Why is teaching a profession SO often looked down upon? (professions, complain)
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I don't know if it's actually frustration with teachers as much as it is frustration with the educational system in general. Teachers are the unfortunate scapegoat when kids don't learn to read using "whole language," don't learn what they're supposed to because preparing for The Test is paramount, etc. Good teachers also have their reputation marred by the bad ones. I understand that there are MANY wonderful teachers... but between regulations and testing and bad teachers and the state of the schools, I'm not about to send my kids to be taught by them.
It's not just teachers, though... lawyers are viewed as money-hungry, cops are viewed as lazy or corrupt, doctors are viewed as working for money and not for the interests of their patients. It's nothing personal, they're just stereotypes.
I absolutely hate hearing all of the negative things that people say about teachers. Yes, there are absolutely horrible teachers that are only teaching to get in, get out, and get paid -- I've seen them and worked right beside of them. But... there are fabulous teachers that love to teach kids new and exciting things and stay until late at night working their BUTTS off to make sure their students are succeeding. No one should have a negative opinion about the teaching career if they have never even set foot inside a classroom. All that most people hear about teachers is found on the news-- which ONLY seems to report the negative things that go on in a few classrooms. The news has portrayed teachers as awful people that prey on their students and are completely LAZY. But, I bet you ALL could think of many teachers that you loved and that have helped make you the person you are today. Am I right? Serioulsy... just think about it.
And another thing... I agree that sometimes kids are just passed on to the special education classes and drugged because parents and teachers just can't deal with them. But, from experience, I have seen kids go from bouncing off the walls, have horrible behavior, and never being able to sit long enough to concentrate and do their work to being the most pleasant child that can really put their abilities to work because they aren't so hyper. Also, hardly any children today are sent to a special education room the whole day. Do some research before you start assuming things about special education --- its called inclusion and the least restrictive environment. Many kids benefit from the one on one attention they receive in a resource classroom. And once they have received this one on one attention, they spend the majority of the day in the regular classroom.
One last thing I need to share... Many people that work hard to get an education degree DO NOT choose that degree becuase it is "the easy way out." I have seen countless education majors that have a passion for teaching children but are pushed far away from that passion because of idiots that put teachers down for countless reasons. Teaching is one of the toughest careers if you actually put the effort and passion into it that it requires. If you don't agree, be a substitute teacher for a day. You'll understand.
Very well put!!!! I am a teacher and I get so sick of hearing all the negative posts about teachers. I wonder how many of the people posting negative comments about teachers have even been in a classroom. Yes, there are bad teachers out there who just simply don't care, but there are bad nurses and lawyers out there too. Why are we spending so much time focusing on all the bad teachers and a good one can't even get a simple thank you.
As far as the comment on special education, well, I have a student that I have spent the entire year trying to get put into special ed. No, it is not because he is a challenging child, it is because no matter how I try to help him, he can never get beyond a certain academic level. He is just getting further and further behind because tutoring isn't working. It isn't easy to have a student simply placed in special education and sometimes the students who desperately need the services don't receive them.
I am not here to bash all teachers. There are a few teachers who are in the profession for the right reasons, but my experience is that the majority is not. I am not a teacher, but an aide. I have worked in the system for about 4 years. The school I work at is wonderful and we have many wonderful teachers there, but the public school that my children attend is awful. I have 3 children with 3 different levels of ability. My oldest did wonderful in school, but was not prepared for college. I always thought that she was not being taught as well as she could have been. My middle child was labeled a slow learner, but was not offered any help from the school system. He was only put under a 504--on paper only. No actual provisions were made and I was told that I should thank the principal for doing that. It did allow him to have extra time on the EOG. Keep in mind that the teachers in our school district are given bonuses if the majority of their class pass their EOGs. My youngest child started Kindergarden loving to read and doing well in school until he hit first grade. He had a teacher who emotionally abused him. She was a perfectionist and yelled constantly at him. Now he is in third grade and he is pretty much in the same situation. Now he doesn't want to pick up a book and hates to read. All the research that I have seen says that if a parent reads or reads to a child he will love to read. He did until he started school. Now who gets the blame for that? He was diagnosed as having ADD. He has just now started receiving some extra help in Math, but he is being pressured to constantly perform. He has to walk laps everyday at recess for minor offenses--never behavior--just academic, sometimes for the entire recess time. He never really knows why he is being punished, other than for some "bad" grade that he has made. I have to sign a planner everday saying he has done his homework. One night we completed his homework, I signed the planner, and he still had to walk laps because he couldn't find it in his bookbag. I asked the teacher why didn't someone check his bookbag, that was the purpose of me signing it. She says that is not her responsibility. I asked to have a "buddy" assigned to him. A buddy would be another student who is organized that could help him. I was told that no one in her classroom is organized. Keep in mind that if I forget to sign the planner at any time, he has to walk laps. I have tried everything imaginable to get him organized, but I get no help at school. He is supposed to be responsible for everything. The teacher or aide will not turn their hand to help at all. I can understand teaching independence, but you have to help a child find the strategies that work for them, not let them struggle, fail, and criticize. The principal is of no help.
I have worked in the classrooms and substituted at times in my school. A teacher's job is demanding, but let's face it. It is not like working in a factory. I have heard teachers complain when they don't get a planning period because of an assembly. Many times, they are not planning but conducting business on the phone that should be done at home. I have heard teachers lay all the blame on parents for a child not learning. What do the teachers get paid to do? My child has about an hour and a half of homework each night. He is only in third grade. He spends an hour and a half on the bus in the morning and afternoon. We only live seven minutes from school, but the busses take a long route because the road I live on is very busy. An adult could not hold up to this work load.
I have seen young teachers who do not have the patience needed for teaching, belittle a child. I have seen older teachers who are burned out that really need to find another profession. Some teachers take the attitude that they are "experts" on children. Well these experts don't get the fact that a child without confidence in his or ability will not learn. These "experts" need to take some psychololgy classes or something that will enable them to look at the whole child and find ways to help them learn and quit laying blame elsewhere. We all share in the responsiblity. It is not all a parent's fault or a teacher's. I'm sorry this is so long winded, I just needed to vent my frustrations.
I see this is an old thread. One of the reasons people have a bad reaction to teachers is that they so often hear them complaining. I've heard it referred to as whining by others. Everyone's job is difficult, some more so.
This is what people don't like hearing. If more teachers worked in other fields for a while, ie, reverse the standard charge of comparison, you'd see that every job has it's difficulties. It may be in part that people can't appreciate what teachers go through. However, I think it may be more that teachers don't anticipate what their job entails before going into the field.
EVERYONE complains about their job. In all fields. Everyone, even actors who make millions and millions of $$$ a year, for three months of work, complain about what they do. That's why it is callled work. Everyone assumes they work the hardest and no one has it worse than them, LOL.
I would have to disagree with you about the statement "If more teachers worked in other fields for awhile..." Many of us have worked in other fields, and continue to do so, to supplement the pay we get. Now, I'm not complaining about the salary, but many of us work part time jobs during the school year, and work full time in the summer and on "breaks". Some of us have traveled another path, and have seen what others do in their jobs. I greatly appreciate what other people do, and that makes me all the better at what I do.
Not complaining, here, but this they-work-Sept-through-June, 8-3, no-weekends, no-holidays, summers-off, don't-have-real-jobs-get-out-in-the-real-world attitude just does not apply to some of us. Never has. I would veture to say, that if more people sat in on MY job, there would be a more positive attitude toward the teaching profession. I cannot even begin to count the number of people who have said, "I don't know how you do it...." But we do, and we do it because we love it. Most of the time- just like you and your job.
I am not here to bash all teachers. There are a few teachers who are in the profession for the right reasons, but my experience is that the majority is not. I am not a teacher, but an aide. I have worked in the system for about 4 years. The school I work at is wonderful and we have many wonderful teachers there, but the public school that my children attend is awful. I have 3 children with 3 different levels of ability. My oldest did wonderful in school, but was not prepared for college. I always thought that she was not being taught as well as she could have been. My middle child was labeled a slow learner, but was not offered any help from the school system. He was only put under a 504--on paper only. No actual provisions were made and I was told that I should thank the principal for doing that. It did allow him to have extra time on the EOG. Keep in mind that the teachers in our school district are given bonuses if the majority of their class pass their EOGs. My youngest child started Kindergarden loving to read and doing well in school until he hit first grade. He had a teacher who emotionally abused him. She was a perfectionist and yelled constantly at him. Now he is in third grade and he is pretty much in the same situation. Now he doesn't want to pick up a book and hates to read. All the research that I have seen says that if a parent reads or reads to a child he will love to read. He did until he started school. Now who gets the blame for that? He was diagnosed as having ADD. He has just now started receiving some extra help in Math, but he is being pressured to constantly perform. He has to walk laps everyday at recess for minor offenses--never behavior--just academic, sometimes for the entire recess time. He never really knows why he is being punished, other than for some "bad" grade that he has made. I have to sign a planner everday saying he has done his homework. One night we completed his homework, I signed the planner, and he still had to walk laps because he couldn't find it in his bookbag. I asked the teacher why didn't someone check his bookbag, that was the purpose of me signing it. She says that is not her responsibility. I asked to have a "buddy" assigned to him. A buddy would be another student who is organized that could help him. I was told that no one in her classroom is organized. Keep in mind that if I forget to sign the planner at any time, he has to walk laps. I have tried everything imaginable to get him organized, but I get no help at school. He is supposed to be responsible for everything. The teacher or aide will not turn their hand to help at all. I can understand teaching independence, but you have to help a child find the strategies that work for them, not let them struggle, fail, and criticize. The principal is of no help.
I have worked in the classrooms and substituted at times in my school. A teacher's job is demanding, but let's face it. It is not like working in a factory. I have heard teachers complain when they don't get a planning period because of an assembly. Many times, they are not planning but conducting business on the phone that should be done at home. I have heard teachers lay all the blame on parents for a child not learning. What do the teachers get paid to do? My child has about an hour and a half of homework each night. He is only in third grade. He spends an hour and a half on the bus in the morning and afternoon. We only live seven minutes from school, but the busses take a long route because the road I live on is very busy. An adult could not hold up to this work load.
I have seen young teachers who do not have the patience needed for teaching, belittle a child. I have seen older teachers who are burned out that really need to find another profession. Some teachers take the attitude that they are "experts" on children. Well these experts don't get the fact that a child without confidence in his or ability will not learn. These "experts" need to take some psychololgy classes or something that will enable them to look at the whole child and find ways to help them learn and quit laying blame elsewhere. We all share in the responsiblity. It is not all a parent's fault or a teacher's. I'm sorry this is so long winded, I just needed to vent my frustrations.
Wow - I feel like I could have written your post! I agree with so much of what you've said because I'm experiencing some of the same with my daughter who was recently dx'd ADD. I have also run into roadblocks and unsupportive teachers/administrators at my daughter's school. It makes me wonder why they are there in the first place if it's not for the children. I'm lucky (I guess) that with 3 children this has been our first bad experience with a teacher and administrators. But oh the damage it's done! (My daughter is currrently out of the school system being homeschooled.)
And I've worked as an aide and substitute teacher and am currently working toward my teaching credentials. Yes, with all that I see I want to be a teacher. I think the system has some pretty outstanding teachers, but there are some that REALLY shouldn't be there. The tenure system doesn't help matters. In any other profession you'd be canned (well, typically) if you were found to be incompetent. Teaching children is a major responsibility - a profession that holds MUCH more responsibility (imo) than others. The impression -- good or bad -- you make on a child as their teacher can last a lifetime.
Anyway, you aren't the only one out there in this situation! Hang in there.
It's a United States of America thing. We don't value education like other countries do.
I think we respect education but we don't respect teachers because teachers don't respect us. I'm U.S. born but my father was born and raised in a village in South India. Indians are great self-educators at an early age particularly from the village. Sometimes, these kids are smarter than the teachers who are just absolute bullies particularly the men. My dad told me many teachers who told him that he was going to be a failure. Now, that he is successful these teachers b.S. saying I had to do that to push you.
Dad was strong enough to ignore and take the teacher's bullying because he saw education as a way to get out of the village and his father's alcoholism and womanizing that tore the family apart. The problem with the education there is only a few can go to colleges or afford to do so without scholarship or sponsorship. My grandmother on my mother side sponsored him (you see the agenda).
The reality of the matter is that if you look at the economic side of the picture, it is easy to see the lowest common denominator. Education majors are not difficult, there are others that are easier, and others much more technically demanding, but education is not hard. The opportunity cost is obviously the median teacher pay, which in this country is not that great. The problem arises when people put economic stock in the extra effort they place on their jobs. There is really little incentive to put the extra effort on being a "teacher of difference" when you're not being really compensated much more for it. Consequently, most people who chose education when entering college are looking for a job that has perceived portability (could find a job anywhere in the country in theory) and is not technically demanding; if you don't acknowledge this you are being disingenuous or you have an overinflated perception of the value of your effort and the market is telling you otherwise. I taught at the undergraduate level in college as an engineering graduate student and had a friend doing her master's in education. Took her a whoppin' 2 semesters to complete and even she laughed it off as busy work, but easy. A whole class on lesson planning, gimme a break, and she acknowledges this. Also, everybody and their brother has an education degree, so your bargaining power in terms of salary is always going to stay at the median individual income or below, depending on the region. In a perfect world, yeah the teaching profession would be this puritanical pursuit where every parent would bow and recognize the role people who influence a child's learning have on society. The reality is that the school teacher's role is to offset the opportunity cost of adults having to not work in order to teach their offspring. Plain and simple. In addition to having being involved in collegiate academia (and the racket that it is), as a military pilot and a civilian flight instructor I have had exposure to students and teaching as a value, and I can safely say that it's not that hard of a job at the K-12 level on a technical front, and whatever administrative training one receives as an education major does not command the kind of salary most people think their "passion for teaching" entitles them to earn based on the a puritanical valuation of what teachers do macroscopically (which I agree is honorable). So yeah, do your job professionally like everybody else, but don't act shocked or complain that you feel undervalued when you know that the road to becoming a school teacher is rather easy when compared to other professions that, mind you, require teaching as a mere side duty to the primary job. Or pick a different profession that compensates (in money and QOL) to your liking. It is what it is.
I think we respect education but we don't respect teachers because teachers don't respect us.
Oh, hon, Your Dad needed to be in my class. He would have loved school.
Yes, I agree. There are many folks who should have never stepped foot in a classroom. But then, there are people who think teaching is a job for monkeys, so easy anyone could do it- hmmmmm, perhaps they may want to rethink that. Sorry your Dad had such a horrible time. Some of us are really great at what we do.
The reality of the matter is that if you look at the economic side of the picture, it is easy to see the lowest common denominator. Education majors are not difficult, there are others that are easier, and others much more technically demanding, but education is not hard. The opportunity cost is obviously the median teacher pay, which in this country is not that great. The problem arises when people put economic stock in the extra effort they place on their jobs. There is really little incentive to put the extra effort on being a "teacher of difference" when you're not being really compensated much more for it. Consequently, most people who chose education when entering college are looking for a job that has perceived portability (could find a job anywhere in the country in theory) and is not technically demanding; if you don't acknowledge this you are being disingenuous or you have an overinflated perception of the value of your effort and the market is telling you otherwise. I taught at the undergraduate level in college as an engineering graduate student and had a friend doing her master's in education. Took her a whoppin' 2 semesters to complete and even she laughed it off as busy work, but easy. A whole class on lesson planning, gimme a break, and she acknowledges this. Also, everybody and their brother has an education degree, so your bargaining power in terms of salary is always going to stay at the median individual income or below, depending on the region. In a perfect world, yeah the teaching profession would be this puritanical pursuit where every parent would bow and recognize the role people who influence a child's learning have on society. The reality is that the school teacher's role is to offset the opportunity cost of adults having to not work in order to teach their offspring. Plain and simple. In addition to having being involved in collegiate academia (and the racket that it is), as a military pilot and a civilian flight instructor I have had exposure to students and teaching as a value, and I can safely say that it's not that hard of a job at the K-12 level on a technical front, and whatever administrative training one receives as an education major does not command the kind of salary most people think their "passion for teaching" entitles them to earn based on the a puritanical valuation of what teachers do macroscopically (which I agree is honorable). So yeah, do your job professionally like everybody else, but don't act shocked or complain that you feel undervalued when you know that the road to becoming a school teacher is rather easy when compared to other professions that, mind you, require teaching as a mere side duty to the primary job. Or pick a different profession that compensates (in money and QOL) to your liking. It is what it is.
Very, very well said. True throughout.
Oh, and for the detractors: I have been teaching full-time in the public school system for over a decade. Education was absurdly simple.
If teachers wish to gain greater respect, here's the Charles Wallace plan:
1. Do away with "education" as a major altogether. It should be, at best, a supplement to an undergraduate major in a core content area (math, science, history, English, foreign language, humanities).
2. Do away with "education professors" (a real oxymoron) and have education workshops taught by master teachers who are currently teaching in the public or private school system. Have them focused on the practicalities of being a teacher (classroom management, differentiation, IEPs, lesson plans, and so on).
3. Raise the intellectual stakes. No one should be a teacher if s/he is not capable of achieving an average or better score on the SAT or GRE and maintaining an overall GPA of 2.75 cumulative/3.0 major subject courses.
4. Have longer periods of student teaching. Teachers should student-teach for three semesters and at least one of them should be in a lower-income school.
That would help, I think.
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I wonder how many of the people posting negative comments about teachers have even been in a classroom. Yes, there are bad teachers out there who just simply don't care, but there are bad nurses and lawyers out there too. Why are we spending so much time focusing on all the bad teachers and a good one can't even get a simple thank you. 
Why teachers are looked down upon
