With the recent court decision that interns who worked 50 hours a week for free for the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen brand The Row were being exploited, whether or not school systems are also exploiting their interns comes into question as well.
According to the Daily Mail, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen will pay over $140,000 to 185 interns "after these interns worked up to 50 hours per week, without pay, making clothes for their high-end fashion line." This decision comes after Condé Nast, the publisher of Vanity Fair, Vogue and the New Yorker, settled a class-action lawsuit over the work of 7,500 unpaid interns, agreeing to a payout of $5.85 million. The media brand ended their internship program in June 2013 soon after the suit was filed.
Fashion and media are not the only industries that exploit their interns, though they are the ones most frequently spotlighted. I recently student taught elementary school in the Maryland public school system, and I paid around $700 to work 60-70 hour weeks earning nothing. If working for 50 hours a week for free is exploitation, then the county government exploited me and countless other student teachers as well.
According to FindLaw, the criterion for what makes an unpaid internship legal is the following:
- The internship, even though it includes the actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment.
- The experience is for the benefit of the intern.
- The intern does not displace regular employees but works under close supervision of existing staff.
- The employer providing the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern and on occasion, its operations may actually be impeded.
- There is no guarantee of a job at the conclusion of the internship.
- Both parties understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the internship.
My student teaching internships and those of many others are not legal under several of this criterion.
Here's how my internship didn't meet this criterion: I displaced substitutes, as I was asked to illegally cover classes or do substitute's work while they surfed the internet. Several of my mentor teachers did not offer me instruction but only irritated criticism like "if they're not all earning Ps (the public school's more politically correct term for As), then that's your fault" or "I don't know what it is—the kids just don't respect you," as she stepped out to spend another afternoon in the teacher's lounge even when I asked her to observe my instruction so she could offer more guidance. I did my mentor teacher's work for her even when I was not supposed to do so at that time. I never ate lunch. My mentor teacher did not formulate plans for substitutes because I would "just handle it". Greatest of all, I do not feel I benefited from this experience.
The legality of student teaching is not something that's touched on often. Complaining is unheard of. Teaching is considered a selfless profession, and if you want money, you must be selfish, therefore unfit. Stick out that year, then you've paid your dues (well some of them). It's a form of hazing.
When my mentor teacher was out one day of my last week, I asked to observe other classes because I'd finished take over, and she agreed. Midway through the day, I stopped into the classroom briefly to grab a water bottle, and the class was in chaos. Guidance and the principal had to be called, and the guidance counselor asked me to take over. I respectfully declined. It was not a requirement legally or of my program for me to take over the class, and I felt exploited.
I've never been made to feel so bad about myself as when my mentor teacher scolded me for my response (and my character) the next day. Going above and beyond with a smile on your face and no money in your pockets is the expectation. (Did I mention your school-provided supervisor will push you to quit any outside job during student teaching? Yeah, there's that too.)
I felt personally attacked even though I was trying my hardest, and my school-assigned supervisor only shrugged when I told her about the behavior of my mentor teacher and the school administration. It wasn't considered that bad, and she felt I was learning valuable skills. During a meeting with parents and the principal, my mentor teacher publicly criticized the amount of work I was giving the children. She never discussed that with me in private. What was I supposed to learn from that? How to feel shame?
Maybe the way I feel about student teaching makes me a delicate little snowflake, and this was not the experience of everyone I know who completed student teaching, but at that time, this was my whole life, and it was crumbling before me.
"I'm afraid the kids made you not want to teach," my mentor teacher said to me on my last day. "Not at all," I responded. It was you, I thought.
The one thing I knew on my last day was that I would never teach in the public school system. I was exploited. I'm worth more than that. I won't let it happen to me ever again.
Maybe I did learn something after all.
