RANT: Teachers, why are you so whiny?

[Anonymous]

It’s trendy to complain about children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had to skim the rant - too much! A few points though:

- Many people across many professions whine. There are just a LOT of teachers out there. And you work with teachers so you're surrounded. I could say the same thing about people in my corporate profession.
- Teachers are now expected to take a bullet to protect kids. I find this appalling, but i think it entitles them to whine all they want.

Whine away teachers! Teach my kids, nurture them, and protect their physical safety too. I say a prayer for you often, support you and will always vote to increase your pay.

Teachers have taken bullets to protect kids. It's happened. Not like all teachers are the same or even perfect, but it is an underappreciated profession for which I have nothing but the utmost admiration.

[Anonymous]

And let’s not forget the disgusting teachers who have molested and raped children as well.
What needs to happen is if teachers want a full-time salary they need to work a full-time job. I’m not talking about 10 to 12 hours a day like professionals; I.E. physician/nurses/police officers /attorneys... We won’t even expect you to work evenings, nights double shifts, weekends or holidays.
But maybe nine hours a day. And work 12 months out of the year. You can have the holidays off and then perhaps a two week vacation like the majority of the professional world. This will allow you to stay at your desk like a big adult and get your work done. Instead of having to sit home in the comfort of your own home and write those grilling difficult complicated lesson plans that you print off the computer.
Yes, you will have to start paying for childcare like all other professional parents. Afterschool care... Now you will not be able to leave to go pick up your children and bring them to their activities. Let’s do that for perhaps two years. And to prepare we should have what someone suggested bring a teacher to work day. You could shadow a professional who has to be at work at 7:30 AM. Yes you will be expected to work till after 6 pm. But I think these experiences will show you that not only do you not work harder than other professions, but you actually were considerably less. And after a couple of years of working Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, the day after Thanksgiving with No spring or summer break and not having the privilege to do your work at home unlike most professions who are stuck in their office, The OR, at the bedside of a dying patient, filling in for the police officer who was running late to cover the next shift, I think you will appreciate what you have instead of complaining. How do you think this looks to your employer or to the people that you serve? That is why we put our children in private schools. Private school teachers truly have a vocation and love what they do. They miss their students at the end of the year they embrace their time off with gratitude.They have enough class
And common sense to know not to get on social media with consistent rants and whining about their career.
And unlike most of the public schools around here, they did not send letters home to parents With the list of gifts Children are supposed to bring them for teacher
appreciation week.???????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And let’s not forget the disgusting teachers who have molested and raped children as well.
What needs to happen is if teachers want a full-time salary they need to work a full-time job. I’m not talking about 10 to 12 hours a day like professionals; I.E. physician/nurses/police officers /attorneys... We won’t even expect you to work evenings, nights double shifts, weekends or holidays.
But maybe nine hours a day. And work 12 months out of the year. You can have the holidays off and then perhaps a two week vacation like the majority of the professional world. This will allow you to stay at your desk like a big adult and get your work done. Instead of having to sit home in the comfort of your own home and write those grilling difficult complicated lesson plans that you print off the computer.
Yes, you will have to start paying for childcare like all other professional parents. Afterschool care... Now you will not be able to leave to go pick up your children and bring them to their activities. Let’s do that for perhaps two years. And to prepare we should have what someone suggested bring a teacher to work day. You could shadow a professional who has to be at work at 7:30 AM. Yes you will be expected to work till after 6 pm. But I think these experiences will show you that not only do you not work harder than other professions, but you actually were considerably less. And after a couple of years of working Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, the day after Thanksgiving with No spring or summer break and not having the privilege to do your work at home unlike most professions who are stuck in their office, The OR, at the bedside of a dying patient, filling in for the police officer who was running late to cover the next shift, I think you will appreciate what you have instead of complaining. How do you think this looks to your employer or to the people that you serve? That is why we put our children in private schools. Private school teachers truly have a vocation and love what they do. They miss their students at the end of the year they embrace their time off with gratitude.They have enough class
And common sense to know not to get on social media with consistent rants and whining about their career.
And unlike most of the public schools around here, they did not send letters home to parents With the list of gifts Children are supposed to bring them for teacher
appreciation week.???????

Who is complaining? Look in the mirror! Take a moment and go back through the pages of this thread if you will. How many posts do you find from teachers that are complaints? Most posts are simply responses to those who are complaining about teachers. It started with the OP and has continued. I see it happen a lot. Somebody tries to start something by stating an inaccuracy about teaching. When a teacher responds with a counterpoint or a simple fact to correct the statement, the first person responds with, "What are you complaining about?"

As far as your post? You started off with "...teachers who molested and raped..."? Could you paint a profession with a wider brush based on the wrongs of such as small percentage? I'm curious to know in which career field you work.

When my DS was younger we paid for childcare. Many teachers in my school do so, particularly those who live outside of the county in which they teach.

Take a moment and look at the amount of vacation time others say they receive in this thread from the "Jobs and Careers board. Two weeks seems to be on the low end for the rest of the professional world: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/30/799552.page#14908828

I sense the sarcasm in your "grilling difficult complicated lesson plans that you print off the computer" comment. You have no clue. When was the last time you prepared math workshop, reading workshop, writing workshop, small group reading lessons, small group math lessons, social studies and science for a class of elementary students? One does not simply "print lessons from a computer".

Teachers don't ask for lists to be sent home during Teacher Appreciation Week. As much as I hear people like you complain about it I honestly wish it would just go away. I don't need material gifts to show appreciation. I'm sure lists vary by school and I know some schools don't do a list. Most I know of are made up of days on which students wear the teacher's favorite color or write a note of thanks. Nobody has to participate.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree, as a parent, I am so sick of having certain apps where I am held accountable for my childs work. My parents never studied with me nor did they have a clue of a project coming due or a test. I am a nurse and work hard on my feet all day, I do not have time to answer your email or respond because a test is happening tomorrow. When I went to school we had ONE TEACHER, they taught us to read, write - cursive too. I think teachers are spoiled and do not get the real working world. I also do not feel that our kids are getting a better education, this crazy dot math - nuts...We as parents have less time then our parents did and are EXPECTED to do a lot with the school. Please do YOUR JOB AND TEACH OUR KIDS!!!

[Anonymous]

I think, in general, if you have only ever been a teacher, you have no idea how hard people work in non-teacher jobs. They think that the pace and work-load of their careers is somehow unique or special.

For some reason, teachers seem to think their lives of running around, working, doing stuff on weekends and on evenings (on top of all their home duties) are somehow unique.

To a person, they seem to think that summer and holiday vacations are owed to them because they work so hard during the school day.

What they fail to see is that WE ALMOST ALL work really hard during the work day, and WE DON'T get huge vacations.

I truly don't get this. The work a teacher puts in is no more mentally strenuous than other professions, nor nearly as physically strenuous than a handful of specialized professions (including nurses) - and yet they feel like they are working harder than the rest of us?!

really, what gives. It's a part time job. They should be thankful that they get so much time off, not whining about the "long days." Even if you add up all the nights and weekends" hours it still doesn't equal a full-time job!!!!

This doesn't mean that I am not grateful for teachers, I certainly am, I am just so SICK of the entitlement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think, in general, if you have only ever been a teacher, you have no idea how hard people work in non-teacher jobs. They think that the pace and work-load of their careers is somehow unique or special.

For some reason, teachers seem to think their lives of running around, working, doing stuff on weekends and on evenings (on top of all their home duties) are somehow unique.

To a person, they seem to think that summer and holiday vacations are owed to them because they work so hard during the school day.

What they fail to see is that WE ALMOST ALL work really hard during the work day, and WE DON'T get huge vacations.

I truly don't get this. The work a teacher puts in is no more mentally strenuous than other professions, nor nearly as physically strenuous than a handful of specialized professions (including nurses) - and yet they feel like they are working harder than the rest of us?!

really, what gives. It's a part time job. They should be thankful that they get so much time off, not whining about the "long days." Even if you add up all the nights and weekends" hours it still doesn't equal a full-time job!!!!

This doesn't mean that I am not grateful for teachers, I certainly am, I am just so SICK of the entitlement.

Another poster ignorant of the fact that many teachers do not get a massive vacation all summer long because many teachers work summer jobs to make ends meet.

Also you seem incapable of comprehending that teachers are now responsible for not only the education but also the social development and daily safety of your children. Before you retort that they only need to educate--the instant a child has social issues at school, who is the person the parents call for help or to complain or blame or to insist on changes just for their child? The teacher. Who will be the first person held to be irresponsible if a child gets hurt at school? The teacher. Maybe their jobs aren't as physically demanding as nurses' jobs (to use your example) but the expectations of personal responsibility have grown tremendously since you were a student. You have no idea of the stress that can bring.

[Anonymous]

Teacher friends, stop responding to this nonsense. Just like we tell our students to ignore the person sitting next to them who is trying to start shit, we need to do the same here. Ignore. And if you are like me, put your feet up and pour yourself a cold one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers, it's not that I dislike you. I don't. I have 3 school-aged kids and I work as a para in an elementary school, so I am around teachers and work closely with them all day. Most of my friends are teachers. I just get so tired of the whining. I am speaking from my own experiences with elementary teachers in a good school district. I realize other teachers' situations can be much different

The pay thing. I'm gonna say it. Someone has to. Teachers, I think your pay is fair. I'm sorry, but I do. First of all, your degree was not that hard. It's not rocket science. And you only work about 180 days a year. You get summers, spring break, winter break, as well as many other days off. I know you all claim to work all summer on lesson planning. I'm sure that's true for the most dedicated teachers, as it's true that most dedicated employees do some work off the clock. But the teachers I know walk out of school at the end of the year vowing to not even think about their job until the last two weeks of summer. I heard one teacher suggest to her team that they meet once over the summer to plan. They all said forget it, and that it's above their pay grade to waste a summer day thinking about work. For my job, I have to time in/out and leave at exactly 4:15 every day. ALL of the teachers are already gone by then! They usually arrive after us as well. And no, they are not taking papers home to grade. Those days are gone. Kids self grade most of their work. Often it is actually just a completion grade and nobody even grades it. Teachers have parent and HS volunteers who come in to help with copies, project prep, grading, etc. They also get an hour of plan time each day and other times when kids are at recess, reading quietly, or working independently at stations. I spend my entire day in classrooms and I can tell you that these teachers spend about two hours per day actually teaching. Again, just my personal experience and all of this will vary from one school to the next.

Side note: The other paras that I work with complain about our pay as well. I actually think our pay is pretty fair. I get about $15/hour. It seems about right for the amount of work I do and the hours I work. Before kids, I had a job in my field utilizing my degree. It didn't actually pay much more than I'm making now and was MUCH harder work. Much more intense, tons of travel, stressful. Granted, I would be making good money by now if I hadn't left to raise my kids. But still.

Teachers, I get soooo tired of hearing you complain about parents. One minute you are whining that you get so many parent emails and the next minute you are claiming parents are just not involved and don't care. I wonder if you could survive one day in the corporate world, dealing with emails from clients instead of parents. Maybe we need to have a Take A Teacher To Work day so that you can see what your students' parents do all day instead of fretting about whether or not they should email you regarding their kid's 4th grade math test.

When a student has an issue, you automatically blame the parents. you say he must get away with that at home. That's not usually the case. Whatever issue you are having is likely the same issue the parents are having at home. Let's work together instead of pointing fingers. We can't program our kids any better than you can. If we do say that we have not seen that behavior at home, we are not lying or claiming that you are lying. We are saying that we really had no idea and we are grateful that you brought it to our attention. A sudden change in behavior is cause for concern. Now let's work together to figure out why it's happening at school.

You also complain about parent teacher conferences and having to talk with each parent for 20 whole minutes twice a year! Did you not realize this would be a part of your job when you chose this career? In the corporate world, you would be spending a lot more time than that meeting with clients. Or how about being in the med field, talking with patients and families about serious health concerns? Please do us a favor and make the most of those 20 minutes. We made arrangements to be there. Parents take time off work and find babysitters so that they can speak with you. Don't just tell us the info we can get online and then try to push us out after 5 minutes.

And finally, it really makes me cringe every year around the holidays when teachers start the Just Buy Us Gift Cards campaign. you complain about all the candles, lotions, stationery, etc and you just want gift cards. Well, here's the thing. Most of us let our child pick out your gift. The point is for them to do something nice for you and show their appreciation. They get excited about this. Kids think it's boring to give gift cards and they think you will find it boring as well. It makes them feel good to see you unwrap a pretty candle. If you don't like it, donate or re-gift it. No other profession leaves work with a carload of gifts for a 2-3 week holiday break so just BE GRATEFUL for what you get. I realize you don't know what to do with all those candles, but guess what. I also have no idea what to do with the pipe cleaner cat a student made me for Christmas. But I love it anyway because it's thoughtful. I won't request that he give me a gift card instead next year.

One last thing, I get so tired of you guys gushing about how awesome you are. My fb feed is full of teachers posting about how amazing and hard-working teachers are. Please stop embarrassing yourselves by posting these self-congratulatory memes. I know you want to tell everyone how grueling and difficult your job is. Think about the people who read your posts - doctors, nurses, military. Lots of people do good and important work without pointing it out every day.

Rant over. I really do love you, teachers. I just wish you could spend more time focusing on all the positive aspects of your job. Thanks for all you do for our kids. Just stop complaining about it.

You are one entirely ungrateful, and disrespectful woman to be talking about teachers like that. Everyone complains about their jobs. And if you were an actual educator you would know how stressful and awful teaching is in this country, and because of people like you who choose to further degrade these professionals with your high and mighty observations, it makes it worse. You are the problem, not them. If people like you would stop whining and actually help and be respectful of the teaching profession, the entire US public school system would be a better place. All the teachers at my child’s school are worth their weight in gold. I’m sure they complain just like the rest of us do in other professions, and I know that they should be getting paid more and given more respect because of the BS they constantly have to put up with from people like you.

[Anonymous]

I'm a lawyer whose mother was a teacher. She worked harder than I do!

[Anonymous]

This post is from March 2018.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The person who spends HOURS preparing lesson plans on the weekend? What the hell do you do with your lesson plans from the years prior? Sweetie it’s not rocket science. My sister homeschooled her 11 children. 8 of those 11 children have graduated from college and post graduate programs. Two are dentists, one is In his third year as a resident in cardiac surgery, one physical therapist, one is a speech pathologist, One is in law school ,
To are officers in the military. The other three are still in college. Would you like my sister to help you with your lesson plans? Lol

Teaching is not rocket science. In fact, teaching is so easy that most of them are from the bottom 50% if their high school class
This country needs to do a much better job recruiting more intelligent people into the field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally agree, as a parent, I am so sick of having certain apps where I am held accountable for my childs work. My parents never studied with me nor did they have a clue of a project coming due or a test. I am a nurse and work hard on my feet all day, I do not have time to answer your email or respond because a test is happening tomorrow. When I went to school we had ONE TEACHER, they taught us to read, write - cursive too. I think teachers are spoiled and do not get the real working world. I also do not feel that our kids are getting a better education, this crazy dot math - nuts...We as parents have less time then our parents did and are EXPECTED to do a lot with the school. Please do YOUR JOB AND TEACH OUR KIDS!!!

This is hilarious! I had to read it twice before I realized it was satire. Bravo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not a teacher, but contrary to one of the PP’s, I believe teaching is a professional career. I don’t think you, Mr/Ms Lawyer, are any more important than teachers.

There has not been on person that I've seen on this thread that said some other career is more important than teaching. That's you being defensive.

I'm one of the lawyers that posted here. And to the contrary, teachers have a FAR more important job than I do. Their underpaid and undervalued. BUT they are quite aware of this when they go down the teacher track. And many of them make quite a bit more than other professions that work equal to or more hours and are paid less (e.g., a friend is a journalist -and editor- and her sister is a teacher. The teacher makes FAR more and has more time off. And works less.) So change careers. Tune it out. Lobby for change. But, quit your bitching.

Nope - they are paid, just what they should be paid based on supply and demand. If someone is willing to step into that job at that salary, then the salary is adequate. In fact, unions have probably distorted it upward. The only ones who are underpaid are math and science teachers because there is a continual shortage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not a teacher, but contrary to one of the PP’s, I believe teaching is a professional career. I don’t think you, Mr/Ms Lawyer, are any more important than teachers.

There has not been on person that I've seen on this thread that said some other career is more important than teaching. That's you being defensive.

I'm one of the lawyers that posted here. And to the contrary, teachers have a FAR more important job than I do. Their underpaid and undervalued. BUT they are quite aware of this when they go down the teacher track. And many of them make quite a bit more than other professions that work equal to or more hours and are paid less (e.g., a friend is a journalist -and editor- and her sister is a teacher. The teacher makes FAR more and has more time off. And works less.) So change careers. Tune it out. Lobby for change. But, quit your bitching.

Nope - they are paid, just what they should be paid based on supply and demand. If someone is willing to step into that job at that salary, then the salary is adequate. In fact, unions have probably distorted it upward. The only ones who are underpaid are math and science teachers because there is a continual shortage.

Look at teacher shortages around the country and then edit your thinking. A crisis is coming in this region as housing costs skyrocket. Young people already in debt from student loans will go elsewhere rather than teach here. Think area teacher salaries are too high now? Wait until you see the costs of trying to attract someone to teach here in 2030.