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...

Peoples’ view of teachers is driven by individual experience - if they’ve had a negative experience then it’s tempting to tar all teachers with the same brush.

We’ve only had positive experiences of the teachers at dds school so we have a positive view of teachers. Added to that a close friend has been a teacher for a long time and I see in her dedication, hard work and a genuine desire to help her pupils.
But appreciate my view is biased towards my experience.

Not everyone on MN has a negative view of teachers. It’s just that most posts are on AIBU and most AIBU posts are a moan.

IRL I’ve seen a lot of gratitude and appreciation from parents of teaching staff at dds school.

And for what it’s worth I don’t think it’s an easy job at all. I’m a lawyer and I think that’s probably a walk in the park in comparison.

It's not new with Covid. I hated school and was often frustrated with my teachers. As an adult I've always been wary of teachers as they always seem to be so bloody right - sure of their views and not open to other ideas (huge generalisation, I know. Just the ones I've met!) I've worked as support staff in a school and this did nothing to change my view - i hated the staff room discussions. We were house hunting and at one house the estate agent said that a lot of teachers lived in that road (near the school) and it took me a minute to realise he saw this as a positive selling point. Nope. I know IABU but.... I'm not a fan of teachers in general. I've also done some tutoring (in TEFL) and so do have an idea how hard it must be, so kudos to them for their perseverance.

How do we solve this issue though?

I had fantastic teachers at school, however since becoming an adult and having my own Dc my view of teachers has changed massively ( not in a positive way).

op. They could start with a few more evening options. And maybe not out everything on a Tuesday and Wednesday when the vast majority of part timers work. And as teacher saying they don’t just work the school day maybe they could demonstrate that.

most people have had an awful teacher when they were a kid

I'm a teacher and I wish I knew where all these supportive, awe inspired people have been for 30 years! 🤣🤣
Reasons for negative attitudes- my personal thoughts only

1. It's a female dominated profession in Early Years and Primary anyway. That devalues it.
2. Since it became politicised it became a tool for bashing the opposition- failing education system- shit teachers
3. People think they know what teachers do because they went to school 🙄and it seemed easy
4. People resent, deeply resent , the holidays ( but never enough to become a teacher themselves)

I didn't dislike teachers until I joined Mumsnet and started to read the things some teachers said. Real horrors that made me long to ask why, if they didn't understand that being a teacher would bring them into contact with children and young people and resented having to hold conversations with their parents, they didn't go and do something else.

But then I reminded myself that they were young and bumptious in the main and that there were plenty of normal, generally more experienced teachers about who I liked. Also I suspected some of them were just getting carried away like people do on the internet. At least that's what I preferred to tell myself.

I can always tell I'm not going to get on with someone who advises any parent who wants to raise a problem with the school: "don't go in there all guns blazing" and "we call mothers like you "that parent" in the staff room.'

I don't give a shit what people call me behind my back. I simply expect that if I raise an issue about my child it will be dealt with after a civilised discussion at which I would be open to the concept that my child wasn't always in the right and may have put a bit of a spin on their version of events;. And if it takes more than one discussion I will persist but always in a civilised manner.

You sound like a very committed teacher. The kids you taught were fortunate. I don't want to discourage teachers like you.
I am appalled by the selfish unprofessional and lazy attitude in others though and how some kids really suffered from a complete lack of care or concern during Covid.
And it made me super annoyed when I saw all the posts about teachers being key workers when half of them didn't leave home or give two f*cks about their class.
I know there are some lazy nurses but as a profession I feel they really do earn their salary and some. But teachers have totally gone down in my estimation (and after my own experiences as a parent of primary school children they weren't that high anyway). I do think secondary school teachers are better on the whole.

I agree with covid and lack of teaching. My son was about to do his A levels when covid struck. The moment it was made known that the A level exams wouldn't go ahead, he literally never heard a thing from any of his teachers thereafter. The thing was that the courses hadn't finished and there was nothing from his teachers to finish the sections outstanding. Fair enough, doesn't matter for those who didn't need it once the exams weren't going ahead, but he had "gaps" in two A level subjects that caused issues when he started his degree and he struggled with lack of knowledge of the bits they hadn't bothered teaching.

My DD was similarly screwed over. At the point where teaching stopped and they were told to give grades on work already done, she really wasn’t the finished article. Those last few weeks of revision, consolidation and exam technique would have made all the difference to her grades. Luckily the university she eventually went to were pretty good at plugging gaps and getting everyone up to standard. Everyone was in the same boat at least.

I've been a teacher and there's a lot of issues that trickle down to the classroom from politics, OFSTED, academy chains and management. The classroom teacher tends to be the visible face of this.

Not all teachers are equal. Some are great and some are... not.

The Covid years did not do the profession many favours. Particularly in the first lockdown, standards were variable to put it mildly. My DCs were at the same school. One teacher put a lot of effort into planning accessible work and did a weekly quiz to keep in touch, the other phoned once and sent out lesson plans that would not have been acceptable to have left for a supply teacher and of a poor quality that could not be printed. This was for my child with recently diagnosed SENs. There was zero concern that he wasn't capable of completing work for half a school year.

Beyond that period, schools keeping parents at arms length has been very damaging. Seguing into SEN provision, it doesn't have to mean expensive or time consuming measures. It would have cost virtually nothing to allow DS to use a PEN in line with the recommendations from the specialist who diagnosed his dyslexia/ dyspraxia. This didn't become apparent until we finally had an in-person parents evening halfway through year 6. It looks like the teacher would have sent him off to secondary school with no experience of using the appropriate writing equipment 🤦‍♀️ He also has a laptop (paid for by us) that he should use to prevent fatigue and the first teacher of the year was unaware of this adaption despite having previously been the SENCO that I had communicated with about it in a previous school year.
This doesn't mean I hate teachers, but I am jaded about poor practice at present!

There is a vocal core of whinging MN teachers who do not represent their profession well, again especially through the Covid years. When I taught, there was normally a small minority of whingers in the corner of any staffroom who seemed to have lost any love of anything connected with the profession and often seemed to count the terms down until they could claim their pension. They're not representative of the masses though and have probably reduced in number through recent years of performance management.
While teachers often face unrealistic criticism, sometimes there is justified or constructive criticism and they're human not superheroes. I have encountered a few that will talk to anyone like a disobedient juvenille (as a petite woman, if I made the error of wearing something that blended too well with a uniform, I copped this on many occasions!) It's an attitude that wins no friends!

As a profession, pretty much everyone encounters teachers as children/ parents so it's easy to form some form of opinion about it.

Most teachers do a decent/ good/ great job often in challenging circumstances though. I still know many and while the politics wears them down, they believe in what they teach and their young people.

So I suppose it would be fair to say that Covid has had an impact on the perception of teachers?

I'm beginning to see that the teaching profession en masse isn't particularly the issue, it's the lack of understanding of children with additional needs and it is the lack of clarity/disparity with regard to home learning (amongst other things but these seem to be the main issues that are coming up).

Fwiw I don't believe teachers work harder than anyone else and I have been involved in jobs outside of teaching. I came to my career fairly late; my children were 14, 10 and 8 when I started teaching. I did have a career in another child centred field. I couldn't imagine working in a medical environment or any of the other essential services but do not dispute that these roles are tough.

I also feel there's a lot of bad feeling about the holidays teachers get but I'm not sure how that can be held against teachers. We know that these are undoubtedly a perk of the job. I suppose it's the pay vs holiday argument isn't it? Especially when people feel that there is a lot of 'moaning' ( which there undoubtedly is from some teachers).

I have a few friends who are teachers and have a lot of respect for what they do, I couldn't do it. However it pisses me off when they moan that their holidays don't 100% match the holidays of their kids school and then they are asking what they are meant to do about being expected to work when their kids are off school..... how about the same as us and pay for childcare! It's not all but some seem reluctant to, it's like they got into the profession to avoid the childcare headache and are genuinely cross of it doesn't work out

The holiday thing does not bother me at all - can you imagine how annoying it is to always have to holiday at peak times - expensive and busy.
It's their attitude that I find frustrating, they hate being challenged and get very defensive, it really doesn't help when you need to bring up a concern - I suppose the same attitude creeps in from the medical profession but is becoming less common. They increasingly listen to parents who know their child best. People no longer accept the expert knows everything - they don't/can't know everything about the individual, and something important can be easily missed, the parent-teacher partnership is so important.

I am all for teachers being paid more (a lot more), getting rid of league tables, but attracting people who really understand and accept the job in its entirety - and that includes dealing with parents in a sympathetic manner, for better or worse it's part of the job and maybe someone needs to explain that to new teacher applicants because so many teachers seem to feel it's an unnecessary bolt on they simply tolerate - that attitude does not help.

I've seen teachers on here saying they don't get paid for their holidays. I don't really understand what that means? There is usually an advertised salary and (as far as I know) it's paid in 12 monthly instalments....just like other jobs?

Legally you have to get paid holiday - they just might not get paid for all the holiday - I don't think it matters - they get paid an annual salary...it's pro rata if they don't get paid holidays and maybe it should be quoted that way - I'm not sure it appears any better that way.

@Fizbosshoes my understanding is they get paid in the holiday as the pay is spread out that way - but not for all the holidays. Obviously some official holiday allowance is taken into account and paid as everyone is legally entitled to paid holiday. But not not the full children’s holiday dates. I think this is the case for everyone who works in the school, it’s pro rata.
I think it’s common for teachers to work 10 hour days and do some work evenings and weekends too. Then also some work in the school holidays. Whether that balances things correctly or not I’m not sure. It seems to vary so much from school to school! There was a thread not long ago where some teachers stated they’d done a substantial amount of work in the holidays and some hadn’t needed to. I think the problem is that the ‘bad’ teachers that some describe maybe do choose to just work their paid hours, or set boundaries based on what they know they get paid, which I think is fair enough in all honesty. The ones who give that extra which will make a substantial difference to the class and individuals are the ones working perhaps harder and longer than they technically should.
‘Working hours’ for teachers - so exactly how many hours they get paid, not how many weeks or days - seem a bit blurred though so it’s difficult to judge. I did try to find out but got bored, I googled the documents but they are longwinded - as pay related documents always are.