I'm interested that people are watching their neighbours who are teachers and noting times they are out for a walk or innthebyears eh during the school day.....sayingntheyvare not working a full day. Are they doing that with other professions too or is it just teachers?
I do think people forget that everyone is encouraged to be able to work flexibly at the moment and around their home needs - there are enough hours in the day to do it. I don't teach but I often take 3 hours in the middle of the day to do things with kids and we might go for a bike ride etc, but I hope people won't be clocking it or reporting me because actually I started at 7!
And I get that people worry about their children falling behind and so are interested in what schools are doing, but as others say, there's so much more that teachers are asked to do that relate directly to your child. The school leaders might have them planning resources (not for your child) or writing schemes of work or working on plans for the return to school or writing reports or completing paperwork of a myriad of types - all things which are a key part of the job too and people forget.
I find it quite upsetting that people start saying teachers pay should be cut when they don't have any idea of what they are doing and cannot tell by just looking at what their individual child is receiving. I mentioned before that my DH teacher worked every day over Easter hols, worked 12 hour days in the 2 weeks before lockdown and is averaging 4 hours a day this week over half term. He works about 8-9 hours in the week, but often does take 2 hours at lunch to spend time with the family. Perhaps some of his class parents are saying he doesn't mark enough or do enough hours I end lessons and should have his pay cut.
I really think that the trouble is, many parents have a very narrow view of what teaching involves. They can picture a classroom and their child and don't think of anything beyond that very direct contact. They also don't actually expect to have much input now because they see it purely as the teachers job - but when children do remote learning, the teachers role does change and so does that of the parent - it cannot be the same as school itself, although that doesn't mean teachers aren't working or that their role hasn't adapted and changed too.
Parents are worried, they worry about their child's progress and I think they worry about their own input into remote learning too - there's a sense of knowing that as a parent you have to step up, but not knowing if you're doing enough or if it's right, and lots of parents have some feelings of guilt (often mis placed) about it....and somehow that projects onto criticism of individual teachers or teachers in general, but somehow not the government policy or the pandemic itself.
I haven't seen any other job (many of which have changed enormously over the last weeks) told they should have a pay cut. We would struggle to describe what lots of roles are doing at home when they are usually in work, many of which are funded with public money, but don't say they should have pay cuts or noted own when they have a three hour walk in the middle of the day.
I can only think that people feel they need a named person to blame and so to personalise that is happening to the country and their children. Feeling cross with the chemistry teacher who apparently has not set much work and the work that was set was very dull, or with the year 2 teacher who directed parents to a website with some writing resources which provoked a row with the 7 year old who did t want to do it, gives someone to be cross with, when the neighbour down the road mentions their child at the private school who has 3 zoom lessons a day.
I think everyone feels a bit outsold control at the moment. We don't know what's happening at the moment or the exact next phase or if it will be safe or another lockdown coming,mor if we will have work or if our children will go backwards etc etc and lots of people like to fix their disquiet onto individuals and specific roles....and teachers are quite easy targets because everyone has an idea of what they spend much of their time doing and knows it's not happening in that exact form at the moment.