Professional Development Plan: Fill & Download for Free

American teachers work around 185-190 days a school year. The average white collar worker can work around 260 days a year, if they don't take any sick or vacation/personal days. If that worker takes off for three weeks (15 days) during the year, and has 5 days off for sick appointments, that puts the worker at 240 days of work a year. Now, subtract the 10 federal holidays, but don't count days around the holiday like Black Friday unless that's part of your 3 weeks of vacation. This white collar worker is now down to 230 days of work a year, a 40 day difference.During the summer, teachers are taking the vacation time all in 2 months that most workers can spread throughout the year. While we have sick days that accumulate, and a couple of personal days, most teachers rarely use them because it is usually more of a pain to be absent than to come to school sick.Many teachers also participate in professional development workshops. Those that attend on their own initiative often spend their own money and don't get paid for their time. If it is district mandated, then they will get paid extra to come in. Some teachers work on writing curriculum or summer planning. Lots of teachers research new lesson or classroom ideas. Elementary teachers can easily spend up to 2 weeks decorating their room to make it warm and inviting for their students.Factor all of this in, and there is little difference between the number of days that a teacher works vs. the number of days an average white collar worker will work. When you add in that many teachers will work up to 10 hours a day when school is in session, and their hourly rate is much lower than you would think. Lesson planning and paper grading rarely happen during teacher prep periods, which only last 30-45 minutes a day; this time is also used for parent conferences, phone calls, meetings, and duties.A white collar worker working 8 hours a day for 230 days will work 1,840 hours a year. A dedicated teacher working 45 hours a week for 37 weeks, plus at least 3 weeks of professional development/classroom setup/curriculum writing at 8 hours/day equals 1,785 hours a year (the most dedicated teachers work much more).Still complaining that they work 75 hours less than you do a year? If you've never worked with children, then you’ll never get it. At least pretend to be grateful next time you talk to a teacher.

Time for a confession.Our PD days are usually done by noon. But I don’t tell my babysitter (a relative that does it for free) that it’s a half day for me. I tell them I get off “at the usual time,” which is 3:30.I have 3.5 hours of glorious “me time” in my classroom. I get some coffee from the teachers’ lounge, sit back in my teacher’s chair, and go on Quora, play video games, maybe grade some papers and do some planning, and generally just enjoy some time away from kids of any sort… students or my own children.

To stay ahead, I recommend being disciplined about learning a new language every year. Make an annual professional development plan. It might look like this:My 2014 plan:Attend 2 technical conferences (many companies will pay for all or part of these. If you have to pay for it yourself, find local ones. There are tons. A great directory of global events is http://lanyrd.com )Read 5 blogs written by technical thought leadersRead 3 technical books and 3 business books