measured as part of the educational employment process. This is not seen by other professionals in such depth, such as architects or accountants, but the teacher is always expected to reach higher every year. I would agree that a course a year, or one conference a year is more than adequate, but in some cases – there have been obsessive requests for improvement. Other professionals may go through one yearly review – with the expectation that the job can be done between hours A and B in a satisfactory manner. And there are so many memes comparing how teachers are treated versus how other professionals are treated. When have you ever heard of an accountant having to sign into their professional development page, as shared with their boss, to show what ongoing professional development they are engaged in weekly or monthly? I think not.
What can be done instead? We can think of ourselves as a team, as a tribe, or grade level community – but not as a family. It keeps the line in the sand clear so there is no personal sharing that is T.M.I. As well, if it comes to a point where someone must be let go, family doesn’t do that – companies do. When was the last time granddad fired one of grandsons or worse, replaced them with someone and never introduced that new person to the family. This can happen in companies, it happened to me when I had a class. Eventually I found out that person was now part of my grade team, but our admin never introduced us until well into September, at a full staff meeting. Imagine that happening in a home. Staying loyal forever to one employer is not steering your personal career in a positive direction, it is allowing yourself to be used or overlooked because you would stay anyhow. That is toxic. Imagine how that new teacher felt. Some of us just went up to them and asked who they were and introduced ourselves, somehow having that poor teacher dangling in uncertainty was too unsettling for even us long term teachers.
I have often said to my husband that his boss will not be sitting beside him in the rocking chair. In fact the days of putting in a couple of decades of work and expecting the gold watch is over. The relationship between people gets awkward if the word family is used. Family has a position, age, income, and educational hierarchy in place. There is nothing more irritating than looking into the face of the boss who was hired after you, who happens to be younger than you, and with the same or less education – but they got the job as principal. If you are family, there are structures in place to assure respect. In a company, especially a school, someone with less seniority can take your hoped for promotion for some reason completely unknown to yourself. That would never happen in a family, the mother could and should never be replaced by the daughter, for example. But a younger person with less education and experience can be placed as your superior in your work environment.
As well, there are many gender bias notions in a family. One common one is that the wife is the one who handles the birthday parties, the social calendars, and the gift buying for those special days. When a school says their staff is like a family, who would you think would be the person responsible for buying the baby shower gift? Or making the invitations, or decorating the gym for prom? Let me guess it would be a female teacher. Then when someone makes off coloured comments in a family it is usually brushed off, “Leslie has always been like that.” Well, when Leslie the teacher makes those misogynist comments, it is against the law in a workplace. But when the workplace is described as a family environment, these comments and gender biassed comments are brushed under the rug.
The next time someone says that working in a particular school is like working with family, remember the last time you spent more than 8 hours a day with your family. You’d still be part of that family no matter what, would you still be part of that company if you acted the same way?
