Top 8 Reasons Why Non-Teachers Can Never Really Understand Our Job
Tuesday September 22, 2009
Or, Why Nobody Enters Teaching Just For The Vacations. This is my long-overdue rebuttal to all the people who aren't teachers and just don't understand how challenging the job can be. I'm fully aware that teaching has many great aspects and is a thoroughly fulfilling way to make a living, but this article is a brutally honest look at the grueling underbelly of the elementary classroom.
Agree or disagree with my assessment?
Comments
You just exposed the truth about all those commonly held myths about teaching. I taught English and history and frankly found the correcting of hundreds of papers numbing.
Yes grading papers takes time, wording report cards “just so” making everyone happy AND motivated to succeed is mentally demanding. Shaping the minds of today’s youth has become a competition with video games and web sites. I, however, am not in charge of multi-million dollar budgets, don’t lay off employees, don’t need security clearance, don’t sell anything door to door, don’t have to travel, am not concerned with emergency medicine each day, and I spend each and every holiday with my kids.
These 8 reasons are not that significant to those in the corporate world.
I think you’re just a whiner.
I am in the midst of changing careers from a corporate environment to education. While I respect and support all who work and volunteer in education, I think it’s really insensitive to say you don’t think anyone outside of teaching can understand.
There are many ignorant people who truly think that teaching is a job for slackers. Your disrespectful attitude toward others and their careers won’t help, it only alienates others.
Please don’t forget the parents that call and visit unannounced and demands you to explain something that their child said about you, three weeks ago. Some students would do well if there were more parental responsibility and less blame on teachers. Students who do not get enough sleep often have parents who blame the teachers for giving too much homework. And there are too many young students with bad attitudes and disrepectful behavior in the K-4 grades. As a teacher, the focus must be placed on those hard-working students and supportive parents. They are the reason I teach.
I have been in both–corporate America for over 20 years and now teaching for almost 10. Both types of positions have their good points and bad. Both can be exhausting and exciting, sometime at the same time!
It truly begins with how positive you are about what you’re doing at that time. Anyone can find complaints about anything at any given time. It takes a wise one to find the positive aspects of whatever it is you’re doing, no matter where you are.
I look at it like this: if you don’t like what you’re doing at the time, then change it. If you don’t change it, then that is your choice so stop complaining. No one likes a downer or a whiner. Make the best of whatever your doing and happiness will certainly come your way.
Those who say this is whining and disrespectful are, I feel, overreacting just a bit. Everyone has issues with their jobs, even those who love what they do. We are no different. It is all too true that there was a time in this country when teachers were respected and treated with respect. Now we get blamed for everything that is wrong in education today, even though the people in charge of education in this country don’t even listen to us! Parents and children get more and more rights, and teachers get more and more responsibility. The classroom atmosphere has changed drastically in the 18 years I have been involved in public education. I challenge anyone who thinks we have it easy and we are whiners to spend one day in a classroom, and fulfill all the responsibilities and deal with all the issues we deal with every day, NOT just Monday through Friday from September until June.
Similar to Gina who posted above, I am in the middle of a career change from corporate to education. In my previous job, I was in charge of 40+ individuals, labor dollars, annual budgets, product perishability and loss, maintenance and upkeep of our brick and mortar location, exceeding prior year sales goals, etc… etc… I put in WELL over 50 hours every week, 51 weeks out of the year. I know for a fact that I am not transitioning to an “easier career” but to one that has true meaning for me to be there. In the corporate world, goal #1 was making more money for the company this year than last year, and doing what it took to accomplish that, be it terminate peoples jobs, decrease their hours, automate procedures, etc… Education is (according to my observations so far) MUCH BETTER than the corporate environment, even when taking into account the troubled students and parents, funding issues and politics. I am ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work teaching children AND advocating for change within the educational system.
For those teachers who seem so unhappy within the classroom, I do have to ask why not pursue educational administration, or better yet, educational consulting. If you still love the profession but are burned out from dealing with troubled students and parents, I would think that it would be a natural move?.