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Things haven't really changed that much over the decades. Teaching is very stressful. Kids aren't being disciplined at home in many cases so they are disruptive in class. Try teaching anything when even one kid is jumping up and down in his seat, calling you names, throwing things. And you aren't allowed to do anything about it. The principal won't support you. The other kids all join in.
There is no time for lunch or to relax or to get caught up or revise your lesson plans during the day. As many teachers will tell, you, there is no time to go to the bathroom!
These days we even have police stationed in the school. Lockers are searched for guns and knives. Superintendents spend their time coming up with silly innovations that interfere with teaching. Just allow the teachers to teach! Get a qualified school board and a down to earth superintendent who isn't just in it for the money. It might be a good job in rare circumstances but I have heard nightmare stories and early retirement from teachers in lovely upper middle class towns. No one listens to the teachers!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe that is the result of CRT in government run schools?
Things haven't really changed that much over the decades. Teaching is very stressful. Kids aren't being disciplined at home in many cases so they are disruptive in class. Try teaching anything when even one kid is jumping up and down in his seat, calling you names, throwing things. And you aren't allowed to do anything about it. The principal won't support you. The other kids all join in.
There is no time for lunch or to relax or to get caught up or revise your lesson plans during the day. As many teachers will tell, you, there is no time to go to the bathroom!
These days we even have police stationed in the school. Lockers are searched for guns and knives. Superintendents spend their time coming up with silly innovations that interfere with teaching. Just allow the teachers to teach! Get a qualified school board and a down to earth superintendent who isn't just in it for the money. It might be a good job in rare circumstances but I have heard nightmare stories and early retirement from teachers in lovely upper middle class towns. No one listens to the teachers!!!!!!!!!!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heidi60
Maybe that is the result of CRT in government run schools?
What? I said "things haven't really changed that much over the DECADES." Maybe you didn't notice but there was no CRT back in 1990 or the following years up until now. We're not talking about politics.
It's absolutely nuts to compare teaching in the 90s to (and being a para, at that) to being in the third year of pandemic teaching in 2021. Things are different now in many ways, and were even before all the extra insanity of the last three school years.
IMO the single biggest difference is the lack of staffing. Everyone is doing multiple jobs. Pre-pandemic, many districts had already cut instructional staff numbers to the bone for budget reasons, running with minimal paras and only enough faculty to fill a schedule, with specialists serving multiple campuses. Now, as a wave of employees have retired/quit due to Covid, their empty positions have proven hard to fill. All other issues in education aside, with the nationwide sub shortage, there's just not enough warm bodies in a school building these days to offer full supervision and a full schedule and also provide time for preps, collab, intervention, enrichment, etc.
At the very time when people should be taking the most care of their health it's a huge guilt trip to even take a sick day. At a friend's school, they have the principal, librarian, "specials" teachers (art, music, gym, etc.), and aides covering classes most days because there are no subs and a bunch of teachers are out with Covid and or/quarantined. This means that the daily jobs that would normally be done by those staff are now picked up by the classroom teachers - can't send a disruptive kid to the office, don't have an aide to help meet IEP requirements, no prep breaks for the teacher while the kids go to gym or music - which spreads people really thin, especially as class sizes are pretty big this year. And this is at a time when MORE support is what's needed, not less, as kids are struggling academically and socio-emotionally due to the events of the last few years.
At the start of the pandemic parents were pretty cooperative, but now it's all "how dare you send my baby home just because he has a 101 degree fever, it's just allergies."
Teachers and other school staff are expected to suck it up because things are tough all over and at least they have steady employment - which, fair enough, but it must be heartbreaking to want to do what's right for your students and be unable to do so because there simply isn't enough of "you" to go around.
So what's a teacher supposed to tell a prospective teacher? On the one hand, yes, more teachers are needed, so scaring them off isn't a great idea in the big picture. On the other hand, if you sugar-coat it you're basically lying to a naïve kid.
I was very involved at the schools until 2016, later on frequently helping a friend in her classroom. There was a lot of p...ing and m...ing back then among staff, usually for understandable reasons. But..., how is this supposed to help encourage a new prospective teacher?
And, working as an RN was, to put it mildly(!) rather stressful, too...but I would never tell a student how horrible it is to be a nurse! As a matter of fact, as demanding as it was, it was one of the most personally rewarding things I had ever done. Working with kids was another. There are similarities in these fields.
We sure do need a fresh supply of intelligent, resilient,competent nurses as well as teachers. I think this young woman could be one of them, given encouragement. They need to fight for their needs and for power as professionals, and she intends to to work towards this for her fellow teachers, she tells me. I say hurray for her!
The person I know who took early retirement from a wealthy suburb near Boston just says she would never tell a young person to become a teacher. She won't tell them not to, she'll just remain neutral.
If a person can handle the stress of the unruly kids and the distant but interfering administrators, the falling apart schools (in the wealthy suburb) the roof leaked and there was a serious mold problem but no one of the Higher Ups even cared, and if maybe the person can find a well managed school system that still uses some discipline, then they could be happy being a teacher. It takes a really strong person who at the same time is somewhat easy going. Most of the teachers I taught with in my last school were pretty depressed and were only staying on for the pension.
I was very involved at the schools until 2016, later on frequently helping a friend in her classroom. There was a lot of p...ing and m...ing back then among staff, usually for understandable reasons. But..., how is this supposed to help encourage a new prospective teacher?
And, working as an RN was, to put it mildly(!) rather stressful, too...but I would never tell a student how horrible it is to be a nurse! As a matter of fact, as demanding as it was, it was one of the most personally rewarding things I had ever done. Working with kids was another. There are similarities in these fields.
We sure do need a fresh supply of intelligent, resilient,competent nurses as well as teachers. I think this young woman could be one of them, given encouragement. They need to fight for their needs and for power as professionals, and she intends to to work towards this for her fellow teachers, she tells me. I say hurray for her!
Given your enthusiasm, it sounds like it's time for you yourself to return to the classroom. There's a huge sub shortage across the nation this year - why haven't you stepped up and contributed in this capacity? Even a day or two per week would be very helpful, especially given your level of experience.
I agree. I've been on my fair share of hiring committees and we would never hire someone who has their elder friend handle their personal business for them.
I had a case like that. We needed to fill a position in social studies and had quite a few applicants, and 3 of the interviews seemed pretty solid. I thought I'd think it over for 24 hours, although I had pretty much decided on which candidate to hire. The next morning I got a call from her mother giving her a recommendation. That alone led to me to go with another candidate.
Given your enthusiasm, it sounds like it's time for you yourself to return to the classroom. There's a huge sub shortage across the nation this year - why haven't you stepped up and contributed in this capacity? Even a day or two per week would be very helpful, especially given your level of experience.
I had a case like that. We needed to fill a position in social studies and had quite a few applicants, and 3 of the interviews seemed pretty solid. I thought I'd think it over for 24 hours, although I had pretty much decided on which candidate to hire. The next morning I got a call from her mother giving her a recommendation. That alone led to me to go with another candidate.
Obviously the mother wasn't in charge of grant funding for a corporation. That always changes the equation.
Thank you for your positive vibes and support of our wacky profession (I could write a book a year!).
I have something that you can pass along to her, if you think it would help. I've been teaching in a classroom setting for almost 20 years, so I can say I've got a bit of experience.
Simply stated, this is the most wonderful profession out there. I understand that it is not a profession that everyone will pursue, nor will some people connect with the profession as deeply as others, but I assert that it will always give back what you put into it, and then some.
I think a good metric of your success in life is whether you can be confident that at least a few people will be standing over your grave when you are gone, and that they are able to say that their lives were better because you were in it. Few other professions give you the opportunity to make such a wide, positive impact on so many lives as teaching.
It does not come without stressors, and certainly outside forces can negatively impact your experience in the profession, but so many times that stress comes from factors that you can ignore for a while when you shut your door, and it is just you and the students. Lack of administrative and parental support, less-than-stellar colleagues, lack of resources, etc. are all real factors, but they don't have to negatively affect your mindset when you are there in the classroom and it's just you and the students.
It's funny, but there are still many times when, after the hours of behind-the-scenes planning, after the meetings with school psychologists for the student in need, after confiscating that one students' phone for the 3rd time that week (complete with requisite eye rolls every time) I thought a lot about how to make this student study well and instill in him an interest in school sciences. After all, his future will envy him and whether he will be able to go to a good college. When I read examples of essays about life and useful life hacks go here I found different ways to motivate students who have discipline problems in school. But so far I have not found the right approach to this student. After finding the graph paper missing, after all of those things, I find myself circulating in the middle of some practice that the students are doing and they are hitting that groove where they are all engaged, working, and learning and I take that quiet moment to be thankful for them and for the experience of being part of their growth.
If the negative teachers carry the burden of missing out on all of the positive things that you can reap from the profession, she has little to no power over that, but I hope she stays and goes in every day with a positive mindset and teaches those kids the best she can. Her life will be much richer for it.
I agree with you that teaching is a difficult profession. But she inspires me. I had wonderful teachers at school, and after graduating from the university I plan to be a teacher myself. I understand that work can be stressful at times. But it seems to me that seeing your students succeed is the best thing in the job. Especially when a graduate can say that he entered the university, including thanks to the knowledge that he was given in your lectures.
Last edited by ChrissFL; 01-20-2023 at 01:33 PM..
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