Why does no one acknowledge how overworked teachers are?
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Anonymous
I meant to say above that the problem is that we DO need better working conditions. Not more money or appreciation. |
Anonymous
Teachers can become principals, administrators, etc. they are definitely not stuck. |
Anonymous
No, this is a misconception. First, administrator and principal is the same thing, but it's not a promotion from teaching. One has to get a whole new graduate degree. After getting the degree, a teacher can apply for Assistant Principal positions. If they get one, then they have to spend at least 5 years as AP before applying for a principal job. A lot of people never make it to principal. It's definitely not about being a good teacher, that's for sure, and not something you can get moved up to just by working hard and being good at your job. |
Anonymous
Ok but I’m the marketing pro from earlier and do you understand the same career trajectory is also true for me? I work at a law firm. I’m never going to become a partner here. In theory I could become like a CMO, but I’d almost certainly have to get a masters, and in my experience many of the CMOs also have JDs. I could go work in a different industry but I’d lose the value if all my industry knowledge that way. There are lateral moves I can make, into business development maybe, but these don’t come with huge pay increases. There are firms that pay fir my role or where I could move into a slightly more senior position, but realistically the most I’m going to make in my career is around 140k, and that’s with a lot of seniority and probably towards the end of my career. A colleague of mine jokes that eventually they just keep changing your title but you never get raises beyond COLA and it’s not untrue. I think the person upthread who said some teachers overestimate the pay and other rewards in professional jobs requiring a BA, outside of teaching, was right. Most people I know who make more that 150k and work reasonable hours have graduate degrees. It’s really not that common. I also know lots of people who make this much but still work very long hours. I see what us challenging about being a teacher and I don’t know if I could do it. Being on your feet all day, the lack of breaks, being responsible for that many kids at once, having so much of your curriculum dictated by others, the way teachers are evaluated. I get it— it’s a hard job and as I said, I really appreciate what teachers do. I also have done actual sense of the job, since I have kids in school, plus I once was a kid in school. I guarantee you none of my kid’s teachers have any clue what my job is or what is hard about it or how I am treated. I’m sure it looks cushy from the outside because I do get to WFH sometimes (though that is definitely a new phenomenon since Covid and is very curtailed since return to office). My point is: it’s not. I’m not making 150k to just sit around and have two meetings and write 10 emails a day. I don’t get treated great by my mosses and I don’t feel appreciated by society at all. And I think my experience is pretty average for parents. There are some who have it worse and some who have it better. I don’t think teachers are uniquely underappreciated or disrespected, and in some ways you are much more appreciated and respected than many of the parents of the kids you teach. |
Anonymous
Becoming an administrator also means you are no longer a teacher. Many teachers don’t WANT to be administrators. We want to remain in the classroom doing the work we came into this profession to do. There is no way to be promoted within teaching. You can only be promoted OUT of teaching. Truthfully, most of my administrators were lackluster teachers. (I’ve been around long enough to remember.) There’s where the demeaning part comes in. I am evaluated by people who didn’t do the job as well as I do it. I have to follow the direction of people with less training and experience as I have. I’m sure this is true in other professions, but I argue this is one of the biggest problems with education. |
Anonymous
I bet you have toilet paper and functioning bathrooms and soap. I bet you don’t have rodent and insect infestations in your workplace. I bet you have heating and a/c that works. |
Anonymous
DP; you just seem to really hate your job and want to make this thread about you |
Anonymous
Do other professionals have to purchase their own office supplies, and supplies for others? I just did a replenish on classroom supplies: paper, spare pens/pencils, dry erase markers, tissue, hand sanitizer, cleaning wipes. I dropped another $45 on my classroom. I’ll do it again in a couple months. No, my high school does not allow us to ask parents. |
Anonymous
This is so unproductive. This is what we are trying to tell you. You think I've never worked in a crappy facility? Think again. I've worked a bunch of places with pest problems -- show up to the office and their are mouse droppings in the hallways, find cockroaches in kitchen cabinets. My DH has worked in a government building that hasn't had well functioning AC for over a decade -- he regularly shows up to work in mid-July to find out that the AC is off (and the windows don't open). I once worked in a office where our bathroom was out of service for almost 8 months, so when you had to go to the bathroom you had to take the stairs or elevator to an office at least 3 floors away, request a temporary access card from their reception. Just to pee. For more than half a year. But this should not be a competition. That's the point. This thread was posed as "why does no one acknowledge how overworked [/underappreciated] teachers are?" And what we are trying to tell you is that (1) we know, and (2) so are many of us. Look for solidarity. Stop trying to score points or win the Suffering Olympics. Teaching is a hard job that most of us appreciate because we are parents and we need teachers. Most of us spend a lot more time appreciating the teachers in our lives than our own workplaces spend appreciating us. Which is fine, honestly! But it's exhausting to be told again and again, "You don't understand how hard this is, you don't appreciate us, etc. etc." We get it. If you want something concrete (higher pay, better facilities, more competent administration) just tell me what it is and how I can help support getting that. Or designate union reps to do it, whatever, I know you're busy. But I feel like I hear a lot more "y'all don't appreciate us" than "here are specific ways in which teaching could be made better." We all like complaining about our jobs, and most of us are justified in doing so. But I don't start threads that are like "why don't teachers acknowledge how overworked and under appreciated I am in my job?" It's combative, it's not true, and it's frankly beside the point. |
Anonymous
Yes, they do. Lady, I had to buy my own laptop for my job. It cost more than $45. Do teachers need like a teacher-only slack or something to talk about this stuff? These are just random job complaints. We all have them. I complain about them to my colleagues and my spouse. Also, the amount of money I have spent on providing classroom supplies to my kids' schools over the years... it's a lot. I've bought art supplies and blocks and cleaning supplies and tissues and paper and pencils. I've helped by new rugs, contributed to funds for smart boards, paid for snacks. All of it. I get your HS apparently says you can't ask parents, which is weird, but most parents buy stuff like this for classrooms all the time. I got a note that there's a lot of runny noses in my kid's classroom this time a year and just grabbed a box of tissue and threw it in my kid's backpack this morning. My kid doesn't have a runny nose, but whatever I can do. When I need supplies for work that my office won't pay for, no one just brings them to me! Ever. |
Anonymous
That's the point though. This thread is actually just about teachers who hate their jobs and want to complain about them, but in the guise of "parents don't appreciate us enough." Like there are teachers on this thread who are acting like teaching is the WORST POSSIBLE JOB when it very clearly is not. This thread is just a laundry list of things teachers find annoying about their jobs and some are valid and some less so. I don't get what the point is, really. |
Anonymous
Take a look at the entirety of this thread. Teachers are trying to illustrate what the job is like, and posters simply respond with either “it’s actually an easy job” or “others have it harder.” Few posters have said “we see what you’re saying and get it.” You want solidarity? Then accept that we can have it hard, too. That’s it. As for complaining, I have posted on this thread several times and not once have I complained. As for “worst job possible” (I refuse to use your caps), nobody has said that. Nobody. Let’s not exaggerate. Teachers HAVE tried to get people to understand exactly how hard it is, a point many have refused to accept. |
Anonymous
I think the point is that on any given day on social media, in the news, and most relevantly here, on this forum, you can find multiple threads questioning teachers, criticizing teachers, blaming teachers, etc. let me know when your job is under a constant spotlight by people who have no connection to your work. Not from your rude coworkers. |
Anonymous
I think you read what you want to read. I see posters saying back to teachers that their complaints are the same as much of the rest of the working world. Some people have it better, some worse. But teachers aren’t the only profession that is underpaid, underappreciated, overworked, and who spend their own time and money on work. That’s what is so annoying about these posts. Teachers seem to want non-teachers to recognize that they have some unique hardship that outweighs the benefits. |
Anonymous
You could say this about a lot of things. Doctors, pediatricians, therapists, mothers, women in general…. Maybe I don’t read enough DCUM, but I don’t see this plethora of posts questioning teachers and putting them under a constant spotlight. |