Why Are Teachers So Resentful?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting teacher threads are always filled with teachers claiming they work 60+ hours a week, but there's always a delay in grading, sending communication, etc. 🤔

You have no idea how much BS teachers have to deal with. Learning support meetings. Team meetings. Grade level meetings. Department meetings. Curriculum change meetings. Faculty professional development. If you're at a private school, teachers often have to run clubs, attend games and faculty events, and coach.

But that’s a lot of jobs even if the packaging is different. I work in a client facing job, and I have plenty of admin work, projects I am “voluntold” to work on, etc. what makes teachers so different or special?

Sure, but we aren’t belittling you or your job.

When a teacher tries to explain what we deal with, we are often shut down.

So what makes us different? I guess the fact that so many people apparently know our jobs better than we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting teacher threads are always filled with teachers claiming they work 60+ hours a week, but there's always a delay in grading, sending communication, etc. 🤔

You have no idea how much BS teachers have to deal with. Learning support meetings. Team meetings. Grade level meetings. Department meetings. Curriculum change meetings. Faculty professional development. If you're at a private school, teachers often have to run clubs, attend games and faculty events, and coach.

But that’s a lot of jobs even if the packaging is different. I work in a client facing job, and I have plenty of admin work, projects I am “voluntold” to work on, etc. what makes teachers so different or special?

There’s zero room for promotion or pay raises in teaching. Presumably many people do all the extra voluntold BS in their careers to impress higher ups and potentially get a bonus at the end of year for meeting sales targets or hitting some metric, or add it to their resume for the next career move. There is no “up” in teaching unless you want to completely remove yourself from the classroom and go into administration (arguably a completely different field). Roles like “team lead” or “department chair” or “club lead” are just more work with no extra time/money/privileges that come with the title. It’s just “teach all your same classes AND find time to plan a meeting and organize logistics for a team of adults too”.

If there was no such thing as a raise or a bonus or a promotion for good performance, would you still work as hard at all the extras in your job? I don’t think many people would. It’s impressive so many teachers do. There is zero external motivation, it’s all internal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I started twenty years ago, I could get my work done in 40 or 45 hours a week. I had balance.

I work 7 days a week now. It never ends. I’m always grading papers, responding to emails, and revising lessons. If I’m awake, I’m working or thinking about the work that needs to get done.

The demands of the job have grown exponentially.

As a parent, I also felt we have to enrich so much outside school. Somehow it is very exhausting to be parent in this country.

I think that both have become so much more exhausting!

Teachers are dealing with incompetent administrators, and are suffocating under all the rules and regulations, and the inclusive model taken to an extreme. Not all kids should be in the same school. Teachers NEED to have the power to say “no”; to a certain kid in a class that’s too demanding for them, and to a kid in school that cannot be taught in that setting, to a kid with significant behavioral issues, etc.

Parenting has become so much more demanding since the competition for literally each and every aspect of kids’ lives has exponentially increased. You just need to look at numbers to see this is true. Unless they are massive amounts of money and/or other adults involved and invested doing the heavy lifting, your kid will be seriously disadvantaged in this hyper competitive world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teachers aren’t well trained either. They present worksheets with incorrect spelling. They don’t know how to teach phonics. They are poor in math skills and even poorer in explaining concepts. They don’t understand higher level math and how they should be better supporting it. They don’t prepare kids adequately for the next grade. They are inexperienced and think that grabbing worksheets off TpT website is a best practice! I’ve not seen much creativity in the method of teaching in 9+ years.

I think this is correct, but I also think there are too many kids in a normal class that are quite literally incapable of learning at grade level and it sidetracks the whole class. I don’t know which problem came first

I went to Harvard and I have also have a Masters degree in my subject. Not an M. Ed, but a "real" Masters degree. I understand my subject better than the majority of the parents of my students AND my students' AP exam scores are consistently higher than those of any other teachers' classes at our school.

But it is very clear to me that the majority of parents view me as a sort of unintelligent servant. This is why I'm moving out of the profession. You people wonder why there are so many inexperienced young teachers who struggle with subject content? It's because you make the conditions of the job so miserable that anybody with options gets out.


you mean you have a masters. in a content area, not an MED which is a "real" masters. are you confusing MAT - also a real degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting teacher threads are always filled with teachers claiming they work 60+ hours a week, but there's always a delay in grading, sending communication, etc. 🤔

You have no idea how much BS teachers have to deal with. Learning support meetings. Team meetings. Grade level meetings. Department meetings. Curriculum change meetings. Faculty professional development. If you're at a private school, teachers often have to run clubs, attend games and faculty events, and coach.

But that’s a lot of jobs even if the packaging is different. I work in a client facing job, and I have plenty of admin work, projects I am “voluntold” to work on, etc. what makes teachers so different or special?

There’s zero room for promotion or pay raises in teaching. Presumably many people do all the extra voluntold BS in their careers to impress higher ups and potentially get a bonus at the end of year for meeting sales targets or hitting some metric, or add it to their resume for the next career move. There is no “up” in teaching unless you want to completely remove yourself from the classroom and go into administration (arguably a completely different field). Roles like “team lead” or “department chair” or “club lead” are just more work with no extra time/money/privileges that come with the title. It’s just “teach all your same classes AND find time to plan a meeting and organize logistics for a team of adults too”.

If there was no such thing as a raise or a bonus or a promotion for good performance, would you still work as hard at all the extras in your job? I don’t think many people would. It’s impressive so many teachers do. There is zero external motivation, it’s all internal.

I think your impression of private sector is a bit off, many companies level out quickly. I work for a F500 and people are told to do extra for no extra pay or are in fear of losing their job and there are no step increases guaranteed like in teaching. Client service is exactly the same. More work where you are paid a set salary and told to figure it out. I'm not saying teaching is not hard or that the world hasn't changed.... but what I am saying is that it's really no different than any other job? We adapt or we decide we don't want to do it anymore and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting teacher threads are always filled with teachers claiming they work 60+ hours a week, but there's always a delay in grading, sending communication, etc. 🤔

You have no idea how much BS teachers have to deal with. Learning support meetings. Team meetings. Grade level meetings. Department meetings. Curriculum change meetings. Faculty professional development. If you're at a private school, teachers often have to run clubs, attend games and faculty events, and coach.

But that’s a lot of jobs even if the packaging is different. I work in a client facing job, and I have plenty of admin work, projects I am “voluntold” to work on, etc. what makes teachers so different or special?

There’s zero room for promotion or pay raises in teaching. Presumably many people do all the extra voluntold BS in their careers to impress higher ups and potentially get a bonus at the end of year for meeting sales targets or hitting some metric, or add it to their resume for the next career move. There is no “up” in teaching unless you want to completely remove yourself from the classroom and go into administration (arguably a completely different field). Roles like “team lead” or “department chair” or “club lead” are just more work with no extra time/money/privileges that come with the title. It’s just “teach all your same classes AND find time to plan a meeting and organize logistics for a team of adults too”.

If there was no such thing as a raise or a bonus or a promotion for good performance, would you still work as hard at all the extras in your job? I don’t think many people would. It’s impressive so many teachers do. There is zero external motivation, it’s all internal.

I think your impression of private sector is a bit off, many companies level out quickly. I work for a F500 and people are told to do extra for no extra pay or are in fear of losing their job and there are no step increases guaranteed like in teaching. Client service is exactly the same. More work where you are paid a set salary and told to figure it out. I'm not saying teaching is not hard or that the world hasn't changed.... but what I am saying is that it's really no different than any other job? We adapt or we decide we don't want to do it anymore and move on.

I’ve worked in a corporate environment and as a teacher. (I’m a career changer.) They aren’t remotely the same.

That doesn’t take anything away from you. You can still have a demanding job with a lot of frustrations and pressures.

But teaching IS unique in some ways. We deal with frustrating adults (incompetent administrators and angry parents), but mostly we deal with children. In my case, I’m responsible for 160 teenagers a day and it is an overstimulating attack on my senses. I have 4-5 people demanding my attention literally every single minute, and I often have to wait 2 hours before I can actually make it to a bathroom stall for 1.5 minutes to decompress. I miss lunch three days a week (at least) because somebody needs me to tutor, or cover a class, or attend a meeting.

I would give up my entire summer in exchange for a locking door and 30 minutes a day of quiet, uninterrupted work time. I’m serious.

And again: this doesn’t take away from your hard job and the pressures you experience. I respect you have a lot on your plate. But so do I, and having been in both environments I can tell you the stress is different… perhaps not MORE, but different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teachers aren’t well trained either. They present worksheets with incorrect spelling. They don’t know how to teach phonics. They are poor in math skills and even poorer in explaining concepts. They don’t understand higher level math and how they should be better supporting it. They don’t prepare kids adequately for the next grade. They are inexperienced and think that grabbing worksheets off TpT website is a best practice! I’ve not seen much creativity in the method of teaching in 9+ years.

I think this is correct, but I also think there are too many kids in a normal class that are quite literally incapable of learning at grade level and it sidetracks the whole class. I don’t know which problem came first

I went to Harvard and I have also have a Masters degree in my subject. Not an M. Ed, but a "real" Masters degree. I understand my subject better than the majority of the parents of my students AND my students' AP exam scores are consistently higher than those of any other teachers' classes at our school.

But it is very clear to me that the majority of parents view me as a sort of unintelligent servant. This is why I'm moving out of the profession. You people wonder why there are so many inexperienced young teachers who struggle with subject content? It's because you make the conditions of the job so miserable that anybody with options gets out.

I have the same experience. Not Harvard, but both my undergrad degree and first grad degree are from the top two schools for those majors. I worked in my discipline before changing to education. So not just theory, but praxis.

They still assume I’m unintelligent and can’t do anything else. Most don’t maintain that fallacy for long, but it’s still exhausting dealing with it initially.

[Anonymous]

I was sick recently so I spent the day at home. My DH works from home a few days per week. He could eat when he wanted (even during a meeting because he wasn't required to have his camera on), go to the bathroom when he wanted, take breaks when he wanted, etc. All of that there is priceless. The loudest part of his day was the sound of the leaf blower next door for 10 minutes.

I asked him how his day at work differed and aside from the commute, he said it was mostly the same.

No wonder he isn't dead tired at the end of every work day like I am. Teaching is extremely overstimulating. Everything about your work day is very micromanaged (when you eat, when you can use the bathroom, what you do during your planning time). The only free time is my lunch. Very different working environments and while he has been in the same industry for about the same time as I've taught, he earns more three times my salary (and he has a 4 yr degree and I have two Master's).

[Anonymous]

This is such an ugly and wrong post. Teachers do not get decent pay or 3 months vacation— in what world are you living?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was sick recently so I spent the day at home. My DH works from home a few days per week. He could eat when he wanted (even during a meeting because he wasn't required to have his camera on), go to the bathroom when he wanted, take breaks when he wanted, etc. All of that there is priceless. The loudest part of his day was the sound of the leaf blower next door for 10 minutes.

I asked him how his day at work differed and aside from the commute, he said it was mostly the same.

No wonder he isn't dead tired at the end of every work day like I am. Teaching is extremely overstimulating. Everything about your work day is very micromanaged (when you eat, when you can use the bathroom, what you do during your planning time). The only free time is my lunch. Very different working environments and while he has been in the same industry for about the same time as I've taught, he earns more three times my salary (and he has a 4 yr degree and I have two Master's).

My DH argues with me about overtime. He works in a field that gives him time and a half pay for anything over 40 hours. He’s frustrated that I’m grading at 7pm on a Tuesday, 6am on a Saturday, noon on a Sunday, etc.

The worlds are just different. To me, it’s normal to answer parent emails before I go to bed. It’s normal to grade papers in the car on every weekend trip (and at the hotel when we get there).

He thinks it’s exploitation and that the only reason my employer gets away with it is because I keep doing it. I can’t get him to understand how much harder my job is when I show up unprepared, and I need my off hours to prepare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teachers aren’t well trained either. They present worksheets with incorrect spelling. They don’t know how to teach phonics. They are poor in math skills and even poorer in explaining concepts. They don’t understand higher level math and how they should be better supporting it. They don’t prepare kids adequately for the next grade. They are inexperienced and think that grabbing worksheets off TpT website is a best practice! I’ve not seen much creativity in the method of teaching in 9+ years.

I think this is correct, but I also think there are too many kids in a normal class that are quite literally incapable of learning at grade level and it sidetracks the whole class. I don’t know which problem came first

I went to Harvard and I have also have a Masters degree in my subject. Not an M. Ed, but a "real" Masters degree. I understand my subject better than the majority of the parents of my students AND my students' AP exam scores are consistently higher than those of any other teachers' classes at our school.

But it is very clear to me that the majority of parents view me as a sort of unintelligent servant. This is why I'm moving out of the profession. You people wonder why there are so many inexperienced young teachers who struggle with subject content? It's because you make the conditions of the job so miserable that anybody with options gets out.


you mean you have a masters. in a content area, not an MED which is a "real" masters. are you confusing MAT - also a real degree.

I’m the poster you responded to here.

No, I also have an M Ed, and it was fluff, a clear cash cow for universities. It was nowhere as rigorous as my real MA. You would not realize this if you only have an M Ed. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It used to be that teaching was one of the best jobs around — decent pay, good work–life balance, and a fulfilling career with three months of paid vacation. Yet when I talk to current teachers, they don’t seem to feel that way anymore in any of these areas.

What exactly has changed in recent years that turned teaching from a dream job into such a difficult one? Do you think teachers now see students, administrators, and parents as ungrateful?

Lack of autonomy in the classroom.
Lack of discipline and not being able to discipline problem students.
Federal funding addiction creating problem students who destroy classrooms and schools since they won't kick them out.
Political Correctness stifling a creative learning environment.
Mandatory "continuing education" bs during summer vacations.
Summer vacations cut from 3 months to barely 2 now.
Teacher's unions in many states sucking up their paychecks.

The list goes on.

cry me a river, lol

One of the main reasons people go into teaching is the summers off with the kids. It be what it be.

Pay more and the shorter summer vacation wouldn't be such a thing. Teachers get around $15 per hour as it is. $20-25 per hour average if you work at an inner city school like in The Substitute movies where you deal with stabbings and gang fights.

Yep, summers off with their kids. Plus all the breaks, extra holidays, snow days etc.

When a friend (who was a teacher) and I (who worked in an office) retired, I calculated that I had worked in essence 7 more years - based on her summer's off. You can't put a price on those 2 months off, every single year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It used to be that teaching was one of the best jobs around — decent pay, good work–life balance, and a fulfilling career with three months of paid vacation. Yet when I talk to current teachers, they don’t seem to feel that way anymore in any of these areas.

What exactly has changed in recent years that turned teaching from a dream job into such a difficult one? Do you think teachers now see students, administrators, and parents as ungrateful?

Lack of autonomy in the classroom.
Lack of discipline and not being able to discipline problem students.
Federal funding addiction creating problem students who destroy classrooms and schools since they won't kick them out.
Political Correctness stifling a creative learning environment.
Mandatory "continuing education" bs during summer vacations.
Summer vacations cut from 3 months to barely 2 now.
Teacher's unions in many states sucking up their paychecks.

The list goes on.

cry me a river, lol

One of the main reasons people go into teaching is the summers off with the kids. It be what it be.

Pay more and the shorter summer vacation wouldn't be such a thing. Teachers get around $15 per hour as it is. $20-25 per hour average if you work at an inner city school like in The Substitute movies where you deal with stabbings and gang fights.

Yep, summers off with their kids. Plus all the breaks, extra holidays, snow days etc.

When a friend (who was a teacher) and I (who worked in an office) retired, I calculated that I had worked in essence 7 more years - based on her summer's off. You can't put a price on those 2 months off, every single year.

But you were paid for 12 months of work. She was paid for 10.

And when you work 60 hour weeks as a teacher, you work more hours in 10 months than many work in a full 12. My husband works 50 weeks a year; I pull more hours in 40 weeks than he does in 50 weeks.

So that unpaid summer is a perk on one way: it gives teachers the chance to breathe after a 10-month marathon of overstimulating days, exhausted nights, and weekend work.

[Anonymous]

An anecdote I typically get to school 20-30 minutes early since I need more than the 20 minutes they give us to “get ready” for the day. (Back in the old days I would get their even earlier to make photocopies.)

I leave about 30 minutes after school because I hate responding to emails at home. After dinner I usually grade for an hour or so while watching TV. I don’t get paid for this extra 1-2 hours a day, and there is not time during the school day. I hate having meetings or trainings in my off periods since that just means more work later.

We don’t get paid in the summer. Yes the time is nice but typically 1-3 weeks is lost to training or grad school courses to keep our credentials. Oh don’t forget the parents, students and admin without boundaries who email me during the summer. Sped has it the worst regarding that issue even being asked to attend meetings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not even a teacher. I’m a parent volunteer. Most of the parents are great. Several have become lifelong friends. But some parents are so entitled. They demand everything from childcare during events to specific events. They never think to themselves, “I can also volunteer and do these things for my community.” They just demand existing volunteers.

I have a demanding full-time job, a marriage and a mother of 3. The work I do for the school is unpaid.

I can’t imagine being a teacher. A few parents are so awful they ruin what would otherwise be meaningful and pleasant.

Most parents are lovely! I have over 20 years of experiences (parent/teacher conferences, community events) that remind me of the many supportive parents who see teachers as partners, not adversaries.

Unfortunately, the few hostile ones sour the work environment with insults and unreasonable demands. I constantly remind myself that you simply can’t make some people happy, no matter how much you give them.

Thank you for your support, both on this site and at your school!

Most parents are nice, but you can’t be a lovely person if you always just sit back quietly while other people behave badly.

I’m not a Fed. Neither is DH. I defend Feds all the time in whatever setting someone disparages them.