On teaching and the knowledge economy

The industry is becoming increasingly generalist and teachers are leaving

Photo by Yung Chang - The inner workings of the mind of a teacher in 2022

This McKinsey report about the future of work makes for interesting reading. In the infographic below, we can see that low-level knowledge and administrative work are disappearing due to automation. We’ve long been warned that this kind of low-level work is under threat. The same report shows teaching to be a growth area, with some notable exceptions, possibly due to economic and population stability in those regions.

But it seems that administrative work in teaching is under no such threat. Rather than alleviate workload or even replace whole tasks, technology seems to have had a multiplying effect on workload. Several factors could explain this. Firstly, there is no serious money in EdTech, which I’ve written about in detail here. A lack of compatibility between systems often means entering data in triplicate. Inefficiencies and clunkiness abound, even with the better systems. Secondly, teachers work at a fixed price, so role-creep costs nothing. Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?

I recently tweeted asking followers about tasks that it doesn’t really take between 5 and 9 years of education to complete, and I thought I would compile them into human and potentially non-human tasks. Recently the Grattan Institute offered some solutions to teacher workload and their offerings were met with mixed results - everything from, “Ready-to-teach lesson plans? Yes please!” to others who responded as if this affront to their autonomy was akin to taking their firstborn child. Unfortunately, this outcry drowned out some of the less topical ideas they put forward. I hope that by compiling this list, we can start some radical thinking about how to restructure teacher workload so that we can give more time for teachers to do what they’re good at.

Rebecca Birch @msrebeccabirch

I’m compiling a list of administrative, duty of care and pastoral tasks that could be completed by a non-teacher. I’ll start: data entry. Now you.

Human tasks

• Playground duty (yes, it’s a good opportunity for connection but the time cost is about 20 hours a year)

• Study and library supervision

• Organising excursions and camps

• Photocopying, printing, scanning work samples

• Book audits, ordering books on the app, laminating, tidying of the bookroom

• Report subediting (grammar not content)

• Extra-curricular duty of care

• Carrying things (too many examples - including furniture - to mention)

• Parental care responsibilities like uniform washing, handing out hats, making lunches

• Medical, immunisation supervision, and first aid

• Cleaning

• Exam supervision

• Sorting assessment papers

• Answering the phone (a kind of triage system could be put in place)

• IT resourcing like charging, collecting, storing

Possibly automated tasks

• Following up on absences

• Following up on missing excursion/event notes

• Data entry between systems and applications

The imperative is clear. While unions are mostly pushing for more money for teachers to keep toilet-break records and return lunch boxes to students, they neglect the fact that teachers are highly educated knowledge workers, who are stretched way too thin by their generalist responsibilities. The cry for higher pay is a difficult sell when it’s so hard to directly link it to better student outcomes.

AltSchool in Silicon Valley has seen the value in letting specialist teachers teach, outsourcing all their administration to their head office. In tech, time is money. Employing more administrative staff is cheaper than employing whole teachers (we know that nobody wants to pay teachers more) and poses no timetabling issues. At some point, we may need to ask our elected representatives to lead a radical rethink of teacher work.