When I listen to the business news, I often hear calculations of the productivity of American workers. Apparently it has been on the rise for a number of years. American workers really know how to crank it out.
This led me to wonder about my own productivity. How am I doing? How’re my colleagues doing? How could I figure this out? I decided to do some calculations of my own.
Let’s say I was a beginning teacher. How much would I make? I found a site that offers some clues. At www.teachersalaryinfo.com I can find state by state listings of the most recently available information and it seems that $31,000 is a reasonable salary estimate for many beginners. Businesses always add at least 20% when they calculate the true cost of an employee in order to figure in insurance and other benefits, so by that measure, my cost to the state and my school district would run about $37,200.
So assuming the average school year is 180 days, this means that as a novice teacher I would earn $177.22 per day taught, plus benefits that cost about $34.44 per day. Adding that up shows that I cost $ 211.66 per day.
After these calculations, my question to myself would have to be, “Am I delivering $200 dollars worth of education to my students every day?” But wait, that question is correct only if I am a beginning teacher. If I have ten, twenty or thirty years of experience, I have to ask myself whether I am delivering $300 or $400 or, in some states, even $500 worth of education to students every single day of the year. Whoa! That’s a tall order. How would asking this question change my decision making?
Hmmm. Well, Hollywood movies that cost two hours of class time would need to deliver at least $400 of learning. Do they? Most probably don’t. A few could, if I provided background, pointed out significances, and had discussion questions that truly challenged viewers after the viewing, but I could no longer think of movies as harmless fillers—they are costing a bundle.
How about giving free time for good behavior during the week? Or ten minutes to talk at the end of the lesson? Free time sounds pretty suspicious now because it’s costing valuable learning time. I need to plan my lessons to fill all the time available and make the learning more engaging all week so “time off for good behavior” is less necessary.
How about Jeopardy games that take an hour and cover just 35 convergent questions, especially when part of the students are ignoring the proceedings? I definitely need to rethink that approach.
What about assignments like making a brochure? Project-based learning is good, but not if it takes an hour or two and all I really ask of my students is to copy encyclopedia facts onto a folded sheet. I need to make my assignments more respectful—challenging students to do things that are just hard enough to be interesting and not so hard that they are frustrated them and give up–the kind of assignment that helps students discover how truly capable they are.
Well, now that I have calculated the economics of academics, I believe I have a personal duty to use every moment of instructional time in ways that are interesting, challenging and result in new understandings in all my students. I sure hope I can be that productive.
