Job Discussion Forums

[hlamb]

Hey,

I have been offered the opportunity to rewrite a teacher's guide for my school. It is something that needs to be done and I need the hours because when new teachers were hired there weren't enough hours for them so several established teachers lost some hours (that's a long story). Anyway, this is going to be a major project and I was thinking that it should be worth more than regular teaching, since all the teachers will use my guide once it is finished. What do you old timers think? Should I ask for more money? I don't expect to make a lot more, but a bit more would be indicative of the extra effort this will require, in my opinion. Do you think I right about this?

Thanks for any advice you might have.

[Guy Courchesne]

You should ask for more money. If you can't get it, and if you're paid by hour, I'd suggest taking your sweet time getting it done. To quote a favorite movie...

[ls650]

[Guy Courchesne]

[Samantha]

hlamb, how did they indicate they wanted to compensate you, or was that aspect of the plan not mentioned? Yes it is a lot of work with probably more time involved than they think it takes. Your compensation should be separate from that of your teaching hours, and being paid extra and per hour isn't a bad idea if they haven't already offered you a big fat bonus!

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[MELEE]

There are some factors, that most people are probably assuming, but I want to check and make sure.

I assume you are only paid for the hours you are teaching. And right now that is less than you had anticipated making?
What about prep? Do you have any prep time paid? How much? Do you find that is enough prep time or do you prep for your classes outside of the hours you are paid?

When you say, you've "been offered the opportunity" how exactly did that happen. Did you say, "Hey this guide is out of date." or "This information should be in the guide" or something like that, and they said "Well, rewrite it if you want." Or did they give you the guide, as a new teacher, and say, "If you feel like there is anything more that we should include, make some notes and we'll work that it." OR did they say something like, "Hey hlamb, we don't have enough hours for you, but we have this other work that needs to be done, are you interested in doing it?"

I'm asking these questions because for many years I was reponsible for hiring and then orientating new teachers at my school. As part of that, over the years I developed a very extensive teachers guide. I had enough time in my regular working hours (I work 8 hours a day, but only teach 3 of those) to do this and didn't get any special pay for it. It's the type of work I enjoy doing so I didn't mind at all. Because our curriculum is in a state of evolution , it does need regular updates. We also include a lot of information about settling into our community, which also needs regular updating. I always asked for feed back on it from the new teachers, how could I make it more user friendly? What information did they need to refer back to? Any areas that they felt were left out, that sort of thing. Twice in the last 4 years a new teacher has offered to up date it himself. Both times the teacher envolved did not stay here long and did not really fit in well with our institution. Most of the updates they made had to be scrapped. I don't want to imply that will be the case with you. But I don't know enough about your senario. I know that at least one of these two teachers added "Rewrote the Teacher's Guide" to his resume. Which is a complete joke. If either of the two had asked me for more money for doing so, my anwer would have been a sarcastic "yeah, right." But like I said, we alreay have ample paid time on our hands.

Should you ask for more money?
It depends on exactly how the opportunity was offered to you. How much you are getting paid, and of course, the quality of the final product.

[hlamb]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your comments.

For MELEE, I work for a language school and am paid by the hour. I was promised 20 hours a week when I was hired by the previous director. Unfortunately, he died suddenly and the new director, while a decent guy, is still learning his job. So he hired two new staff when there were no hours for them. I had been working an average of 23 hours a week and with no warning am down to about 17. When I protested strongly, he suggested I rewrite one or two of the guides, which are sadly out of date. Since I'm a writer and good at doing research, it's something that I feel will be enjoyable for me to do and I should be able to do a good job. But it does look like a lot of work, especially because of how soon the first one needs to be done.

[MELEE]

Wow, how terrible that the director died suddenly .

With the info I now have I would suggest two courses of action. 1) decide on an "hourly wage" for this work, maybe at or higher than your regular wage and decide how many hours a week the director can afford to pay you for it. Maybe just enough to get you back up to the promised 20 hours. Then you stick to those hours. If its only 3 hours a week, don't do more, leave it set until the next week. or
2) If he wants the guide ASAP, for these other two new hires, negociate a contract for the whole writing job. Like say 5,000 pesos. (I just pulled that number out of the air) he pays you half now, and half when it is finished. You dedicate as much time each day as you are willing to give it.

For your reference, two years ago I was reviewing a work-in-progress-text book that one of the big publishers is hoping to sell to prepas here in Mexico. They paid me a flat rate of 7,000 pesos a level (12 unit student book, teacher's book and work book) to do it. I worked out how much time I put into each level and it came out to be about 250 pesos an hour.

[hlamb]