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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Imagine you had to run a meeting 6-7 hours a day. You had to lead the meeting--agenda, content, presentations, discussions, work output, materials, everything. During that meeting, you can't check email or make a phone call. And in between the 6-7 hour meeting, you have smaller 20-1 hour meetings.

Imagine 25 of the 30 participants do not want to be there and don't have the ability to pay attention or follow directions. And you have to keep them on track.

Imagine you had to give immediate feedback/evaluations from today's meeting to every participant.

Imagine after running that meeting, you have to plan and prepare for tomorrow's 6-7 hour meeting.

Imagine if your participants fail to perform or have substandard work product, you are blamed.

Imagine never having an off day. Never spending a day just dealing with the little things.

Imagine it keeps going, day after day. It's exhausting to have to plan and manage every minute of every day for 30-150 participants.

I used to be a teacher. I miss it every day. But I'd never go back. The daily grind with no support staff to handle things was just too much. If I got a secretary, Id totally go back.

Until you've done it, you just don't understand. [/quote]

Amen Amen Amen -former teacher[/quote]

I love teachers, but this is just so dramatic. I understand that talking in such extremes might be effective with your students, but it's less successful when you're talking to fellow adults who also have to pay mortgages and show up every single day to their jobs, etc. etc.

I'm not diminishing your work, I just think y'all need to rework your talking points because these make you look really out of touch with the rest of the workforce. A lot of what you list is comparable to other jobs, especially being held accountable when others drop the ball. It's one of the consequences of leadership. [/quote]

Former teacher now biglaw attorney. Yeah you are so, so wrong about all of this. I agree with the original PP. [/quote]

Agree 100% with biglaw attorney.  Former GS-15 Senior Advisor who now substitutes a few days a week, and this post really isn't that dramatic.  Until you have done it, you can't grasp how exhausting it is to constantly redirect disruptive children while trying to educate a large group of children at varying levels of comprehension.  I used to read things like this and had a similar reaction to the first PP.  Not any more.  I've run high level interagency meetings at the NSC that were much less stressful than herding a group of first graders.  Even the most kniving DOJ attorneys who would sneakily try to pull one over on our agency or the bossiest two star generals were like pussy cats compared to a 7 year old with severe behavioral issues who's parents have never taught them to respect authority.  People really don't grasp how much things have changed in the classroom and underestimate the stress levels associated with teaching.  And I say this as someone who loves little people and finds them endlessly fascinating.  But there are limited tools you can use to deal with the myriad of challenges in today's classrooms - your hands are tied in ways that they aren't in office settings.  Imagine someone turning over every chair while you are conducting a meeting and then kicking the walls loudly during circle time.  That person would be fired - kids don't get fired.  Hats off to full time teachers.[/quote]

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