Why do so many people dislike the teaching profession?

[LucyLastik]

As the thread title asks.

I'm really interested to know where this negativity has come from. I'm suspecting Covid but if we don't get to the root cause of it, will the teaching profession ever be seen in a positive light?

Random musings...

The full time salary is not high at all,
this is a graduate job and for many also a post graduate qualification

The starting salary for many years has been £25k with rises to £35k after about 6 years . It has just been increased at the bottom but £35k is not a high graduate salary after 6 years.

most teachers are on the basic rates as additional allowances have been slashed over the past 15 years

I think, sometimes there are misconceptions on both sides
some (certainly not all) people mistakenly think that teachers only work school hours
some (certainly not all) teachers think people in other jobs don't work as long hours or are paid significantly better.

I have a friend who is a teacher who often puts memes on fb like "ain't no tired like end of term teacher tired" ...which slightly grates because lots of jobs have stressful/tiring periods (not always followed by some time off)

That said I have huge respect for teachers - I definitely couldn't do it. Most of the teachers I know seem to enjoy their jobs and have time for family, hobbies and social lives, which is not always the impression I get from MN teachers.

The thing is with teachers its like they expect a continuous round of applaud. Yes we are all aware its a difficult job, we get that because most teachers never shut up about it and also because most parents have the intelligence to realise it.
l have nothing against teachers but l do think the school system is antiquated and not really preparing students for the world we live in today.
All proffessions receive criticism, not just teachers, and some teachers as in any job are better equipped than others.
l would say from my own experiance l lost confidence when my 13 yr old son suffered an anxiety disorder. His wellbeing was of no concern, they just wanted him in school no matter what. They were alot more bothered about the effect it was having on their attendance figures. The pressure they put on us was little short of cruel at a time when we were fighting with everything we' d got. They totally underestimated the effect it was having on our everyday life and family as a whole, to them that wasn' t important, they just wanted to tick the box to say he attended, and there are thousands of parents in the same boat on the forum Not Fine At School all saying the same, the support they received was next to useless, which is why so many resort to deregistering.

@MiddleAgedTraveller i find this confusing. If teachers are only supposed to work 32.5 hours a week 39 weeks a year then they are paid vastly more than nurses or policeman.

They are paid about the same starting salary as nurses

nurses and police are eligible for over time or time off in lieu or anti social hours payments

teachers do not get any of those

police is not a graduate job but the basic pay bands pay more than basic teacher pay bands

I'm not sure why some people are criticising the education set up or inflexible systems in schools when these are not set by teachers! I'm sure a lot of teachers would have many complaints, or suggestions how things could be improved.

NHS is a 37.5 hr week
police is 37 hrs a week

police get toil at constable and sergeant level. They also get overtime opportunities and pay.

@Diamond7272 I assume you are joking that you don't know what neuro-diverse means. I hope you are!
Theon reason

I think there is a tendency on here to want to give the OP a kicking, and not just on AIBU any more, unfortunately. So if someone says they are a teacher, they get a load of abuse. OTOH, there’s also a tendency to downplay it if a teacher has done something wrong, no teacher would have done that, your child must be badly behaved sort of replies.

Posted to soon. The main reason people have turned on teachers is because the media (Which is of course mainly right wing) hates teachers so has spent years undermining them. People lap it up as critical thinking isn't great.

A lot of teachers seem to think nobody else works extra hours, works in the evening. A few teacher friends haven't ever worked outside teaching so don't be realise that in lots of office jobs paying by similar to teaching, people are regularly going in early /staying late, and taking their laptop home and ended up doing some work in the evening or the weekend. I think there's a perception that other people in '9-5' jobs actually work 9-5.....um no.
Also lots of complaints from teachers that they even work through lunchbreaks with kids coming and disturbing them. Hands up office workers /NHS workers /pretty much any workers really, if you never take a full lunch break /are regularly disturbed during lunch by something needing doing right now.....

I have a lot of time for teachers… my sister is one but you do see regular posts on here along the lines of “ Why does no-one like us?” You don’t tend to see police officers, social workers etc posting those types of posts despite arguably being considerably more disliked in reality. Why is that?

Also bear in mind that those of us who teach in further education don’t get the pay or the holidays that school teachers get. The maximum teachers salary where I work is just over £31000, the working/teaching day is 9-5 with evening teaching an expectation for many, and a holiday allowance of X number of days (which we can only take in holiday periods) like a normal job not like teachers get. But we’re lumped in with the ‘work-shy, 13 weeks holiday a year, overpaid’ stereotype. All of the stress, none of the perks! And yes I accept a work pattern expectation just like the rest of the population.

During lockdown I took complaints from parents that during live streamed lessons (which we did from day 1) they could hear the teachers children in the background … and they felt that this was unacceptable … teacher was a single parent with 2 primary age children so I’m not quite sure what he was supposed to do! (Ironically the parent was working from home sat next to their child whilst they did their lesson hence hearing the noise, I’m assuming if she’d been in meetings her child would have been audible in the background!)

But like any role, there are good members of staff and poor ones, and like everyone, none of us like being stereotyped or lumped into an ‘all x profession are like this’ situation.

The unanswerable question is, if the pay and working hours compare so well to other professions, why are there so many teaching vacancies and why are so many training places unfilled?

Reputation really matters.

Before I was a teacher I worked in the NHS and before that, in the arts.

I have had three careers in a row that many people think they can express an (uninformed) opinion on because they once performed in a show/were treated in a hospital/went to a school!

Tbh I have felt quite burnt out since 2020 but I reckon I've got the energy for one more career before retirement. I'm going to pick something very niche, I think...something technical so people back away from you at parties...

This again?!

The trouble is as a teacher you are effectively having to manage so many peoples expectations/demands you can't possibly please everyone.
You have the 30 children in your class + 60 parents/guardians + 5 or so senior management + the lea etc. You have over 90 people who will have an opinion on your work, and out of that 90 you will almost certainly have a percentage that will be unreasonable/ or just simply give you a hard time. Even if 98% of the people you deal with are happy it's always the complaints that stick with you and get in your head but really the vast majority are perfectly happy with you, they just don't tend to tell you so until maybe the end of the school year.

Its in the governments interest for people to dislike teachers and schools as it stops the public holding the government to account for education policy.

@PremiumPiglet those extra payments are only if you work unsociable hours such as night shift and weekend work. Nurses who work Monday-Friday 9-5 aren't eligible for this.
Teachers are paid more. If nurses (which a lot of people do) stay at band 5 staff nurse level that pay increases to £32 900.

Massive respect for teachers, I have a number of friends and family members who are teachers! A few of my teachers really had an influence on me!
It's just the moaning about how hard they work and no one else knows etc when there are a lot of stressful/emotionally draining jobs out there! Whilst I do understand it's stressful it's not the only job that is!

I don’t dislike teachers. My own children’s teachers have nearly all been excellent. I think teaching as a profession today is light years ahead of where it was when I was a child.

if you’re asking what issues I have with teaching as a profession here are two:

(1) the resistance for a long time to performance management (appraisals). Afger university (25 years ago) a friend went into teaching and was aghast at the idea of performance management. Whereas the rest of the working world has had them forever

(2) the moaning that it’s the hardest job ever - evidence: all the posts on Facebook from teacher friends (at the beginning and end of the school year especially). I’ve no doubt it is a tough job. But I don’t see others with what I would consider tough jobs (eg doctors, vets - examples of friends jobs that come to mind) going on about ut

Which is fine but as a teacher you don’t get the option to boost your salary by doing any additional or anti social hours

at the end of my road police sit in minibuses on standby many weekends . The constant (loud) conversation is how much they are being paid over time to do that. (Very central London). They are certainly not working for free whilst the teachers are criticised for not attending pta events in their own time

There have been a few of these threads recently. Teachers seem far too bothered about what people think about them. Loads of professions get criticised on MN, get over it.

I also find that the approach if the teaching profession can be inflexible and not very understanding of some of the realities for other people’s lives: I think a big part of the problem is that many teachers have never done anything but education in one form or another, and many teachers (understandably) are friends with other teachers, so there is a general lack of insight into the rest of the world.

This seems rather typical of the public misconception, not being able to distinguish the teaching profession from the education system.

Teachers teach. That's the teaching profession.

Any inflexibility to the working circumstances of parents is the education system. That's politics and politicians setting the standards, rules and expectations of teaching and learning. That's not the teaching profession.

So why don’t you say this in your first post? There’s a disingenuousness to your “random musings”.

in my case because of the utter wokeness

I think it's like any profession.
You get teachers that get your child and bring out the best in them and teachers that don't understand your child and don't want to meet their unique needs.
But we as a collective only focus on the ones that we've not particularly liked 🤷‍♀️.
Most teachers are amazing and go above and beyond and I'm in awe of those.