ktm, i take the maximum exception to your remarks. you can only say this if you have never taught yourself. trying to do a good job of teaching a class that meets 3 times a week, is a large order, especially if it has 30-40 students or more. and teaching two of them essentially takes all your time.
there is not only lecturing, but preparation, office hours, exam and test writing, grading (which can take 2 or more full days for one class), note writing, administrative duties, hassles from students who do not attend, then ask for special consideration, or who ask for make up tests, etc, etc,...
if you try to give your students the experience of making presentations, there is also tutoring them in the material in advance, wroting notes for them, scheduling opportunities to hear them practice the presentation,...
I have sometimes spent 2-3 hours with one clueless student, helping them grasp the basic ideas of say integration, only to have the student still decide to quit the course. When a promising but poorly motivated student with bad work habits recently stopped attending class, I emailed him, then called his home, then sent messages via student acquaintances, trying to keep him in the course. he still disappeared without a trace, or a goodbye, or any explanation.
then there are committees which meet regularly and endless paperwork.
all three jobs, teaching, research, and administration, are potentially infinite. you must always make choices and compromises to do them all minimally, much less to do them all well.
then we are not counting trying to have some time for family, not to mention a private life of ones own. one spends literally years with no time even to go out to dinner or read a book.
i once made a pact never to sleep over at the office, no matter how much work i had, in order to at eklast see my home every night. that semester, i once came home at 5am, slept 45 minutes total, and went back to work at 6:30am.
i also once worked 36 hours straight at the office, trying to go through over 700 job applications.
respectfully, you do not have a clue what you are talking about.
there is a huge difference between teaching a class or two, and having a semester off to do research full time. try it sometime.
of course there are people who do not care about doing a good job, and spend little time or energy on their teaching, but they are very rare in my experience. the hardest thing is to keep your research alive in the face of all these demands on your time.
oh yes, and i do not have a TA in either of my classes this semester, not even for grading, much less for office hours, or lecturing.
in the graduate algebra course i taught last fall, for which i posted lecture notes on my website, (which you are welcome to use for free), the time commitment was 5 hours a week, 3 in lecture and 2 more in a lab session preparing students for prelim exams.
then i had to also write and grade the prelim. that was only one of two courses that semester. teaching is a huge time sink. having a year or even a semester off for research is a tremendous boost to ones productivity.
forgive me for unloading on you, but i am tired, i have taught already 7 classes the first three days of this week, and have scheduled 3 more review classes for friday. listening to know nothings say how easy it is, is just too much to take right now.
i wanted to present a seminar on my recent research this week but had no time to prepare it properly.
of course different departments are different, and biological sciences professors e.g. have much lower teaching responsibilities. But English profs may have more.
