Why Are Teachers So Resentful?

[Anonymous]

Teachers in America need to learn humility. It's a failed profession. The results are abysmal and for all the talk about how hard they work, there's nothing to show for it. Every generation of kids is more badly educated than the last. Instead of accepting their responsibility for that, they vilify parents, because those are the people who see their failure up close and personal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers in America need to learn humility. It's a failed profession. The results are abysmal and for all the talk about how hard they work, there's nothing to show for it. Every generation of kids is more badly educated than the last. Instead of accepting their responsibility for that, they vilify parents, because those are the people who see their failure up close and personal.

Who do you think makes decisions in education? Not teachers. Teachers have to fill in the gaps.

Consultants, school boards, and administrators make the decisions. Teachers deal with the fallout. And the fact they get as much done as they do after the influence of those who don’t teach? That’s impressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

This is a thread about teachers and their working conditions. Teachers are the experts when it comes to conversations about their working conditions. That’s simple fact.

Teachers CAN have dire working conditions. That doesn’t take away from your dire working conditions. Both can be true.

If you want to start a thread about yours, then go ahead. I’ll visit and be respectful. I won’t demean you or tell you that your lived experiences are wrong. I’ll accept you know more about your job than I do.

Please provide the same respect here, on a thread about teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

+1 PP has no perspective. It's all about proving to us how uniquely terrible teaching is while bunch of us are thinking that the things they describe absolutely happen in workplaces that aren't schools. It totally sucks and I would commiserate with PP, but I d don't think they'd allow me to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

+1 PP has no perspective. It's all about proving to us how uniquely terrible teaching is while bunch of us are thinking that the things they describe absolutely happen in workplaces that aren't schools. It totally sucks and I would commiserate with PP, but I d don't think they'd allow me to.

Teacher here, and the one I think you’re responding to.

I’ve said no fewer than 3 times on this thread: teaching is hard, but not necessarily harder. My most recent comment regarding the medical profession included: “ No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder…”

But yes, let’s keep arguing that teachers are dying on this “we have it the worst” hill. I’ve seen only ONE comment like that and MANY that are reasonable.

But I concede. You win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

This is a thread about teachers and their working conditions. Teachers are the experts when it comes to conversations about their working conditions. That’s simple fact.

Teachers CAN have dire working conditions. That doesn’t take away from your dire working conditions. Both can be true.

If you want to start a thread about yours, then go ahead. I’ll visit and be respectful. I won’t demean you or tell you that your lived experiences are wrong. I’ll accept you know more about your job than I do.

Please provide the same respect here, on a thread about teachers.

This is a thread about why teachers are resentful. It seems to me that people like you who tell teachers, especially young teachers, that they have it so rough, that
they are enduring things no one else could imagine, is why they’re so resentful. They lack perspective.

You constantly refusing to see that people who genuinely risk their lives have it harder than someone who only gets a 20 minute lunchbreak, or that sitting through inane presentations is a basic expectation of most professions, is a great example of the kind of victim complex that leads to resentment.

[Anonymous]

Is there a reason why textbooks aren’t used anymore?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

This is a thread about teachers and their working conditions. Teachers are the experts when it comes to conversations about their working conditions. That’s simple fact.

Teachers CAN have dire working conditions. That doesn’t take away from your dire working conditions. Both can be true.

If you want to start a thread about yours, then go ahead. I’ll visit and be respectful. I won’t demean you or tell you that your lived experiences are wrong. I’ll accept you know more about your job than I do.

Please provide the same respect here, on a thread about teachers.

This is a thread about why teachers are resentful. It seems to me that people like you who tell teachers, especially young teachers, that they have it so rough, that
they are enduring things no one else could imagine, is why they’re so resentful. They lack perspective.

You constantly refusing to see that people who genuinely risk their lives have it harder than someone who only gets a 20 minute lunchbreak, or that sitting through inane presentations is a basic expectation of most professions, is a great example of the kind of victim complex that leads to resentment.

Okay. This thread has jumped the shark.

We are on the same side. I’ve said CLEARLY and REPEATEDLY that others have it as hard or harder. Heck, I’ve seen only one comment on this ENTIRE thread that suggests teachers have it harder. That’s fairly impressive considering this is literally a thread about the challenges of teaching, (which had morphed into a thread suggesting teachers can’t talk about these challenges in fear that they’ll insult other professions.)

Is this some psychology experiment? If you misconstrue my words enough, will I somehow believe something else? I simply don’t understand this NEED to disparage teachers and to ignore their experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a reason why textbooks aren’t used anymore?

I'm a teacher and I student taught in 2000-2001. I had a textbook for every subject in 4th grade. We would teach from the teacher's manual. It was pretty much the same as my own education (one spelling pattern per week in the textbook plus a test on Friday, one math unit from the textbook plus a test at the end, one basal reader plus a grammar and vocabulary workbook, a science and social studies textbook). There weren't many worksheets except for copies made from blackline masters that came with the textbooks.


Fast forward a few years and I came back from maternity leave and they were dumping all of the textbooks in the dumpsters (this made the news when someone took a photo of it). We were told that only weak teachers relied on textbooks. Gone were the basal readers and we had to start making/finding our own resources. This was before internet resources like Teachers Pay Teachers became popular. I spent hours making worksheets. It was awful and frustrating. Then in came the tech and the promises of people who had probably never been in the classroom. Tech will personalize learning! Now we are required to use certain apps a certain number of hours each week starting in kindergarten. Teachers have to write lesson plans based on awful curriculum. We know it isn't appropriate for ours kids but we have no choice. Nothing is our choice. They like to say we are the experts but we are't allowed to make any instructional decisions. We have to be on x lesson by x day or we have people breathing down our necks. We are observed by people who may have never taught our content or grade level. I teach kindergarten but the lowest grade any of my admin has ever taught is 5th grade. I don't even recognize my job anymore. I miss teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

This is a thread about teachers and their working conditions. Teachers are the experts when it comes to conversations about their working conditions. That’s simple fact.

Teachers CAN have dire working conditions. That doesn’t take away from your dire working conditions. Both can be true.

If you want to start a thread about yours, then go ahead. I’ll visit and be respectful. I won’t demean you or tell you that your lived experiences are wrong. I’ll accept you know more about your job than I do.

Please provide the same respect here, on a thread about teachers.

This is a thread about why teachers are resentful. It seems to me that people like you who tell teachers, especially young teachers, that they have it so rough, that
they are enduring things no one else could imagine, is why they’re so resentful. They lack perspective.

You constantly refusing to see that people who genuinely risk their lives have it harder than someone who only gets a 20 minute lunchbreak, or that sitting through inane presentations is a basic expectation of most professions, is a great example of the kind of victim complex that leads to resentment.

Okay. This thread has jumped the shark.

We are on the same side. I’ve said CLEARLY and REPEATEDLY that others have it as hard or harder. Heck, I’ve seen only one comment on this ENTIRE thread that suggests teachers have it harder. That’s fairly impressive considering this is literally a thread about the challenges of teaching, (which had morphed into a thread suggesting teachers can’t talk about these challenges in fear that they’ll insult other professions.)

Is this some psychology experiment? If you misconstrue my words enough, will I somehow believe something else? I simply don’t understand this NEED to disparage teachers and to ignore their experiences.

Nope. Nowhere on this thread does it say teachers can’t talk about their experiences. What I (and others) have said is if teachers persist in saying they have it harder than anyone else, people will correct those false statements.

I’m not disparaging teachers. My sister is one, who has won awards. She believes this constant talk of how impossible things are for teachers is responsible for young teachers feeling entitled, then victimized by very normal workplace unpleasantness (like an inane presentation) which leads to burnout and resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

This is a thread about teachers and their working conditions. Teachers are the experts when it comes to conversations about their working conditions. That’s simple fact.

Teachers CAN have dire working conditions. That doesn’t take away from your dire working conditions. Both can be true.

If you want to start a thread about yours, then go ahead. I’ll visit and be respectful. I won’t demean you or tell you that your lived experiences are wrong. I’ll accept you know more about your job than I do.

Please provide the same respect here, on a thread about teachers.

This is a thread about why teachers are resentful. It seems to me that people like you who tell teachers, especially young teachers, that they have it so rough, that
they are enduring things no one else could imagine, is why they’re so resentful. They lack perspective.

You constantly refusing to see that people who genuinely risk their lives have it harder than someone who only gets a 20 minute lunchbreak, or that sitting through inane presentations is a basic expectation of most professions, is a great example of the kind of victim complex that leads to resentment.

Okay. This thread has jumped the shark.

We are on the same side. I’ve said CLEARLY and REPEATEDLY that others have it as hard or harder. Heck, I’ve seen only one comment on this ENTIRE thread that suggests teachers have it harder. That’s fairly impressive considering this is literally a thread about the challenges of teaching, (which had morphed into a thread suggesting teachers can’t talk about these challenges in fear that they’ll insult other professions.)

Is this some psychology experiment? If you misconstrue my words enough, will I somehow believe something else? I simply don’t understand this NEED to disparage teachers and to ignore their experiences.

Nope. Nowhere on this thread does it say teachers can’t talk about their experiences. What I (and others) have said is if teachers persist in saying they have it harder than anyone else, people will correct those false statements.

I’m not disparaging teachers. My sister is one, who has won awards. She believes this constant talk of how impossible things are for teachers is responsible for young teachers feeling entitled, then victimized by very normal workplace unpleasantness (like an inane presentation) which leads to burnout and resentment.

And yet you argue incessantly with a poster who has repeatedly said they don't think they have it harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

This is a thread about teachers and their working conditions. Teachers are the experts when it comes to conversations about their working conditions. That’s simple fact.

Teachers CAN have dire working conditions. That doesn’t take away from your dire working conditions. Both can be true.

If you want to start a thread about yours, then go ahead. I’ll visit and be respectful. I won’t demean you or tell you that your lived experiences are wrong. I’ll accept you know more about your job than I do.

Please provide the same respect here, on a thread about teachers.

This is a thread about why teachers are resentful. It seems to me that people like you who tell teachers, especially young teachers, that they have it so rough, that
they are enduring things no one else could imagine, is why they’re so resentful. They lack perspective.

You constantly refusing to see that people who genuinely risk their lives have it harder than someone who only gets a 20 minute lunchbreak, or that sitting through inane presentations is a basic expectation of most professions, is a great example of the kind of victim complex that leads to resentment.

Okay. This thread has jumped the shark.

We are on the same side. I’ve said CLEARLY and REPEATEDLY that others have it as hard or harder. Heck, I’ve seen only one comment on this ENTIRE thread that suggests teachers have it harder. That’s fairly impressive considering this is literally a thread about the challenges of teaching, (which had morphed into a thread suggesting teachers can’t talk about these challenges in fear that they’ll insult other professions.)

Is this some psychology experiment? If you misconstrue my words enough, will I somehow believe something else? I simply don’t understand this NEED to disparage teachers and to ignore their experiences.

Nope. Nowhere on this thread does it say teachers can’t talk about their experiences. What I (and others) have said is if teachers persist in saying they have it harder than anyone else, people will correct those false statements.

I’m not disparaging teachers. My sister is one, who has won awards. She believes this constant talk of how impossible things are for teachers is responsible for young teachers feeling entitled, then victimized by very normal workplace unpleasantness (like an inane presentation) which leads to burnout and resentment.

And yet you argue incessantly with a poster who has repeatedly said they don't think they have it harder.

When they jumped in to argue against a comment responding to someone who specifically said they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many pages to read but if you want a perspective from a veteran teacher you can take this at face value.

You want to know why teachers are resentful?
Because for years we’ve watched people who couldn’t survive a single chaotic Monday in a classroom act like they’re qualified to question our competence, our motives, and our professionalism.

Teachers aren’t resentful—they’re [/b]fed up with a culture that demands educators be superheroes while treating them like disposable background characters.

Let’s cut through the nonsense; Teachers hold together a system that is collapsing under political meddling, chronic underfunding, and the refusal of society to take responsibility for the very problems it dumps at our door. And then people have the gall to ask why we’re not beaming with gratitude.

Here’s why teachers are resentful:

A) Because every time we raise concerns, some armchair critic who hasn’t opened a textbook since high school thinks they know better.
B) Because we’re expected to fix educational inequality, childhood trauma, behavioral crises, family instability, and social dysfunction—but God forbid we mention that these things even exist.
C) Because the people quickest to judge are the ones who do absolutely nothing to help.
D) Because somehow teachers are simultaneously “glorified babysitters” *and* the reason society is falling apart—depending on which excuse is more convenient that day.
E) Because our expertise is dismissed by people who couldn’t explain a fraction of the work we do, but sure know how to complain about it.

If teachers sound resentful, it’s because they’re tired of being blamed for a system they didn’t design, under conditions no reasonable adult would tolerate, while listening to the loudest critics contribute nothing but noise.

And let’s be brutally honest:
If more people understood even a tiny fraction of what teachers actually endure, they wouldn’t be asking why teachers are resentful—they’d be asking how teachers haven’t burned the whole system to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

So yes, teachers are resentful.
Not because they’re ungrateful or dramatic, but because[b] they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.

Does this sound harsh? It’s because the truth is.

You’re resentful because you believe this. Teaching is hard and demanding. It is not the hardest or most demanding work. Constantly telling yourself this is why you feel like such a victim.

— close family member of an award winning teacher who is candid about the struggles teachers have but thinks this kind of talk is self indulgent b*llshit especially after 2020.

I haven’t had a lunch break for 15 years. I’m not saying a working lunch break. I am saying because of my special population, I am with the kids all day long (minus a 20 minute special).

And so you think this means you have a harder job than others who only get a 20 minute (in their case, unpaid) lunchbreak?

I get that teachers have hard jobs but this idea that no one could possibly have it as hard as you is so flawed. Go work at an amazon packing warehouse in November. Be a healthcare aide. Be the resident coordinator in a group home. Work in the VA mental healthcare system. And then count your blessings before you complain that you only get a 20 minute break.

I’m a little tired of the hyperbole. It’s exhausting.

Teachers aren’t saying they have it HARDER. They are saying they have it HARD.

This is absurd. Stop trying to silence teachers who, incidentally, are more aware of the conditions of their jobs than you are.

When a teacher says they have it hard, try commiserating. Stop trying to belittle what we experience. Guess what? You don’t actually know what we experience.

Saying we have it hard doesn’t mean that you can’t have it hard, also. It’s not a dang competition.

Here’s the exact quote I’m responding to:

“because they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If teachers truly believe this, that no other profession on earth endures what they do, then they will feel victimized and resentful . They will also be wrong. By any measure, medical professionals had it harder from 2020 through 2023 thab teachers did. If they can’t even have that much self-awareness, how are they ever going to gain per perspective?

Well, how about this:

Have those medical professionals had their yearly appreciation donut punitively taken away in front of their colleagues? Have they had to sit on the floor to hear a towering “expert” tell them how posted objectives will make them better teachers? Have they had meetings start with “one-two-three-eyes on me?” (The correct response is “one-two-eyes on you!”) Have they been held against a wall by a patient, only be told by their boss that they asked for it because they hadn’t formed proper relationships?

See, here’s the thing: I doubt doctors endure that. No doubt they endure other hardships, just as hard and even harder, but these ones? The ones that mock, belittle, infantize, and devalue? No, I doubt they do.

I have the self-awareness to know that there are aspects of teaching other professionals don’t experience. That doesn’t mean it’s HARDER, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. Many people aren’t putting up with the conditions above, evidenced by the teachers currently fleeing the profession.

And if a doctor were to tell me their hardships, I’m not going to say, “well, I have it much harder.” I’m going to say, “that stinks. I’m sorry to hear that.” But that’s because I respect them and don’t feel this ingrained need to put them in their place (like we do so often to teachers).

Something doesn’t have to be the same to be worse.

Nurses are frequently are routinely attacked by patients and often gaslighted by their leadership, if you didn’t know that, shame on you, here is a resource to educate yourself:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461224003252

Doctors and nurses literally risked their lives while teachers stayed at home.
I’m sorry someone took a donut away from you. I’m sure that was upsetting.

If you persist in believing no one has ever had it as bad as you, and that you’ve “spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.” then believe that. But you’re wrong, and people will continue to tell you that.

I LITERALLY wrote that medical professionals can have it harder. But you decided to skip over that just so you can cut a teacher down. Feel better?

Oh, and I worked in person during Covid. I caught it twice, bringing it home each time to a compromised family member. I also had no planning periods for months because I had to cover my colleagues as they got sick. I had to deal with screaming parents about policies I didn’t create. I had to do double work, teaching during the day and Zooming at night with sick students.

And OF COURSE nurses are attacked. But so are teachers. One matters to you; the other does not. Clearly.

One of us is being respectful and balanced. One of us is being ignorant and rude. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The ignorance is the teacher who said “they’ve spent years being ground down by expectations no other profession on earth would endure.”

If that’s you, work harder to gain perspective. If you acknowledge plenty of other professionals have worse conditions, then there’s no need to try to win the suffering olympics because you once had a donut taken away.

That wasn’t me. There are plenty of people posting on this site. But I will admit that I have no problem with teachers talking about the challenges of the profession, especially on a thread LITERALLY ABOUT TEACHERS’ STRUGGLES.

Regarding the donut: that was me. I suppose it isn’t a big deal to you, but being disciplined publicly is a big deal to me. (Want to know what got me written up that day? I was helping a student with a crisis in the parking lot and signed in late. I was too busy calling for medical aid to make it to admin’s “teacher appreciation” event. That write-up still stands in my file.)

Regarding the suffering Olympics: I’ve never participated. I’ve repeatedly given respect to other professions. Apparently to you, I haven’t given enough. Unless I concede that my job is easy? Is that what it will take for YOU to end the Olympics?

No one is saying teachers can’t say how hard they feel they have it. If they make public claims that they have it worse than anyone else, people will correct that misperception— including other teachers.

But constantly saying, or believing, you have unconscionably dire working conditions will certainly create the culture of resentment the OP has observed.

This is a thread about teachers and their working conditions. Teachers are the experts when it comes to conversations about their working conditions. That’s simple fact.

Teachers CAN have dire working conditions. That doesn’t take away from your dire working conditions. Both can be true.

If you want to start a thread about yours, then go ahead. I’ll visit and be respectful. I won’t demean you or tell you that your lived experiences are wrong. I’ll accept you know more about your job than I do.

Please provide the same respect here, on a thread about teachers.

This is a thread about why teachers are resentful. It seems to me that people like you who tell teachers, especially young teachers, that they have it so rough, that
they are enduring things no one else could imagine, is why they’re so resentful. They lack perspective.

You constantly refusing to see that people who genuinely risk their lives have it harder than someone who only gets a 20 minute lunchbreak, or that sitting through inane presentations is a basic expectation of most professions, is a great example of the kind of victim complex that leads to resentment.

Okay. This thread has jumped the shark.

We are on the same side. I’ve said CLEARLY and REPEATEDLY that others have it as hard or harder. Heck, I’ve seen only one comment on this ENTIRE thread that suggests teachers have it harder. That’s fairly impressive considering this is literally a thread about the challenges of teaching, (which had morphed into a thread suggesting teachers can’t talk about these challenges in fear that they’ll insult other professions.)

Is this some psychology experiment? If you misconstrue my words enough, will I somehow believe something else? I simply don’t understand this NEED to disparage teachers and to ignore their experiences.

Nope. Nowhere on this thread does it say teachers can’t talk about their experiences. What I (and others) have said is if teachers persist in saying they have it harder than anyone else, people will correct those false statements.

I’m not disparaging teachers. My sister is one, who has won awards. She believes this constant talk of how impossible things are for teachers is responsible for young teachers feeling entitled, then victimized by very normal workplace unpleasantness (like an inane presentation) which leads to burnout and resentment.

And yet you argue incessantly with a poster who has repeatedly said they don't think they have it harder.

When they jumped in to argue against a comment responding to someone who specifically said they did.

Or when they didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers in America need to learn humility. It's a failed profession. The results are abysmal and for all the talk about how hard they work, there's nothing to show for it. Every generation of kids is more badly educated than the last. Instead of accepting their responsibility for that, they vilify parents, because those are the people who see their failure up close and personal.

Who do you think makes decisions in education? Not teachers. Teachers have to fill in the gaps.

Consultants, school boards, and administrators make the decisions. Teachers deal with the fallout. And the fact they get as much done as they do after the influence of those who don’t teach? That’s impressive.

Aren’t some of these people former teachers? What motivates them to make poor decisions that impact teachers?

I agree that teachers should be more empowered, and also provided with real cirriculums (or even textbooks) that doesn’t require them to invent their own thing - but gives them some lattitude to do so where they want. I’ve been super happy with my kids teachers so far, but can see how it is a tough job - especially for the junior teachers low on the pay scale.

Also, think about how hard it was for our parents to complain to teachers about a thing. You couldn’t just email, you’d have to set up a meeting or make a call. That raised the bar a little bit for what required parents to talk with teachers.