Reply to Teachers - How Hard is Your Job, Really?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I worked for 15 years as a high school teacher and have read many of these types of threads - how hard do teachers really work, how hard is the job, etc.  I'll tell you what knocked me on my ass and led to my burnout and exit from the classroom.  The emotional toll it takes on you every day.  As a teacher, you LOVE these kids (well, most of them anyway!).  You can't help letting their lives and what happens to them affect you.

A beloved student of mine that was an absolute joy to have in my class committed suicide.  None of us had any inclination that he would do this.  Seeing the absolute devastation of his parents, hundreds of kids crying, teachers beyond grief was something nobody should experience.  Another student of mine was murdered.  These are obviously extreme cases and not every teacher experiences them; but all the other day to day problems whether they be drugs, divorce, apathy, a father crying in my classroom because his son had joined a gang, etc. eventually eat at your soul.  And you may think I was teaching in an inner-city school.  I was not!  This was an affluent suburban school district.

I worked 80 hours a week and planned and graded for hours every day.  I had some crappy administrations that didn't support teachers as well as obnoxious parents who thought we were idiots.  But it was the emotional toll that finally did me in.  I still work in education, but in a completely different context now.

When people ask my opinion about entering the teaching field, these are the things I emphasize, because they are often left out of the discussion.[/quote]

We invest in a college savings for our two kids.  I have repeatedly told them that IF they go into education, we will not be paying for them.

How sad, eh?

I would never want my children to be in a profession where so many question what we do and how we do it.

never[/quote]

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