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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a high school teacher and last month I had a little talk with one of my best students.  She had proudly come to tell me that she wants to be a teacher.  I strongly advised her to reconsider: as I explained, parents and students do not respect teachers, and she will be mocked, derided, and second-guessed on a near-regular basis at work.  She was actually said that she is aware of the way her classmates and their parents treat teachers and talk to/about them, but had “though it didn’t bother the teachers.”  I told her, quite bluntly, that on some days it bothers me quite a lot.  Occasionally I cry when I get home.

I also explained that during the beginning of the pandemic, I became fully aware of just how little teachers are respected.

I am sure some of you will now tell me I am a bad teacher and should quit because the profession doesn’t need me.  I assure you that I am considered one of the best teachers in our department.  I have a degree from Harvard, and this impresses parents enough that they actually treat me slightly better than some of my equally-deserving colleagues.  But if I could go back, I would choose another career.

I hate the disrespect, entitlement, grade-grubbing and attempts by parents to bully me into inflating their darlings’ grades, and the sheer volume of work I am expected to accomplish outside of school.

I began my career starry-eyed with enthusiasm.  16 years of pushy, disrespectful parents, plus one pandemic in which it was made clear that I was expected to sacrifice myself for other people’s children (while these people “worked from home” themselves), and I now hate my job.  If I could think of a way to transition into a new career now, I would, but I can’t.

[/quote]

Oh, and I would like to add that my favorite professor at Harvard warned me that I was “wasting myself” if I went into teaching.  He was correct.

I don’t think it is possible to change the system so that the best and brightest will want to go into teaching because you would have to change society as well.  This is where we are right now.  Teaching is a thankless, low-paying, slave ship of a career and I discourage any student who tells me he/she is considering it.[/quote]

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