Prairie View

Thursday, June 04, 2009

More Puzzles

One of the comments in the previous post piques my curiosity. The person who posted a comment (an office manager, unless I've misinterpreted the code name) made a case for teachers working 50 hours a week if their pay for 9 months of work is to suffice for a full year's wages. That makes sense.

The only hitch is that I don't think most Christian school teachers get paid like that. I have known only one such man who did not also seek a full time summer job to help pay for his teaching habit the other nine months of the year. In our schools, the pay checks arrive twice a month--on the first and 15th, beginning Aug. 15 and extending to May 15. I wonder how it is done elsewhere. While checks have occasionally been slightly delayed, in my years of teaching here, that never happened for lack of funds. The reasons were always minor glitches of other kinds--like someone being on a trip or vacation over paycheck time. Regrettably, this pay punctuality is not a given in every Christian school teaching job, as I understand it.

Another idea that came up in the comments was the idea of rewarding longevity. Amen and Amen. Experience is always valuable. At least two kinds of valuable experience can be identified--teaching experience anywhere, and teaching experience in a specific school, with its particular culture, practices, and expectations. Life experience of any kind is instructive too, of course.

I don't remember if I've ever floated the idea here, with specifics about payment scenarios, but it's no secret that I've been thinking for a number of years along the lines of seven-year teaching intervals, with a one-year sabbatical an expected, even encouraged, ending to the seven-year rotation. That practice can be shown to have a Scriptural precedent.

Besides a wage increase for every year of service at a certain school, I would like to see a monthly contribution to a sabbatical fund--to provide financial resources to pay teachers during their Sabbatical year--for those who have served for the previous six years. One seventh of each paycheck would be about the right amount, according to protocols I'm familiar with. My research reveals that most colleges who provide Sabbatical pay do one of two things--pay full wages for six months, or pay half-wages for 12 months. That seems like a reasonable target to me. (I note that for colleges, the pay is clearly spread out over the entire year, at least when Sabbaticals are considered.) I have no idea how colleges determine sabbatical eligibility, or how frequently they happen. I'm almost sure they don't typically happen every seven years.

One of my co-teachers in the past was the father of ten children. He took his first sabbatical after 13 years of teaching, but there was no compensation forthcoming from the school for his year off. He expected to work full time, with perhaps one short term period where their family would live in a mission setting. Various factors interfered with the original plan, and the sabbatical turned into a resignation, so the opportunity was lost for setting a meaningful sabbatical precedent.

I am not privy to the details of the pay scale in our schools or others, but I understand that here, teachers who have received specialized training enter the pay scale at a higher level than if they had no training. That seems reasonable, given the considerable investment of time and finances required to receive such training. Teaching experience also influences the entry point on the pay scale. In addition, our school board periodically assesses the average wage of the employees in our churches to determine what a reasonable teacher's salary amounts to. All of these things are to be appreciated.

The comment by FavoringCurry referred to teaching being a professional job. That concept is another source of conflict for me. I haven't figured out how to determine the monetary value of a service, except to see how it is perceived in the marketplace. I want the "fairness" principle to apply always, but I'm not sure how that is done best.

True, the training of children seems to have more significance for the future than mowing yards, or selling cars or tickets, or feeding cattle, or disposing of garbage, or any number of other necessary things. However, I'm not in favor of putting teachers on pedestals, where everyone all but feels obligated to make a bow in their direction, figuratively, if not literally. School is a human invention, and by some measures, teaching is just a job. To be sure, it can also be a calling, but that is also true of other necessary jobs. True, teachers work hard, but so do people who make their living in other ways. If God is in it, any job is ennobled--delivering porta potties, as well as professional jobs such as teaching and preaching or being a doctor or lawyer.

Hiromi cuts through the rhetoric on this matter by saying simply that he sees the education of children and the repair of a vehicle as being the same in this way: When there's a problem or a need for maintenance in one of his vehicles, if the job is within his skill range, he can assemble the tools and the parts, and invest the time to do it himself. If he can't manage this, or just doesn't want the hassle, he hires someone else to do it for him. Educating children is the parents' job. If they don't want to or can't do the job themselves, they ought to expect to give someone else fair compensation to do it for them. No lofty "opportunity-to-serve" or "this is how we can all work together" rhetoric needs to be invoked here. Teaching is one person making a living by offering a service for money--to someone who is able to earn money elsewhere because he is not doing the teaching job himself.

I have personally applied the "fairness" principle by letting the pay I'm receiving set the standard for the pay I offer the person who works for me four hours a week as a housekeeper. I saw that as a fair trade. Each of us is performing a service--she for me, and I for others. Her service directly affects my ability to serve. Obviously, not every parent need pay his child's teacher the same as he gets paid, so my specific application of the "fairness" policy isn't realistic for everyone. All the same, Hiromi is right in implying that it's ridiculous to think that anyone should be comfortable with having the teachers be the lowest paid people in the church. People who provide a service deserve fair compensation. Period.

I hope this post does not stifle any further comments people might want to offer. Some version of this discussion has no doubt taken place elsewhere. In any place where it has not happened, it is likely overdue. What can you add to the discussion?

4 Comments:

  • If we're only paying for 9 months out of the year, we either need to cut back on work load or make it possible to not work in the summer.

    Also, by "professional" -- I didn't mean white-color vs. blue-color. A mechanic is a professional, just as a farmer should be (perhaps I'm using the term too loosely). I dislike the idea that come August, any warm body that we can urge/persuade/coerce to enter the class room is fit to be called a teacher. Many people can be mechanics -- but you need training and a willingness to learn or you're going to mess things up. Many people can also be teachers, but let's not think that a warm body is enough. It is a skill and a profession. We need to treat it as that.

    I liked the mechanics example. If that's reasonable, then why not simply run schools as a business (or at least more like businesses)?

    If someone thinks this sounds crass, then perhaps there is an inappropriate secular/sacred dichotomy. I run a business. I am convinced that it is a sacred calling that requires a lot of annointed "secular" work. Teaching is also a sacred calling requiring a lot of annointed "secular" work.

    If I want good employees, I have to pay a good wage and create an environment where they don't want to leave. If I want customers, I have to provide excellent services at a fair price.

    I don't know what the implications would be of treating a school more like a business, but it's worth considering. Perhaps we also need to consider how to treat our businesses more like ministries.

    And finally, everyone knows that teaching requires financial sacrifice. That much is fair. I just don't see why the sacrifice should solely rest on the shoulders of those doing the work. The same could be said for those who are in any form of "full-time Christian" work.

    This again stems out of an inappropriate secular/sacred divide. Of course, a teacher or full-time pastor should be willing to sacrifice monetarily for the sake of the Kingdom, but I want to see the same kinds of heavy sacrifices from the businessmen, farmers, and mechanics. Until that happens, we have not really understood the call to be disciples of Christ in our work.

    By Anonymous FavoringCurry, at 6/04/2009  

  • Wow -- hope you can sort out the myriad of thoughts from the last rambling comment. Thanks for stirring my thinking....

    By Anonymous FavoringCurry, at 6/05/2009  

  • I think that comparing teaching to mechanic work is fair, but I haven't known of any mechanics that take every seventh year off. Do you feel that every worker should take a sabbatical every seven years? Or is there something special about teaching that requires more time off?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6/05/2009  

  • How many "summer jobs" are available? In my community there just aren't any, or very few. So shouldn't a teacher be paid enough to compensate for the summer off? Could that be somewhat of a "mini-sabbatical"? I'm afraid in most other jobs, as we have it now, a person can't expect the job to be there, waiting for him/her, when they come back from an extended time off. Would be nice though.

    By Blogger Mary A. Miller, at 6/06/2009  

Post a Comment



<< Home