Because she views the break between Winter and Spring semesters as a vacation, my neighbor has been sad that I had to go to campus one day this week and that I have spent every day working.  Although I am not required to be in the classroom during semester break, she does not understand that I am not on vacation.  Not only did I have to finish grades from last semester, I have been preparing for Spring semester.

Unfortunately, my neighbor’s viewpoint is held by many people who do not appreciate the requirements of our profession.  As another neighbor who views me as a dedicated professor commented, “You don’t have to work this week; do you.”  He has seen my car in the driveway so he knows that I am at home and, therefore, assumes I am not working.  After all, when he leaves his place of employment, work is done for the day.

When I was still in graduate school, a friend frequently wanted to get together for breakfast; something that my work schedule did not permit.  However, because I was at home during the time she wanted breakfast, she could not recognize that I was working and took my inability to go to breakfast personally.  She reacted as if I didn’t want to have breakfast with her.  Unfortunately, the demands for breakfast eventually ended our friendship.

As faculty members, we do have more control over our time than most workers do.  It is a wonderful perk.  Yet control over our time is not the same as not having to complete our work.  However, it is hard to explain to people that we are sometimes working hard while sitting at home in our jammies.

I am not critical of my neighbors and friends because they don’t understand the demands of the teaching profession.  Too often, as faculty members, we don’t understand what our colleagues do in other departments.  For example, several years ago I was having a chat with a colleague from the math department.  She commented about how she never understood how English professors could have parties on the last day of class while she had to give final exams.  She had not realized that during finals week, members of the English faculty were getting stacks of papers that we had to evaluate.

At the same time, I confessed that I had been jealous of the math faculty who were able to run a scantron through a machine and within seconds have their grades  completed.  It was not until I had the opportunity to work closely with my math colleague on some college business that I was able to get insight into the amount of work required to teach math courses.  Sure she ran some scantrons after her exams, but she was no slacker.

As a colleague commented in a recent Facebook discussion, “the work never really does end. Not if you really want to be the best instructor you can be.”  And even when friends and colleagues—and sometimes even family members—do not understand what it takes to be effective in the classroom, we can take comfort in the understanding that comes from our students.

A recent Schoolcraft College graduate commented in Facebook that she thought that faculty members should get a break during semester break “because they sacrifice a lot of time and obligations to help us learn better and become better people of society. If it wasn’t for teachers, we would not learn as much as we do. I have a lot of respect for teachers.”

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Note:  This essay is a revised and expanded version of “Do Teachers Get a Break” which appeared in my Microblog on 8 May 2012.