What was you biggest culture shock of you moved into teaching from another career?

[Tiredforfive45]

I’m a teaching ‘lifer’ (apart from
a part time job in retail while I was at uni) so not much in education surprises me.

I saw a post recently somewhere where a teacher who had moved from a corporate job was aghast about having to share a room with a colleague on a residential trip and I realised I had never given that a second thought.

What other things that I take for given are actually surprising to people that have worked in other professions?

I’ve gone the other way and left teaching. Biggest shock for me was the trust my manager has in me to do my job. No scrutiny or proving myself. It’s wonderful!

No more Sunday night dread
No bell telling me when I can go to the loo
Actually being able to go to the loo when I need it
A lot less noise!
Head space
Not having demands placed on me for 9 hrs a day
It being normal to be given lovely lunches and decent refreshments at meetings
To be given time back when additional work has been done

Don't be a dick. OP has clearly made a couple of typos. So what?

I'm the same as a PP. I've gone the other way. I can't believe when I was teaching it was assumed I would work an extra 25% of my hours, for free, with no support or gratitude.

My lovely charity job now sets firm boundaries so I work my allotted hours and not a second longer. Of course I have no problem with doing a bit extra here and there because I'm not an arsehole and my manager is a human.

Absolute power and lack of accountability of head and slt. The excessive impact a change of head has. Really bad that standards of teaching and behaviour, and the way staff are treated are so defined by one person.

Being called "Miss" by other adults.

In my first few weeks, being reprimanded for deciding to go home to work after an afternoon skills test in town, rather than return to school even though I wasn't scheduled to be in class. I had no idea that teachers had literally no flexibility or autonomy (coming from a very flexible management role).

That that skills and achievements outside education counted for nothing.

That there was so much to it - like juggling plates - and as soon as you got one bit right you were told three more things you were getting wrong.

I'd been warned by teacher friends not to do it, but nothing can prepare you for the reality. I spent the first few years thinking "what the hell have I done" but did, amazingly, go on to have a successful and fulfilling teaching career.

I started out on a SCIIT and lasted 6 months- it was awful; the other teachers who were so 'great' 🙄🙄🙄 at personalising learning for their students were really rubbish at teaching an adult vaguely how to teach. I'm not saying all teachers were this bad, but there were a couple and in particular I had a 'mentor' who was as far from a mentor could be and it just made me realise that I wouldn't be able to deal with the crazy politics of the classroom. I'd come from being quite successful in scientific research and although the kids were brilliant- not without their issues, but not half as challenging as dealing with narcissistic, power hungry teachers.

I did a school based route too, and very few of my cohort stayed in teaching. In the whole, the more responsibility people had held outside teaching, the less likely they were to stick at it - being micro managed as if you are an idiot will do that to a person!

Teaching was my first career, but I had other short term jobs before it. The job application process is so bizarre compared to any other industry.

Having to tell your boss you're leaving before you even apply for anything.

Having limits on when you can resign.

Having to do a full performance of an interview lesson, but with none of the resources you'd actually use in the job and no knowledge of the kids (arguably the most important aspect of teaching).

Having to plan and prepare a different interview lesson for every interview, rather than being able to really refine a kind of portfolio piece.

That interview lesson not necessarily being delivered to either an age you already teach or the one you're interviewing for.

The fact you do this interview lesson before you've even had a preliminary interview, so it could be a total waste of time if the interview goes badly or you/the interviewer don't gel.

Some interviews are whole day with multiple "rounds" and you spend all day sitting with the competition.

The general disorganisation. I did my placement year about ten years ago and every week for PPA we would start out in one room and then realize that a class needed the room so we would have to move elsewhere. I could not understand how this happened every week.
Also how I was marked down in a lesson observation for not having enough whiteboards and pens - the class did not have them and the office could not supply them, so.... not sure how that was my fault.

I’m a teaching lifer too. A recent recruit at my school has moved from the corporate world of IT to be an ICT teacher and the one thing that made me chuckle that he is struggling with is that the children actually don’t do what he asks of them! Surely this is what teenagers are renowned for whether you are in teaching or not?!

Also how I was marked down in a lesson observation for not having enough whiteboards and pens - the class did not have them and the office could not supply them, so.... not sure how that was my fault.

Getting ‘marked down’ because the children didn’t have everything the needed. Not sure how that was my fault - I tried everything from pots on the table with resources, their own individual packs of resources, spare resource drawers, having a checklist on the board at the start of each lesson…

An Ofsted inspector berated me in public because one of my team had forgotten a book needed for the lesson. The reason she had forgotten it was that she’d had to move the pupils and resources to a different room at short notice. It was also the middle of GCSE and most spare rooms were in use for readers, scribes and extra time, so it had been a challenge to find any space.

If she’d been in her room, there wouldn’t have been an issue. She’d been moved out because the inspectors decided to use that room for their base.

I really resented being taken to task over something that I had no control over and it was the inspector’s fault anyway. Doing it publicly, was just not on.

People being kind and nice to me? Telling me how glad they were I'd joined the team after a couple of weeks. Never, ever happened in teaching...

Yes, you're right - I asked for it to be deleted.

The hierarchy enforcement - especially teachers addressing head and other senior staff as Sir/Miss even outside the presence of children.

The amount I could get done in 15 mins when teaching - mark a gazzilion books and plan a load of lessons VS have a cup of tea outside teaching.

I'm looking to leave teaching and retrain after 20 years in.
I think one of the most disappointing things about being a teacher is that nobody - literally nobody - gives a damn about your mental health. Teachers are pushed to the absolute limit. Unfortunately a number of them unsurprisingly snap.

Let me think - teaching is my second career.

Being able to day dream behind a computer whilst sipping a cup of tea
Going to the toilet when I want
Free evenings (now about 3/4 of them are spent planning)
Beibg able to book off holidays when I want, not being restricted to the “school holidays”
Crazy parents
Getting very upset and emotional when seeing the way some “parents” neglect their children.
Having to buy a lot of resources myself in order to do my job.
The mental fatigue of having all this little voices talking to you non-stop.
I get a lot of random cuddles and touching (sniffing my hair, playing with my hair, sitting on my knee, just invading my personal space) you do get used to it.
No teachers thinking you work 9-3 5 days a week and all the holidays you get - when you always spend the first week burnt out and unwell.
Getting irrationally mad when someone loses a jigsaw piece or the top of a glue stick (x 100)

@beentheretoo Do you regret becoming a teacher?

Somebody (an accountant) asked me if teachers get paid for the overtime we do and was hugely surprised we don't but I've no idea why they were shocked as that's well known to be one of the main gripes of teaching!

The sheer intensity of the job shocked me. There’s no easy days or late starts. Every day is full-on and exhausting.
The scrutiny was totally bizarre when I first started. I couldn’t believe that someone would literally watch me do my job and make notes on a clipboard!
The lack of management training for managers. Recruitment, performance management etc always being a bit shoddy.
The slow career path. When I left my last job, everyone said “you’ll be a Head in a couple of years” but of course it takes much longer than that.
But, I was pleasantly surprised how much more satisfying the job is compared to a boring office job.

I was really shocked at the bullying culture that prevails in some schools - in one school I had 2 members of SLT shout at me that the teacher cupboard was not organised enough. I was an NQT and didn't know what was stored in the cupboard or whose stuff it was, or whether it was OK to chuck it out.
The stuff actually belonged to one of the SLT shouting at me, which I found out while the two of them were emptying it all over the floor. And then walked off and left me tidy it all up.
I also got in trouble when a Y2 child pooed on the floor, so I had to halt the lesson, while putting a chair over the poo to keep the other pupils away from it, clean up the child, comfort them, and call the site manager to clear it up. Apparently I should have found a way to carry on the lesson without interruption regardless.
In another school I was berated publicly at length for an issue caused by the photocopier the first time I used it - an issue they all knew about but didn't mention. The level of personal nastiness really shocked me after 20 years of working in a different profession and a variety of student jobs; I had never come across adults behaving to each other in such mean way.
Luckily my current school is lovely, but those other schools were absolutely miserable, soul-destroying places to work.

God if we get a change of government they've got to sort this stuff out for teachers. The culture seems appalling for a start in many schools.

Not a teacher; just jaw dropping to read threads like this

I think you have to be careful about the comparisons as it depends a lot where you end up.
In my role/past roles
No limit to the hours- i've always "opted out" of the working hours directive
No overtime paid
Hours as required- means evening calls are the norm
You can request annual leave but unlikely to be allowed it in busy periods/when other people are out
Can be made redundant with no notice
Constant assessment- impacting pay and career
Commercial pressure- cost cutting- reduced people but increased work load
Everything is political- organisation can be very very hierarchical
HR

I'm not saying teaching is easy but other jobs have different stress points.

Teaching is my second career, graduated at 40. Loving every day but my bladder still struggles with not being able to wee when I need to!