Teaching isn't compatible with parenting

[treehugga]

So you think there are short days and long holidays, well hollow laugh! Am I the only teaching 'widow'? My DP seems to spend all of his evenings and weekends working, which doesn't make me a smiley mummy this Mother's Day after yet another day of sole childcare while lessons get planned, reports written and whatever-else for the little darlings. Some mitigating points:

• when he's not working, he's usually great at domestic stuff and for this reason I count myself lucky
• he is a perfectionist
• I know one other teacher (who also works ridiculous hours) but maybe he's just avoiding family life.

So, put me straight, am I the only one or are there more?

air pie

the face to face interaction and the connectedness to clients and their families and socio-economic health situation is pretty much something all front line public sector workers do. not unique to teaching.and in these unsettled recessionary times the atypical client is suffering,cut backs,frozen posts,uncertainty.and public sector contain that to a large extent

many public sector workers earn hee haw and still have to interact in v challenging situations. the home carer, the mow drop off isnt solely limited to those tasks.they too have been briefed about safeguarding,record interactions

in residential settings staff are with clients for 8 or sometimes 12hr shift

by all means do effuse about your dp,and is wonderful to feel proud and supportive of achievements.but this heaped praose and adoration has clouded your impartiality

also consider the numerous others who do public service too.who will shortly try to negotiate childcare for the easter holidays. (the holidays teachers get off)

Do I get brownie points then as I am working every day of the Easter holidays, 24 hours a day.

depends?is your dp a teacher?are you teacher

Oh ldn your oration on the last page has made my day :o

scottishmummy some of the jobs you compare teaching to have made me smile. I know lots of other jobs have plenty of face-to-face interaction with 'clients' in challenging circumstances but the difference with teaching is that you have to, er, teach them and they have to learn. How that happens is incredibly complicated and there are so many variables, a lot of them outside the teacher's control. Others on this thread have already explained a lot of this in detail.

Care-workers, nurses etc don't have the ridiculous targets that teachers have to meet, do they? There are lots of other reasons why it's a silly comparison and most of it has already been said but it really does annoy me when people compare teaching to some job that is difficult, but nowhere near as complicated.

I know I'll be accused of saying that teachers are special and I'm really not but it does have unique challenges. Depending on your school, you're often doing a lot of what other professionals mentioned do AND getting them to learn at the same time. Then, if targets aren't met you are told it's all your fault and how shit you are. If targets are met, society at large moans that standards are falling!

Every job has unique challenges

I know every job has unique challenges but I don't think there's another where people seem to think they know it all despite the fact they've never done it. This is demonstrated perfectly by the poster who says she is to bored to listen to her husband telling her about his job and isn't even sure exactly what he teaches, yet feels qualified to tell others they are incompetent based on a half-listened to comment from him!

And, yes, I do think working with teenagers, not just dealing with their problems but getting them to learn and be creative, is difficult in a way that is hard to match in other professions. Having said that, it is, of course, hugely rewarding and downright fun at times, too.

I have only skimmed through this thread but I haven't seen it said that if teaching is so easy why are there such problems with staff retention? Of course, in the current economic climate people are sticking with it, but in the not too distant past there have been huge problems getting teachers to stay in the profession. If it's such a family-friendly job with great perks why would that be?

too bored, sorry.

lecce many nurses are engagaed in the daily struggle to alleviate terminal pain or simply to help keep people alive.

Saying that doesn't compare to the stress of teaching is IMHO deluded.

If teachers want more recognition for what they do, then I think they really need to stop banner waving. It's the very worst thing about them. And frankly it annoys the fuck out of people.

I am hugely supportive of teachers and the job they do. As I said, upthread, I am a card and gift showerer. I am one who tells their DC that teachers are to be respected etc. I volunteer in my local school and could not do what the teachers there do FT. No way. No how.

However, when I hear the start of the ubiquitous moaning about marking and planning I want to tear my hair out. There are so many people out there doing front line jobs that are stressful, where people's lives are in their hands.

It totally depends on the school you teach in. I am in meetings or working with students from 8 every morning and am running a club, in a meeting or running extra classes until 5 pm. Most of our staff are in school for 7:30 am and leave about 6pm. Most if us are taking boxes of work home. We certainly do more than 45-50 hours.

Desperatelyseekingsnoozes- unless you are in the leadership team (and therefore paid on the leadership scale) or working at an independent school, your school is violating the agreements RE working hours! You are only allowed to do one meeting a week for one hour and they are not allowed to ask you to do extra-curricular everyday. And if you are doing it even though it isn't compulsory then you have the right to slow down if it is wearing you out. In some schools (not necessarily yours) there is a 'competition' to see who works the hardest etc. and unless someone breaks out of that people feel they have to do the same as everyone else.

We have meetings 3.15-4.15 on Mondays. Training (not compulsory) on Thursdays at the same time. I do after school help on Wednesdays until 4. School is between 8.50 and 3.00. The rest of the time in mine to do the planning, marking etc.

The reason teachers are stressed, it seems to me from reading this thread, is the unrealistic expectations of individual leadership teams!

And I think part of the retention problem stems from the endless interference from government.
Independent schools don't have anywhere near the same retention problem.

But I also think it stems from the frankly deluded notion of what a family friendly job will entail. On this thread, many teachers seem to think that working from home, planning and marking, isn't helpful to family life. When in truth it's a fnatastic perk.

And I speak as one who enjoys said perk.

Yes, it's hard trying to do what you need to do during the school holidays and in the evenings...but it is a million times easier than trying to arrange child care and pick ups etc. No comparison.

I think teachers would be a hell of a lot happier and more well regarded if they stopped focussing on the downsides of their work.

They get to do a job they love.
They make a difference to children's lives.
They are paid (relatively) well.
They have good T&Cs.
They are able to do some of their work from home.
They are able to be physically present most evenings and school holidays (even though they may be working).

What's not to like?

Nobody anywhere here has derided teachers, how hard they work, or what an important job they do.

In fact, it's been unadulterated praise

Although the teachers here seem determined to see any opinion other than "we are opressed and undervalued" as a criticism

Yes, teaching and nursing are very different jobs and the nature of the challenges involved in both are hugely different, to the extent that comparison is unhelpful. Obviously, I look an arse if I say that having a load of marking to do is as bad as watching someone die in pain, and I'm not saying that, honestly, I'm not. I know I said that comparison is unhelpful but, at the risk of shooting myself in the foot I will say that, while I realise that nurses who are involved in the area of medicine you state face some of the most horrific situations that life can throw at us, the difference is that they can do their best and don't generally have so many factors coming into play beyond their control and don 't have so many different targets and outcomes that they are trying to acheive, some of which are contradictory. I don't know why I'm typing this really because, as I said, it's not really a helpful comparison.

The main difference is that nurses, in general, are respected by society and teachers, generally, are not. This results in huffiness (like I'm displaying here ) and, probably, ott assertions of how difficult it is etc.

wordfactory I know the moaning you speak of does us no favours but I think it largely happens as a reaction to the 'finish at 3, 92 weeks of holiday a year' comments - I know you haven't said this. And so it goes on, round and round forever

Perhaps teachers should hold back the huffiness and see if anyone says that finish at 3 crap lecce.

If they do, huff away :o

If they don't, dehuff

As I pointed out the "incompetent or martyr" quote is my DH and not me.

"And, yes, I do think working with teenagers, not just dealing with their problems but getting them to learn and be creative, is difficult in a way that is hard to match in other professions."

One of my colleagues was recently assaulted by a drunken thug twice her weight and eighteen inches taller than her. The same man had just beaten his wife to a pulp in a drunken rage. A few months ago another one was first on scene to an incident where a cyclist had literally been squashed by an arctic truck. They're two of the more obvious examples that spring to mind.

Quite frankly you can stick your hormonal teenagers up your arse.

"Unique challenges". Snort.

Just ignore such daft comments.
Let your actions speak for themselves.

Yesterday I spent a wonderful morning at my DD's school wartching a performance. The standard on display was phenominal. I know the teachers didn't knock it up during the biweekly drama session.
It will have been the work of lunchtimes and evenings etc

Goes without saying and much appreciated.

It's a lot easier than many jobs and better paid than some. Nurses get punched by patients. Teachers are not unique in facing physical violence.

In all groups of workers you will get some people who moan and some who see the best side of things. If you can't moan on an internet board I'm not sure where you can moan.

Most teachers work hard but obviously not as hard as some professions and they get paid less and they know the deal when they sign up to teaching.

I love my job.

I love that I have a lot of holidays with my family and shorter days at work.

I feel so fortunate that I don't have to leave at 6am to get a train into London and come home after dinner time and get 20 days at home with my family. And to top it all off, I enjoy what I do.

My parents always told me "Star, you can have time or you can have money. You can't have both". So true!

I'm not paid a lot (much less than "normal" as not on the British Teachers Payscale thing), but I love my job, can collect my lovely DS by 4pm and I can bring my work home to do in the evenings after he's asleep. That's a huge perk, I agree, wordfactory. I also get ample planning time during the day for things like displays and marking and meetings and planning.

Yes, it's exhausting and definitely not as easy and lovely as it would be to stay at home with my DS, but it's fun, I learn something new every day, I get to work with children and any other paperwork and planning, I can take home to do later.

I went into teaching directly after university, so I have only known that sort of life - school by day, homework at night :) So it doesn't seem odd or like too much work to me at all.

But I must add that teaching teenagers must be a different story (DH does that and I just can't imagine...). He does manage his time extremely well, though, so he's home to spend time as a family every afternoon with us. He works late into the evening after bedtime, but he doesn't ever count up those hours and talk about putting in 60, 90, 500 hours per week or anything like that.

He just thinks he's lucky to be able to spend so much time with his family and teach a subject that he enjoys. He was surprised at first by the take home work load (he wasn't always a teacher - he career changed), but is now used to it. Before he became a teacher he struggled to understand why I'd work so much from home but now he understands and realises it's not a big deal.

And I need to cut off as my day is about to begin! :)

I was thinking about this before. Dh doesn't moan about his hours. He does sometimes get a bit whingy (not about the hours, about other stuff), but that's because he's knackered doing those long hours during the week. He manages his time wrt dc's pretty well I think. Sure, he'll never get to pick them up from school (but that's due to the 50 minute commute he has as much as anything ellse), and he can't get out for things like plays or sports day, but that's no different than it was in his previous job - the only time he attended sports day was when he was redundant! And now he sees the children every day because he's always in the same country. He's not home in time for tea with them like he was in his previous job but he still finishes at the same time, just commutes further. He gets to put them to bed every night, aside from when he has parents' evening.

He works long hours during the week precisely so he can spend time with us at the weekend, not having to work. He pretty much only has one night off though. Actually going on from op it's not family life it seems incompatible with atm, but married life - we rarely get to spend time just the two of us because in the day the children are around and in the evenings he's working. It won't be forever though (he's an NQT with TLR, setting up a new A level programme and with a changing GCSE syllabus).

Actually what pisses me off most about this type of discussion (aside from random eejits people like LTW's husband pronouncing judgment on people they know nowt about ) is that it's the moany ones bringing the rest of the profession down - in the same way that ALL Christians are judgy evangelical bigots, and ALL Muslims are terrorists. It's bollocks.

Nobody is saying teaching is the only hard job, or that it's the hardest. Just that it can be hard, and it can be much more time consuming than other people assume.

Don't see what the fuss is about!

TBF everyone is entitled to a whinge now and then.

I am a writer which I know is an absurdly wonderful way to make a living. Yet with my writerly friends we have a moan...deadlines, awkward editors, bad reviews, book discounting

But we're always very careful to have a word with ourselves about what we love. Why we do it.

I think certain professions/environments become entirely focussed on the downside and that's sapping for those that work there.

I once did a stint as a lwayer for the local authority and everyone acted as though it was the worst job in the world. Constantly sniping and groaning. After a week, even I, the world's biggest Pollyanna started to fall into that trap.

And then I thought, hang on, we're hardly digging for blood diamonds...but I knew the people around me would never look at what was great about the job, from the big things (fabulous T&C) to the small (always parking spaces)...because moaning was endemic in the cuture.

So I left.

wordfactory I'm an academic and every day I count my lucky stars - I get to read and write books for a living, which is all I ever wanted. And the pay isn't amazing but it is a hell of a lot more than my mum earned when she was bringing us up and it's relatively secure. My colleagues moan all the time - and there are serious pressures (including, because the job is so flexible, which is brilliant, the fact that you can easily end up doing 70-80 hours a week if you let yourself, and the fact that admin/support is currently being axed, and so on, and especially that you can do 10-15 years of temporary, very low-paid work, moving about the country before you land a permanent position) - but in the back of my head I always think we're lucky to do what we do, we worked our arses off to get to be able to do it, and it's a privilege.

So I'm with you on not focusing on the downsides. In my view that's not what the OP was doing - I have a teacher for a DH and he can be a bit of a perfectionist, and while that means he does his job brilliantly well it does mean I sometimes feel like a teaching widow. But I won't do tonight when he breaks up for Easter and gets almost 3 weeks off (including all the bank hols)! So it's swings and roundabouts.

I'm just thankful we're not in the position our parents were in when they had us - struggling to make ends meet, in and out of work because jobs were easy to come by but easy to lose, no support, no childcare (no hot water, for that matter), and doing jobs they hated. But I still like to moan every now and again. Who doesn't?!