So these are linked to teaching. I know most of you on here are wonderful enlightened people but I thought I'd try and make light of some difficult elements of life in the teaching profession.
1. IT. IS. NOT. A NINE. TO. THREE.JOB. Make me repeat that and you may regret it.
2. I am not sitting at my desk marking whilst little darlings get on with their work quietly. I am preventing World War 2 every three minutes, trying to get blood out of a stone, soothing hurt feelings, searching for the missing pencil sharpener for the nth time, reading minds as well as trying to teach and help individuals.
3. "Yeh, but you get long holidays,". Yes, and if I didn't get those holidays I WOULD DIE!
4. "The summer holiday is too long." I don't understand this one. Well, I do, for full-time working parents and the difficulties and costs of childcare but seriously THEY, the children, do need it. They are a wreck at the end of term and actually they need that long break in the summer. I do too-it's the only holiday in which you really can switch off for a while and feel totally human. After you've spent days clearing out your classroom, passing on assessment data, filling in end of year assessment data, filing everything you didn't have time to file earlier, changing classroom, doing INSET day or two, then planning for next term.
5. You cannot just use your plans from last year. You may think we just reuse last year's one but no, goalposts are moved every year, every new government has some bright idea about what else must be crammed into a day and children are different.
6. I am not there to solely teach your child how to behave, parents- I am there to reinforce and model what you should have started!!! (True fact- one parent told a friend that it was her job to teach her child how to behave, not hers)
7. Children are germ-pools. If I am off sick, it is because I have been breathed over by germy children, had to hold snotty hands and subjected to more cold strains than an Antarctic wind. I am not being a layabout. I will get ill and I might, God forbid, have to take a day off to try and recover. It is no good teaching when 31 relentless people need your undivided attention. Yet why do I feel utterly wretched and guilty about trying to get better?
8. Children will vomit over your shoes. Yes, that has happened to me.
9. I will fret over every lesson in which something didn't go perfectly thinking I am the worst teacher ever. We do care and want to do our best.
10. I detest papiermache and rubbish junk instrument making. Make me make cereal box string violins (they doesn't work- it will ALWAYS collapse!)with your child and 30 others and I will cry ! That said, I will make things that sound acoustically good! If you want to make amazing junk instruments have a look at the Land filharmonic orchestra that Denise posted about! Now THAT is amazing junk instrument-making.
11. If you think your report doesn't show enough detail, believe you me, if I were allowed to, I would write MUCH more- but I am restricted for conciseness and a page limit! There's only so much about your child's full development in an entire year I can write in a small section without sending you to sleep!
I do love my job but there are some people that don't quite get the difficulties! Hope you see the tongue-in-cheek nature of this as well as a few genuine difficulties that we face!
xxx
It's so frustrating when people don't have a clue what life in teaching is really like!
ReplyDeletePreach, my sister!!! Everything but #10 resonates with me, but if you replace "instruments" with "PowerPoint presentations", then we're batting thousand together. So happy summer hols are right around the corner. I can TASTE it...
ReplyDeleteNumbers 1, 6 and 11, before I forget what I most loved here! I was a teacher for many years and I loved that job, I really did. But yes, people think it's a 9 to 5 job and it is not. So many yeas bringing tests to correct, planning classes, cutting things for posters, on computer pasting things to make all nicer... and you know it. Also, I am not responsible for behavior, but it happens, it always will be that way, that some kids or parents don't know it. Plus, number 11, yes! We can write loads about, but teachers are nice and want to keep all positive! Greeeeeeeat post!
ReplyDeleteDenisesPlanet.com
I work is special education so I can definitely empathise with number 8! So. Many. Bodily. Fluids. It's lucky that I love my job!
ReplyDeleteLiz x
Distract Me Now Please
Teaching is one of the most under-appreciated jobs out there. I still work as a tutor from time to time but I can say that being a teaching full time is a very exhausting job and much harder than tutoring....Being a teacher in school system is a very particular type of job where your mind is never at rest. It takes out so many creative energy out of us that there isn't that much left. Teaching is a very creative job but at the same time it takes so much discipline...you have to push other constantly and push yourself as well. I would probably again work as a teacher if I had that choice (I'm constantly interviewing but here it is hard to get a hold of a position) but I'm aware that I wouldn't have as much energy for all the creative hobbies I have. Translating jobs in comparison don't seem as hard..but here they're not paid very well so that means crazy long hours and amount a work if you want a decent salary.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me...I once stepped in for a friend who works in two schools when she went to visit her son and by the end of that week I was exhausted!!! I don't know how she does it, working over the norm, I wouldn't be able to do it...but still it is always so nice to see my former students and it is really a job where one can feel good about doing, there is something noble in it....you feel as if you can really make a difference.
thank you for sharing this!
Good points. My wife and her friends are teachers so I know how hard they work. It's a noble profession.
ReplyDeleteI worked in a school for a year and within a fortnight I was laid low by child lurgy. I have also encountered the parents who think discipline starts at school, not at home, so I don't envy you your job at all xx
ReplyDeleteHaha such an interesting read! I wouldn't be able to do it I don't think I'd be patient enough :') I do agree that we need summer holidays, any shorter and I don't think kids would be able to cope :) I also can't believe the cheek of some parents, kids are there to be taught not taught how to behave I thought they were basic parenting things :') xx
ReplyDeleteMy friend went into teaching and she said nearly everything you've added here! It seems to be a very rewarding, though at times difficult job and I salute you Kezzie, as I know I couldn't do it! - Tasha
ReplyDeleteThis post made me giggle! quite a few of my friends are teachers and so many of these points ring true to what they say, especially the germy children one! One of my friends always carries wet wipes for this reason! xx
ReplyDeleteSo much THIS! Especially number 1 - I *love* hearing about the amazing hours teachers get, when I'm sitting at my desk at 7am every morning (not). And numbers 3 & 4, of my gosh. I do understand that childcare is difficult in the long break but I once had someone say to me what an 'inconvenience' it was to have to look after their own kids in the summer. What. The. F?! My response was not very polite and something along the lines of, "why did you have kids if they're an inconvenience?" It is NOT a teacher's job to be free childcare.
ReplyDeleteI've heard it from my friends, too. The sickness, the squabbling, no thanks!
ReplyDeleteI think I've got it bad with 5am starts, hundreds of people telling me how their nan used to have one of those, carrying 30 sacks of clothes up thirty flights of stairs and being offered manky fox furs in grubby carrier bags but at least no one's ever been sick on my shoes! xxx
Amen sister!! [only on your shoes? you had it easy!!]
ReplyDeleteI applaud you for doing the work you do so well. This should be a parent newsletter sent home with every child at the beginning of each school year. We can dream, right?
ReplyDeleteAmen to that! Teaching is grueling work. I'm too old for it now. I loved it, and I found it very rewarding, but I no longer have the emotional or physical energy it requires EVERY DAY.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post, Kezzie! When I see how hard the teachers I know work, and how they manage to retain their enthusiasm and love for the job (mostly) despite all the challenges, I am in awe. Keep going - you're doing a fab job! xxx
ReplyDeleteMy sister in law was a primary school teacher for years and this knowledge along with the year I spent working in a school only increased my admiration for those who do this job. The way parents conduct themselves sometimes is appalling!
ReplyDeleteThe things you do with your children I am always in awe of.
Lisa x
Haha! I love the part about children vomiting on your shoes. I used to teach, and there was once a little boy in my class who would come and sit on my lap and then fart, and then laugh uncontrollably! I did like his sense of humor actually but I didn't like being on the receiving end of it! :)
ReplyDelete