Reply to Why do people become teachers and then complain about how terrible it is?

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Reply to "Why do people become teachers and then complain about how terrible it is?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't think it's weird that teachers complain about teaching.

I do think it's weird how much of the ire is directed at kids and parents instead of administration, the school district, and governing boards. I get some kids and some parents are really hard to deal with, but I've worked in retail and in service professions and in white shoe law firms and run a small business-- you find that in any job that puts you in contact with a large number of people.

But often I see teachers saying "if kids just did X" or "if parents would stop Y" then teaching would be more tolerable. Nope. You need to focus on your actual employer and the institution you work within. The only way to improve conditions is to improve policies and frameworks. Especially because the nature of schools means that you are constantly getting new populations of families in. If parents are doing something annoying that makes teaching harder, teachers unions should lobby admin and districts to create policies and institutional frameworks that prevent parents from doing that. Same with kids. Most files are basically sheep doing what they see others doing or what feels like the easiest option. They also have none of your institutional knowledge-- they are going to do naive and uniformed things because they haven't been working in education for a decade.

I have tons of empathy for teachers. I think it's a tough job that is underappreciated (at least where I live it is no longer underpaid though I know in other places it is still underpaid). But I'd love to see actual improvements made that would improve the experience in the profession. And that means looking to the people with the actual owner to effect change. Which is not students or their parents-- those groups usually have even less power than teachers.[/quote]

From my experience, teachers primarily complain about working conditions, unsupportive administrators, and pay. It’s only here on DCUM I see the attack on parents, but I often think it comes from a defensive stance.

Posters here are cruel toward teachers, and I’ve seen some very harsh attacks (teachers are bottom of the barrel, unworthy of “real” jobs, they don’t deserve the pay they get since they are off all the time).

I have seen teachers give examples of parental interactions to illustrate our poor working conditions. I’ve posted about a parent who emailed in late in the evening and then wrote my administrator admonishing me because I didn’t respond by 8am the next morning. This wasn’t a compliant about that parent; rather, it was an example of a regular pressure I face at work. [/quote]

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