Mumsnet Talk

because I doubt I have the time or energy to argue my point. So I'm just going to say what I think and bugger off.

It is not so odd for teachers to feel that parents simply do not understand what a teachers job actually entails.

It simply baffles me that some parents think it is an affront for a teacher to suggest that they cannot understand teaching as a profession and what goes on behind the scenes.

Why be affronted? It's not as if I would say to a brain surgeon "oh you should operate in this manner while in theatre" or "you should open the skull this way before cutting this way" without expecting the surgeon to laugh in my face. After all, I don't know how to do the surgeons job, so he would be quite right to think and say that I don't. Bad analogy I know.

So why do some parents get so bent out of shape if they are told that they don't know what a teachers job actually entails.

I don't know if I am being clear here but... yeah...

I see what you mean, I think..
some parents think it's all about reading them stories or doing hand prints - something that anyone could easily do...wrong,
there are so many aspects of educating a child, and not many people are/would be able to deal with a class of children while trying to make them learn something.

AS parents we are all educators as well and knowing our children best gives us the impression, that we could do a teacher's job.

well anyone out there thinking that - I'd say ok, try it!

ignorance. and i mean that nicely. they are ignorant of the complexities of the role.
ownership. children are owned by parents. teachers intervene in the socialisation of children. parents have to reclaim their ownership by dissing the teachers.
some parts of teaching are like parenting. some parts of parenting, particularly if you are really interested in child development, are like teaching.
but the two roles are not the same.

This reminds me of an anecdote I read in a book once (no idea what book sorry, it's late and I'm tired and very pregnant) - writer meets brain surgeon at party. Brain surgeon says, 'Oh I plan to become a writer when I retire'. Writer replies, 'That's funny, because I plan to become a brain surgeon when I retire!'



My DMum was an absolute terror for telling all my teachers how to do their job - although she was a teacher too, which might have made it a bit more acceptable had she not given up teaching a good 10 years before I started school...

Especially when teachers dare to tell off their darling children!

I'm sure there's a history to this that I"m unaware of

But happy to put up my hand and say I have very little knowledge or understanding of what goes on in my dd's classroom, absolutely no concept of how you keep 30 children from rioting while also instilling learning into their blessed little heads, and so long as my dd is happy and thriving I am happy to treat her teachers as goddesses

Ha! I didn't think this was going to get any replies!

The problem is that most parents have been to school so think they know all a teacher does - and if they were good teachers they would have made it look easy.

Now I watched the Olympics - and it all looked bloody easy to do!

I'm the other way round. I'm eternally grateful that there are teachers, and I often get my face bent out of shape over homework, because I simply cannot teach my child, it always ends in a row. So I end up mithering about why I have to do sodding homework with him, because I am not professionally trained and I DON'T KNOW HOW.

Yabu. Completely.

Unless you have had control 20+ children who are in no way related to you, then you have no idea what it is like to be a teacher.

I teach secondary school English, and I've lost count of how many times a parent has suggested how I should do my job... I don't usually take it to heart, as they don't usually mean anything malicious by it. Most of them have just honestly got no idea what it is really like in bottom set year nine on a Friday afternoon (I know I didn't before I started TAing), and sometimes they genuinely forget that I have 29 other bodies to worry about, alongside Little Johnny. It's only the VERY aggressive, arrogant parents that I believe are purposely ignorant of what we do.

I know what you mean.

I run a preschool and the amount of bloody paperwork that is involved is getting worse.....I doubt the parents have a clue what I do on a daily basis, let alone the work I do in my own time

My Dsis is a teacher and senco so I feel I do know the rough basics of what the job entails.

It is for this reason I would rather cover myself in honey and run at a beehive than ruin the future of the next generation with my total inability to do the job.

I am however quite good at those cbeebies workbooks so I could be a TA yes? ;)

Some parents are great - supportive and realustic - I'd love some of the others to come and do battle with one of my classes of 20+ teens for an hour before they preach at me though...

Sorry OP. I misread, YANBU...at all.

The parents ABU.

I was defending teachers in my first post though,despite the misreading.

I am completely in awe of my ds nursery teacher. She's not my favourite person but he thinks she's great and he has learnt so much since he has been there. I could never have achieved all that and i only have 2 of them she has about 8 to look after/teach.

Yes I completely agree (I say that as someone who taught in a previous life) but here's another one...

Is it not an affront when teachers don't take parents' thoughts/ worries into consideration due to the fact that they are the professionals? I am my child's mother, I may have some idea about what might be help him/her in the long run. (I say that bit as a mother. A frustrated one who wasn't allowed to do certain things as they just aren't done at our school.

Mutual respect and cooperation all the way baby.

Got carried away. Here's the other bracket )

I agree with byeck

But don't you just come in, do a bit of finger painting and read them a few stories?

And then go home at about lunchtime and have eight weeks off in the summer?

Surely it can't be that hard?

<ducks and runs>

Ironic post surely Maryz?

I home educate and I am in AWE of teachers. My sister is a teacher in an inner london primary and I have literally no idea how she does it.

I can control and educate my kids because, well, there are two of them and I have known them all their lives, know if they slept well last night, can tell when one of them is getting annoyed and needs a break, etc.

Imagine not knowing all that, or even what kind of family the child has, meeting a new group of 30 every year, plus kids changing school, dealing with all the different needs, targets, paperwork, rigid timetables, limited resources, then getting arsy parents on top. Nightmare!

What about teachers who are parents?

I know how hard it is to be a teacher and I still think DD's teacher is a twat

On the other hand, if teacher me met parent me I'd probably think I was a twat too.

I'm a secondary teacher Mary. We don't do finger painting. We let them watch DVDs all day instead. Unsuitable ones, generally.

There's like 13 weeks off a year and you only work 9-3. It must be EASY!

Seriously now, I have so much respect for teachers, they're magical snake charmers, how you can spend days with 30 of the buggers darlings, I do not know.

The amount of work that goes into planning what seems like a simple lesson is incredible. I couldn't do the job for all the money in the world.