Why Teachers Shouldn't Work for Free: Understanding the Value of Educators' Time
This may be an unpopular opinion, but teachers, we need to stop working for free. The term “we do it for the outcome, not the income” is straight up harmful and perpetuates the myth that teachers will happily work for very little pay because we care so much about the future of our children. Why can’t we care a lot about kids and receive a livable wage? Teachers are college educated, holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. Nationally, 52% of teachers who teach in a public school hold a master's degree or higher. Teachers must pass rigorous tests on curriculum to teach in a public school setting, yet we are paid, on average 80.8 cents on the dollar compared with what similar college graduates earned working in other professions—and much less than the relative 92.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1979.
In a study conducted by Edweek, it was discovered that on average, “a typical teacher works about 54 hours a week—with just under half of that time devoted to directly teaching students.” The pandemic has compounded this problem by increasing our workload. “In the last two years, we’ve had to juggle regular teaching duties with covering classes during staffing shortages; preparing for sudden pivots to remote learning; figuring out how to get every student to grade-level learning after interrupted instruction; and supporting students with greater mental health needs.” All of this is to say, dear teacher friends, it is time that we put our collective feet down and stop working for free.
Emotional Labor
The sociologist Arlie Hochschild defined emotional labor as “a situation where the way a person manages his or her emotions is regulated by work-related entity to shape the state of mind of another individual, such as a customer.” The phrase “the customer is always right” is a perfect example of emotional labor. Customers can be demeaning, demanding, and down-right abusive, and employees must smile and take it. We can see that emotional labor is about power and profit. In her latest book, Raising Antiracist Children, Britt Hawthorne adds to the idea of emotional labor by stating that People of the Global Majority experience emotional labor at an even greater magnitude. She states that “emotional labor is about the numerous times a person is wrong, hurtful, and committing micro-aggressions, yet the victim is supposed to be silent and smile.” People of the Global Majority in service positions are “expected to stomach and tolerate micro-aggressions and racists and harmful language with zero support from their employers.”
In regards to education, teachers have become the scapegoat for society’s ills. We have parents storming board meetings demanding books having anything to do with BIPOC characters or books written by BIPOC authors be banned from classrooms. We have parents losing their ever loving minds about CRT (Critical Race Theory), a subject not even taught in K-12 education. We have parents screaming about the rights of their child when it comes to school mask mandates. We have parents up in arms about LGBTQIA rights and we have states passing laws making it impossible for teachers to advocate or support their LGBTQIA students. We have dealt with angry emails, phone calls, and demeaning conversations about our curriculum. New laws are being passed in many states demanding teachers share their yearly lesson plans in advance in case parents disapprove of any of the ideas or subjects being taught in individual classrooms. All of these cases have a profound impact on the emotional wellbeing of educators. The emotional labor alone makes it clear that we need to cut back on the free labor we provide to our schools and districts. We do not get paid enough to burden all the demands placed on teachers in today’s current climate.
Intellectual Labor
Teaching has always been seen as a communal occupation. Teachers are expected and sometimes even required to share the lessons and units that they have created with other teachers or professionals. This may be another unpopular opinion, but teachers should not be asked to provide any of their lessons or intellectual property without proper compensation. We should not have to work for free.
Britt Hawthorne, in her book Raising Antiracist Children, adds that for the BIPOC community many People of the Global Majority have been thrust in the role of educators in topics of anti-racism, racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, and more. These “requests for free time, education, and “pick-my-brain coffee dates” all add to time and energy members of the Global Majority are being asked to spend, all without proper compensation. She recommends that instead of demanding the emotional and intellectual labor of the BIPOC community, you can instead…Google it. You have questions? Google it. Read about it on your own time. She also recommends paying a person for their time. There are plenty of amazing workshops and classes online being conducted by the BIPOC community. Pay for those classes and workshops and do the work on your own.
Pink Tax
Women make up 74.3% of all teachers in the United States. However, the same cannot be said of women in leadership roles in education. The article, “The U.S. Teaching Population is Getting Bigger, and More Female,” written by Alia Wong for The Atlantic, states that “close to half of all principals today, including two-thirds of those serving high schools, are men, as are more than three-quarters of school-district superintendents.” All this is to say that women dominate the education field and, because it is a woman dominated profession, our pay falls flat. In fact, our salaries for educators fall below the living wage.
To compound our low pay, women are subjected to the pink tax. If you have never heard of the pink tax, it is a price discrepancy that calls out products and services marketed to women that cost more than identical or nearly identical versions marketed to men. Examples of products that cost more for women than men are razors, shampoo, body wash, toys, and clothes. This extra tax can lead to women spending hundreds of dollars more per year on products.
Bottom Line
It is time we stop working for free. Teachers are walking away from the profession in droves, and this problem is not going to go away any time soon. Our profession does not honor our time, nor our intellectual property. So, it is time we take back some of our power. We need to honor our own time. If we can’t advocate for ourselves, then who will?