Why does no one acknowledge how overworked teachers are?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to this thread:

If you read the first 20-odd pages, there are a lot of people saying that indeed teachers do work hard. The first few posts are about how people DO, in fact, acknowledge how hard teachers work.

There are a couple of posters who did poop on teachers, true.

There were also posters that said, "hey we are all overworked." (Which is not saying that teachers AREN'T overworked, its' saying other people are overworked as well.)

There are also a couple of teachers who are ridiculously dug in to the narrative that they have the hardest job ever (worse apparently than poop scuba divers).

Oh yeah, there's the "parents suck" teacher as well, who always chimes in to just keep everything positive.

This is just a summary so no one thinks this entire thread is just "teachers have easy jobs."

Yet there are plenty of posts that refuse to acknowledge that teaching can be demanding, and the tired “but summers” argument is the usual go-to.

There are staggering misconceptions about teaching throughout this thread. I wouldn’t presume to know what it’s like to be a doctor or a “poop scuba diver,” but it’s clearly okay to assume what teaching is like. We’ve all been in classrooms, after all. We’ve all seen teachers in our daily lives. I guess that makes all of us on this thread clear experts in the education field. Sigh.

+1 It's like thinking that owning a car makes you an expert mechanic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to this thread:

If you read the first 20-odd pages, there are a lot of people saying that indeed teachers do work hard. The first few posts are about how people DO, in fact, acknowledge how hard teachers work.

There are a couple of posters who did poop on teachers, true.

There were also posters that said, "hey we are all overworked." (Which is not saying that teachers AREN'T overworked, its' saying other people are overworked as well.)

There are also a couple of teachers who are ridiculously dug in to the narrative that they have the hardest job ever (worse apparently than poop scuba divers).

Oh yeah, there's the "parents suck" teacher as well, who always chimes in to just keep everything positive.

This is just a summary so no one thinks this entire thread is just "teachers have easy jobs."

Yet there are plenty of posts that refuse to acknowledge that teaching can be demanding, and the tired “but summers” argument is the usual go-to.

There are staggering misconceptions about teaching throughout this thread. I wouldn’t presume to know what it’s like to be a doctor or a “poop scuba diver,” but it’s clearly okay to assume what teaching is like. We’ve all been in classrooms, after all. We’ve all seen teachers in our daily lives. I guess that makes all of us on this thread clear experts in the education field. Sigh.

There is one (hopefully one) teacher who is suggesting that indeed they do know what every job entails, and that they do all of it as a teacher. And upthread there are plenty of comments where teachers presume to know what other jobs do or what the conditions are (and why their jobs are worse). This is part of why this thread won't die.

I think the main problem, as described numerous times upthread, is the phrasing of the OP. It's such a "what about me?" statement, despite the fact that there are teacher appreciation weeks, national news articles about teachers being overworked (suggesting they acknowledge that teachers are overworked), threads all the time here about how to appreciate teachers, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to this thread:

If you read the first 20-odd pages, there are a lot of people saying that indeed teachers do work hard. The first few posts are about how people DO, in fact, acknowledge how hard teachers work.

There are a couple of posters who did poop on teachers, true.

There were also posters that said, "hey we are all overworked." (Which is not saying that teachers AREN'T overworked, its' saying other people are overworked as well.)

There are also a couple of teachers who are ridiculously dug in to the narrative that they have the hardest job ever (worse apparently than poop scuba divers).

Oh yeah, there's the "parents suck" teacher as well, who always chimes in to just keep everything positive.

This is just a summary so no one thinks this entire thread is just "teachers have easy jobs."

Yet there are plenty of posts that refuse to acknowledge that teaching can be demanding, and the tired “but summers” argument is the usual go-to.

There are staggering misconceptions about teaching throughout this thread. I wouldn’t presume to know what it’s like to be a doctor or a “poop scuba diver,” but it’s clearly okay to assume what teaching is like. We’ve all been in classrooms, after all. We’ve all seen teachers in our daily lives. I guess that makes all of us on this thread clear experts in the education field. Sigh.

There is one (hopefully one) teacher who is suggesting that indeed they do know what every job entails, and that they do all of it as a teacher. And upthread there are plenty of comments where teachers presume to know what other jobs do or what the conditions are (and why their jobs are worse). This is part of why this thread won't die.

I think the main problem, as described numerous times upthread, is the phrasing of the OP. It's such a "what about me?" statement, despite the fact that there are teacher appreciation weeks, national news articles about teachers being overworked (suggesting they acknowledge that teachers are overworked), threads all the time here about how to appreciate teachers, etc.

Yes, this exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to this thread:

If you read the first 20-odd pages, there are a lot of people saying that indeed teachers do work hard. The first few posts are about how people DO, in fact, acknowledge how hard teachers work.

There are a couple of posters who did poop on teachers, true.

There were also posters that said, "hey we are all overworked." (Which is not saying that teachers AREN'T overworked, its' saying other people are overworked as well.)

There are also a couple of teachers who are ridiculously dug in to the narrative that they have the hardest job ever (worse apparently than poop scuba divers).

Oh yeah, there's the "parents suck" teacher as well, who always chimes in to just keep everything positive.

This is just a summary so no one thinks this entire thread is just "teachers have easy jobs."

Yet there are plenty of posts that refuse to acknowledge that teaching can be demanding, and the tired “but summers” argument is the usual go-to.

There are staggering misconceptions about teaching throughout this thread. I wouldn’t presume to know what it’s like to be a doctor or a “poop scuba diver,” but it’s clearly okay to assume what teaching is like. We’ve all been in classrooms, after all. We’ve all seen teachers in our daily lives. I guess that makes all of us on this thread clear experts in the education field. Sigh.

There is one (hopefully one) teacher who is suggesting that indeed they do know what every job entails, and that they do all of it as a teacher. And upthread there are plenty of comments where teachers presume to know what other jobs do or what the conditions are (and why their jobs are worse). This is part of why this thread won't die.

I think the main problem, as described numerous times upthread, is the phrasing of the OP. It's such a "what about me?" statement, despite the fact that there are teacher appreciation weeks, national news articles about teachers being overworked (suggesting they acknowledge that teachers are overworked), threads all the time here about how to appreciate teachers, etc.

Yes, this exactly.

Here's a donut once a year now don't complain about anything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to this thread:

If you read the first 20-odd pages, there are a lot of people saying that indeed teachers do work hard. The first few posts are about how people DO, in fact, acknowledge how hard teachers work.

There are a couple of posters who did poop on teachers, true.

There were also posters that said, "hey we are all overworked." (Which is not saying that teachers AREN'T overworked, its' saying other people are overworked as well.)

There are also a couple of teachers who are ridiculously dug in to the narrative that they have the hardest job ever (worse apparently than poop scuba divers).

Oh yeah, there's the "parents suck" teacher as well, who always chimes in to just keep everything positive.

This is just a summary so no one thinks this entire thread is just "teachers have easy jobs."

Yet there are plenty of posts that refuse to acknowledge that teaching can be demanding, and the tired “but summers” argument is the usual go-to.

There are staggering misconceptions about teaching throughout this thread. I wouldn’t presume to know what it’s like to be a doctor or a “poop scuba diver,” but it’s clearly okay to assume what teaching is like. We’ve all been in classrooms, after all. We’ve all seen teachers in our daily lives. I guess that makes all of us on this thread clear experts in the education field. Sigh.

There is one (hopefully one) teacher who is suggesting that indeed they do know what every job entails, and that they do all of it as a teacher. And upthread there are plenty of comments where teachers presume to know what other jobs do or what the conditions are (and why their jobs are worse). This is part of why this thread won't die.

I think the main problem, as described numerous times upthread, is the phrasing of the OP. It's such a "what about me?" statement, despite the fact that there are teacher appreciation weeks, national news articles about teachers being overworked (suggesting they acknowledge that teachers are overworked), threads all the time here about how to appreciate teachers, etc.

Yes, this exactly.

Here's a donut once a year now don't complain about anything

This made me laugh. That’s what my former principal did each year for Teacher Appreciation: one Krispy Kreme donut when we signed in on Friday of that week.

[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:If you think teaching is easy be a sub for one day in public American schools and you will be eaten alive as kids treat you like Jackie Robinson on his first game ever in MLB throwing trash and cussing you out as you lose your voice trying to talk over them. Then your principal comes in and berates you for being terrible at your job and being stupid for not being able to control students. It's horrible horrible horrible. The helplessness and zero life control give teachers pstd.

My job has meetings in the middle of the night occasionally. I survived.

Given the choice, I’ll take middle-of-the-night meetings any day over teaching. You also mention they happen “occasionally,” whereas the stress/panic of teaching happens all day, every day.

Except you’re not teaching all day, every day during the year, are you? Look, I get it, teaching is hard and maybe you don’t like your career decision. That’s totally ok. But wild exaggerations like that don’t help. We all know your get massive amounts of time off. You’re up at night in the middle of July or on Christmas Eve with night terrors about something that happened at work that day? That actually is some people’s reality. So let’s at least try to have some perspective.

This is why DCUM is so toxic. Guess what? I go to therapy because of teaching. I have been for years. This job can be so abusive and can break the toughest of people. Also: I am always working. ALWAYS. If I’m not at work, I’m at home prepping for work. That’s on weekends. That’s over the summer.

You can tell me to gain perspective, and I’m going to ask the same of you. There’s a reason DCUM is filled with threads like this one. It’s because teaching is HARD, and it’s only those who haven’t tried it who think otherwise.

I am a career changer. I came from a tough corporate job. It was a breeze compared to what I do now.

New to this thread, but man. Teachers really do think they have the hardest job in the world, don't they? Why does it always have to be crappy job Olympics? I haven't once seen a teacher say something like "wow, that is not a problem we have to deal with!" or "gee that also sounds hard!"

It's like someone can say that their job is high-stress dangerous muck diving in sewage to re-weld old plumbing (a job which exists!), and a teacher will be like "well at least you have a muck diving suit! I accidentally touched poop with my bare hands once!!!!"

Well considering we also have to deal with bathroom issues, at least in ES, this is a bad example. I think the reason you never see teachers say the bolded is because our job is all encompassing. We are lawyers and doctors, we are managers and low level data entry employees, we are secretaries and diplomats (and plumbers). Im curious what part of your jobs that you think are unique that teachers don't actually do!

NP. Look, I agree teaching is a hard job but it’s this kind of melodramatic exaggeration that makes people roll their eyes and then discredit any actual point you may be trying to make.

I notice that you didn't actually address the point of my post. What is unique to other jobs that teachers do not do?

they don’t work summers

You know you've lost the argument when you revert to coming at teachers unpaid summer time

Thr time off in the summer IS THE ACTUAL win to the argument. It's the whole argument. Unpaid is irrelevant - just budget better. For most people in the workforce, The idea of having literal weeks, maybe even months of not working is an actual dream. An unlivable dream.

Great news! You too can absolutely live your dream, buddy. Just quit your job, be unemployed for a few months, then find a new job! It's exactly the same! Just budget better so you can do this every year, I've heard it's not hard to do. Oh, but your old job is still going to make you do trainings. They aren't going to pay you, but you will still need to do them. You're also going to have to deal with idiots telling you that your "vacation" makes you super lucky and invalidates any complaints you may have.

Summers are not "time off" for teachers any more than any period of unemployment is time off. It's weird that you consider being unemployed a vacation.

It's not exactly the same to become unemployed over the summer and then look for another job. Come on. Teachers have guaranteed positions and benefits that continue from year to year. You undercut legitimate complaints with a bogus comparison.

Y'all real mad they pay us at all, huh? I guess you're right-- as long as we are paid anything at all, there are no valid or legitimate complaints.

man the dramatics of the kids you spend time with are really rubbing off on you

[Anonymous]

As opposed to whom? Nurses? EMTs? Medical workers? Police? Accountants? Taxi drivers? Food establishment workers? Grocery store workers? Many people working in different professions feel overworked and underpaid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to this thread:

If you read the first 20-odd pages, there are a lot of people saying that indeed teachers do work hard. The first few posts are about how people DO, in fact, acknowledge how hard teachers work.

There are a couple of posters who did poop on teachers, true.

There were also posters that said, "hey we are all overworked." (Which is not saying that teachers AREN'T overworked, its' saying other people are overworked as well.)

There are also a couple of teachers who are ridiculously dug in to the narrative that they have the hardest job ever (worse apparently than poop scuba divers).

Oh yeah, there's the "parents suck" teacher as well, who always chimes in to just keep everything positive.

This is just a summary so no one thinks this entire thread is just "teachers have easy jobs."

Yet there are plenty of posts that refuse to acknowledge that teaching can be demanding, and the tired “but summers” argument is the usual go-to.

There are staggering misconceptions about teaching throughout this thread. I wouldn’t presume to know what it’s like to be a doctor or a “poop scuba diver,” but it’s clearly okay to assume what teaching is like. We’ve all been in classrooms, after all. We’ve all seen teachers in our daily lives. I guess that makes all of us on this thread clear experts in the education field. Sigh.

There is one (hopefully one) teacher who is suggesting that indeed they do know what every job entails, and that they do all of it as a teacher. And upthread there are plenty of comments where teachers presume to know what other jobs do or what the conditions are (and why their jobs are worse). This is part of why this thread won't die.

I think the main problem, as described numerous times upthread, is the phrasing of the OP. It's such a "what about me?" statement, despite the fact that there are teacher appreciation weeks, national news articles about teachers being overworked (suggesting they acknowledge that teachers are overworked), threads all the time here about how to appreciate teachers, etc.

Yes, this exactly.

Here's a donut once a year now don't complain about anything

This made me laugh. That’s what my former principal did each year for Teacher Appreciation: one Krispy Kreme donut when we signed in on Friday of that week.

Sounds like your principal "acknowledged" your work. Which is what the OP wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you think teaching is easy be a sub for one day in public American schools and you will be eaten alive as kids treat you like Jackie Robinson on his first game ever in MLB throwing trash and cussing you out as you lose your voice trying to talk over them. Then your principal comes in and berates you for being terrible at your job and being stupid for not being able to control students. It's horrible horrible horrible. The helplessness and zero life control give teachers pstd.

My job has meetings in the middle of the night occasionally. I survived.

Given the choice, I’ll take middle-of-the-night meetings any day over teaching. You also mention they happen “occasionally,” whereas the stress/panic of teaching happens all day, every day.

Except you’re not teaching all day, every day during the year, are you? Look, I get it, teaching is hard and maybe you don’t like your career decision. That’s totally ok. But wild exaggerations like that don’t help. We all know your get massive amounts of time off. You’re up at night in the middle of July or on Christmas Eve with night terrors about something that happened at work that day? That actually is some people’s reality. So let’s at least try to have some perspective.

This is why DCUM is so toxic. Guess what? I go to therapy because of teaching. I have been for years. This job can be so abusive and can break the toughest of people. Also: I am always working. ALWAYS. If I’m not at work, I’m at home prepping for work. That’s on weekends. That’s over the summer.

You can tell me to gain perspective, and I’m going to ask the same of you. There’s a reason DCUM is filled with threads like this one. It’s because teaching is HARD, and it’s only those who haven’t tried it who think otherwise.

I am a career changer. I came from a tough corporate job. It was a breeze compared to what I do now.

New to this thread, but man. Teachers really do think they have the hardest job in the world, don't they? Why does it always have to be crappy job Olympics? I haven't once seen a teacher say something like "wow, that is not a problem we have to deal with!" or "gee that also sounds hard!"

It's like someone can say that their job is high-stress dangerous muck diving in sewage to re-weld old plumbing (a job which exists!), and a teacher will be like "well at least you have a muck diving suit! I accidentally touched poop with my bare hands once!!!!"

Well considering we also have to deal with bathroom issues, at least in ES, this is a bad example. I think the reason you never see teachers say the bolded is because our job is all encompassing. We are lawyers and doctors, we are managers and low level data entry employees, we are secretaries and diplomats (and plumbers). Im curious what part of your jobs that you think are unique that teachers don't actually do!

I work with people in many fields, so based on this I would say about what teachers don't actually do: have a healthy respect for the difficulties of other professions, with an understanding that other people have skills that I lack.

also GET PAAAAID DOLLA DOLLA BILLS SON, MAKIN THEM STAXX ON STAXXX

YEAH gotem

It’s clear, especially if you have read much of this thread, that there is extreme disrespect for teachers. Extreme.

I have posted on this thread that I work 65+ hour weeks because I teach advanced courses that require additional prep and grading. I also posted that I present 30+ hours a week. I am 100% accountable for the delivery of the material, regardless of disinterest, teenage behaviors, etc. In the SAME post, I wrote that I appreciate how difficult other jobs are, as well, and that I have a healthy respect for the hard work and long hours of other jobs.

The response I got to a balanced post?
“No… everyone else has it harder than you. Stop your ridiculous teacher griping and enjoy your 3 months of vacation.”

That’s the problem with this thread. As if teachers don’t deal with constant disrespect at work, this thread seems to have posters who enjoy piling on more.
It appears to be too difficult to acknowledge teaching can be hard. It isn’t the hardest, but some posters won’t even allow it to be ranked among the difficult jobs.

Lord. No one said that "everyone else has it HARDER than you." Are you ignoring the part where there are many comments in this thread where teachers are claiming to do more hours than most other jobs AND using skills from nearly every other job function? It's just so out of touch. I've seen teachers in in this forum claim things like that most of us have corporate credit cards that we can just charge whatever we want to. Or that all of us get relaxing hour long lunches where we get to stop working and leave the office. It's like their understandings of what the rest of us do have come from TV dramas.

I say this as a person who spent a decade in the classroom teaching ESOL and has now moved on to the non-profit world. I would say it's just about equal levels of stress, but in different ways. Yes, I had to be "on" in front of the class, which was tiring. It's a different kind of tiring to be "on" in front of my supervisors. The hours in both are L O N G but not in the same way. I have to do a lot of complicated thinking and writing for proposals and research. I find this writing to be a bit harder, but that may just be because I don't have a decade of experience. It was nice to have a curriculum to work from.

We're so often told here that if we have anything to say about the working conditions of teachers, that we ought to try teaching. I have. Unfortunately on this board in particular, I have no credibility in this fight because I am no longer teaching. Typically I hear that I must have moved on to something easier, which is basically never what people do in their career arcs..? Most of us here, including teachers, have gone from easier to more complex work, as is the nature of learning and growing.

[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:If you think teaching is easy be a sub for one day in public American schools and you will be eaten alive as kids treat you like Jackie Robinson on his first game ever in MLB throwing trash and cussing you out as you lose your voice trying to talk over them. Then your principal comes in and berates you for being terrible at your job and being stupid for not being able to control students. It's horrible horrible horrible. The helplessness and zero life control give teachers pstd.

My job has meetings in the middle of the night occasionally. I survived.

Given the choice, I’ll take middle-of-the-night meetings any day over teaching. You also mention they happen “occasionally,” whereas the stress/panic of teaching happens all day, every day.

Except you’re not teaching all day, every day during the year, are you? Look, I get it, teaching is hard and maybe you don’t like your career decision. That’s totally ok. But wild exaggerations like that don’t help. We all know your get massive amounts of time off. You’re up at night in the middle of July or on Christmas Eve with night terrors about something that happened at work that day? That actually is some people’s reality. So let’s at least try to have some perspective.

This is why DCUM is so toxic. Guess what? I go to therapy because of teaching. I have been for years. This job can be so abusive and can break the toughest of people. Also: I am always working. ALWAYS. If I’m not at work, I’m at home prepping for work. That’s on weekends. That’s over the summer.

You can tell me to gain perspective, and I’m going to ask the same of you. There’s a reason DCUM is filled with threads like this one. It’s because teaching is HARD, and it’s only those who haven’t tried it who think otherwise.

I am a career changer. I came from a tough corporate job. It was a breeze compared to what I do now.

New to this thread, but man. Teachers really do think they have the hardest job in the world, don't they? Why does it always have to be crappy job Olympics? I haven't once seen a teacher say something like "wow, that is not a problem we have to deal with!" or "gee that also sounds hard!"

It's like someone can say that their job is high-stress dangerous muck diving in sewage to re-weld old plumbing (a job which exists!), and a teacher will be like "well at least you have a muck diving suit! I accidentally touched poop with my bare hands once!!!!"

Well considering we also have to deal with bathroom issues, at least in ES, this is a bad example. I think the reason you never see teachers say the bolded is because our job is all encompassing. We are lawyers and doctors, we are managers and low level data entry employees, we are secretaries and diplomats (and plumbers). Im curious what part of your jobs that you think are unique that teachers don't actually do!

NP. Look, I agree teaching is a hard job but it’s this kind of melodramatic exaggeration that makes people roll their eyes and then discredit any actual point you may be trying to make.

I notice that you didn't actually address the point of my post. What is unique to other jobs that teachers do not do?

they don’t work summers

You know you've lost the argument when you revert to coming at teachers unpaid summer time

Thr time off in the summer IS THE ACTUAL win to the argument. It's the whole argument. Unpaid is irrelevant - just budget better. For most people in the workforce, The idea of having literal weeks, maybe even months of not working is an actual dream. An unlivable dream.

Great news! You too can absolutely live your dream, buddy. Just quit your job, be unemployed for a few months, then find a new job! It's exactly the same! Just budget better so you can do this every year, I've heard it's not hard to do. Oh, but your old job is still going to make you do trainings. They aren't going to pay you, but you will still need to do them. You're also going to have to deal with idiots telling you that your "vacation" makes you super lucky and invalidates any complaints you may have.

Summers are not "time off" for teachers any more than any period of unemployment is time off. It's weird that you consider being unemployed a vacation.

It's not exactly the same to become unemployed over the summer and then look for another job. Come on. Teachers have guaranteed positions and benefits that continue from year to year. You undercut legitimate complaints with a bogus comparison.

Y'all real mad they pay us at all, huh? I guess you're right-- as long as we are paid anything at all, there are no valid or legitimate complaints.

You are clearly not a teacher, because you can't read. If you are, well . . . .

What I read was 52 pages of people being pissed that teachers are complaining about anything because "they get summers off!" and "they still get paid!" We make $0.62 for every $1.00 similarly educated professionals make, but go off about how good teachers have it.

[citation needed]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to this thread:

If you read the first 20-odd pages, there are a lot of people saying that indeed teachers do work hard. The first few posts are about how people DO, in fact, acknowledge how hard teachers work.

There are a couple of posters who did poop on teachers, true.

There were also posters that said, "hey we are all overworked." (Which is not saying that teachers AREN'T overworked, its' saying other people are overworked as well.)

There are also a couple of teachers who are ridiculously dug in to the narrative that they have the hardest job ever (worse apparently than poop scuba divers).

Oh yeah, there's the "parents suck" teacher as well, who always chimes in to just keep everything positive.

This is just a summary so no one thinks this entire thread is just "teachers have easy jobs."

Yet there are plenty of posts that refuse to acknowledge that teaching can be demanding, and the tired “but summers” argument is the usual go-to.

There are staggering misconceptions about teaching throughout this thread. I wouldn’t presume to know what it’s like to be a doctor or a “poop scuba diver,” but it’s clearly okay to assume what teaching is like. We’ve all been in classrooms, after all. We’ve all seen teachers in our daily lives. I guess that makes all of us on this thread clear experts in the education field. Sigh.

There is one (hopefully one) teacher who is suggesting that indeed they do know what every job entails, and that they do all of it as a teacher. And upthread there are plenty of comments where teachers presume to know what other jobs do or what the conditions are (and why their jobs are worse). This is part of why this thread won't die.

I think the main problem, as described numerous times upthread, is the phrasing of the OP. It's such a "what about me?" statement, despite the fact that there are teacher appreciation weeks, national news articles about teachers being overworked (suggesting they acknowledge that teachers are overworked), threads all the time here about how to appreciate teachers, etc.

DP. I'm assuming that poster is a troll, because I don't think anyone with more than a high school education would actually believe that poop divers and teachers have overlapping sanitation skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to this thread:

If you read the first 20-odd pages, there are a lot of people saying that indeed teachers do work hard. The first few posts are about how people DO, in fact, acknowledge how hard teachers work.

There are a couple of posters who did poop on teachers, true.

There were also posters that said, "hey we are all overworked." (Which is not saying that teachers AREN'T overworked, its' saying other people are overworked as well.)

There are also a couple of teachers who are ridiculously dug in to the narrative that they have the hardest job ever (worse apparently than poop scuba divers).

Oh yeah, there's the "parents suck" teacher as well, who always chimes in to just keep everything positive.

This is just a summary so no one thinks this entire thread is just "teachers have easy jobs."

Yet there are plenty of posts that refuse to acknowledge that teaching can be demanding, and the tired “but summers” argument is the usual go-to.

There are staggering misconceptions about teaching throughout this thread. I wouldn’t presume to know what it’s like to be a doctor or a “poop scuba diver,” but it’s clearly okay to assume what teaching is like. We’ve all been in classrooms, after all. We’ve all seen teachers in our daily lives. I guess that makes all of us on this thread clear experts in the education field. Sigh.

There is one (hopefully one) teacher who is suggesting that indeed they do know what every job entails, and that they do all of it as a teacher. And upthread there are plenty of comments where teachers presume to know what other jobs do or what the conditions are (and why their jobs are worse). This is part of why this thread won't die.

I think the main problem, as described numerous times upthread, is the phrasing of the OP. It's such a "what about me?" statement, despite the fact that there are teacher appreciation weeks, national news articles about teachers being overworked (suggesting they acknowledge that teachers are overworked), threads all the time here about how to appreciate teachers, etc.

Yes, this exactly.

Here's a donut once a year now don't complain about anything

This made me laugh. That’s what my former principal did each year for Teacher Appreciation: one Krispy Kreme donut when we signed in on Friday of that week.

Sounds like your principal "acknowledged" your work. Which is what the OP wanted.

I’m not sure a stale donut is proper appreciation for the many, many nights and weekends of work, but okay. I would have preferred him actually present with a “thank you,” but I’ll take my donut and be quiet.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If you think teaching is easy be a sub for one day in public American schools and you will be eaten alive as kids treat you like Jackie Robinson on his first game ever in MLB throwing trash and cussing you out as you lose your voice trying to talk over them. Then your principal comes in and berates you for being terrible at your job and being stupid for not being able to control students. It's horrible horrible horrible. The helplessness and zero life control give teachers pstd.

My job has meetings in the middle of the night occasionally. I survived.

Given the choice, I’ll take middle-of-the-night meetings any day over teaching. You also mention they happen “occasionally,” whereas the stress/panic of teaching happens all day, every day.

Except you’re not teaching all day, every day during the year, are you? Look, I get it, teaching is hard and maybe you don’t like your career decision. That’s totally ok. But wild exaggerations like that don’t help. We all know your get massive amounts of time off. You’re up at night in the middle of July or on Christmas Eve with night terrors about something that happened at work that day? That actually is some people’s reality. So let’s at least try to have some perspective.

This is why DCUM is so toxic. Guess what? I go to therapy because of teaching. I have been for years. This job can be so abusive and can break the toughest of people. Also: I am always working. ALWAYS. If I’m not at work, I’m at home prepping for work. That’s on weekends. That’s over the summer.

You can tell me to gain perspective, and I’m going to ask the same of you. There’s a reason DCUM is filled with threads like this one. It’s because teaching is HARD, and it’s only those who haven’t tried it who think otherwise.

I am a career changer. I came from a tough corporate job. It was a breeze compared to what I do now.

New to this thread, but man. Teachers really do think they have the hardest job in the world, don't they? Why does it always have to be crappy job Olympics? I haven't once seen a teacher say something like "wow, that is not a problem we have to deal with!" or "gee that also sounds hard!"

It's like someone can say that their job is high-stress dangerous muck diving in sewage to re-weld old plumbing (a job which exists!), and a teacher will be like "well at least you have a muck diving suit! I accidentally touched poop with my bare hands once!!!!"

Well considering we also have to deal with bathroom issues, at least in ES, this is a bad example. I think the reason you never see teachers say the bolded is because our job is all encompassing. We are lawyers and doctors, we are managers and low level data entry employees, we are secretaries and diplomats (and plumbers). Im curious what part of your jobs that you think are unique that teachers don't actually do!

NP. Look, I agree teaching is a hard job but it’s this kind of melodramatic exaggeration that makes people roll their eyes and then discredit any actual point you may be trying to make.

I notice that you didn't actually address the point of my post. What is unique to other jobs that teachers do not do?

they don’t work summers

You know you've lost the argument when you revert to coming at teachers unpaid summer time

Thr time off in the summer IS THE ACTUAL win to the argument. It's the whole argument. Unpaid is irrelevant - just budget better. For most people in the workforce, The idea of having literal weeks, maybe even months of not working is an actual dream. An unlivable dream.

Great news! You too can absolutely live your dream, buddy. Just quit your job, be unemployed for a few months, then find a new job! It's exactly the same! Just budget better so you can do this every year, I've heard it's not hard to do. Oh, but your old job is still going to make you do trainings. They aren't going to pay you, but you will still need to do them. You're also going to have to deal with idiots telling you that your "vacation" makes you super lucky and invalidates any complaints you may have.

Summers are not "time off" for teachers any more than any period of unemployment is time off. It's weird that you consider being unemployed a vacation.

It's not exactly the same to become unemployed over the summer and then look for another job. Come on. Teachers have guaranteed positions and benefits that continue from year to year. You undercut legitimate complaints with a bogus comparison.

Y'all real mad they pay us at all, huh? I guess you're right-- as long as we are paid anything at all, there are no valid or legitimate complaints.

You are clearly not a teacher, because you can't read. If you are, well . . . .

What I read was 52 pages of people being pissed that teachers are complaining about anything because "they get summers off!" and "they still get paid!" We make $0.62 for every $1.00 similarly educated professionals make, but go off about how good teachers have it.

[citation needed]

Sure thing! It looks like the pp was slightly off-- teachers in Virginia actually make a whopping 67.3 cents for every dollar. On average across all states, it looks like teachers are paid 76.5 cents for every dollar similarly educated professionals make, but hey! That number does keep going down, so if we wait a few years, they probably will make 62 cents to the dollar.

https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-penalty-2022/

[Anonymous]

Because there are some incredibly high-maintenance folks in DC, who believe no one is more overworked than they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because there are some incredibly high-maintenance folks in DC, who believe no one is more overworked than they are.

(this post may or may not be referring to the teachers in DC)