To privately not have much respect for a lot of teachers

[parsnipandmushroom]

Obviously I would never communicate this to a child, but when the "teacher knows best" lines emerge on here I often think 'no, they don't.'

I've known so many teachers make numerous basic errors with resources, and give children the wrong information. This wouldn't actually bother me much but coupled with the complaints about pay, working hours and stress, I do often think 'stop whining.'

So I am not accused of being a troll - I only mean some teachers, and so I'm not accused of drip feeding information, I am a teacher.

AIBU?

Of course you are being unreasonable to lump together an entire profession. You say you just mean some but that is also a ridiculous thing to say. If you've encountered a crap teacher by all means call him or her on it. If you've encountered 2, that's fine too. But to generalise an entire profession, your own profession at that, is unreasonable.
Some people are crap at their job. Fact. That's quite different from saying that all people doing that job are crap.

Maybe that's what all your colleagues think of you, Parsnip.

There are people in every profession that aren't very good at their jobs.

As people have said above. My children have an amazing teacher this year, she is really fab.

I'd agree - of course you can't generalise an entire profession, and I know several great teachers. But I also have a lot of uni friends who did a PGCE and 'fell' into teaching because they had no better career options. Their knowledge of and enthusiasm for learning and teaching is often pretty poor.

I'd say that as the OP is in the profession, she probably has a reasonable idea of the enthusiam and skills of her peers.

But she didn't say 'all' teachers? She says 'a lot'. I agree OP, my sons reception teacher was some bit of a kid, just graduated and completely thrown in at the deep end, she didn't have a clue, about the teaching, communicating with parents or even the children. Sometimes I read a note from my sons now year 2 teacher and the spelling/grammar makes me wince. It used to be a vocation, something you did because you wanted to nurture and educate. Some of the NQT's recoil in horror at the thought of actually comforting a child these days, now they do it for the golden hellos and the holidays.

To privately not have much respect for a lot of teachers

So I am not accused of being a troll - I only mean some teachers

So....what's it to be?

In fairness, I am posting this after a 2 hour meeting which turned into a whingefest and I, like everyone, like to let off steam sometimes - but 'woe is me' because of marking books - no.

Personally, I don't have any real interest in someone's motivations for teaching or indeed real enthusiasm - enthusiasm can be dangerous when it isn't tempered with knowledge and skill - but for some it is the endless indignant outcry of how hard it all is, as if somewhere in a parallel universe they would be earning double the money for four six hour days a week - and I do think some teachers semi believe this.

Many of them are lovely people, mind you, so my initial thread title was too harsh. Consider it retracted :)

If they are in it 'for the golden hellos and the holidays' they won't last long.
I believe there is something like a 40%+ exit rate within 5 years, not to mention the 1000s of trained teachers of working age not teaching so it would appear these amazing perks aren't sufficient to get people to put up with the job (I'm one myself and wild horses + a golden hello + holidays wouldn't get me back in the classroom).

I think your point could apply to any profession.

There are great teachers and some truly shit ones. I remember both and give respect where it's due.

I'm not sure what you hope to gain from this thread tbh. There is good and bad in every profession.

I don't think you can tarnish "a lot" because even being a teacher yourself and having children, you probably haven't met that many in the grand scheme of things.

I find the attitude to teachers on MN quite bizarre at times. They are either lazy feckers who clock off at 3 o'clock and get paid too much for it. Or blimmin' saints who works 23 hours day for 360 days per year. The reality is that most of us sit in the middle on both schools of thought.

6 hour days? Never had one of those! Don't you have to do marking, prep, paperwork? How does that fit into your 6 hours?

Teaching is a thankless, hard job. The job is relentless task of getting recalcitrant children to learn a lot of irrelevant things imposed on them by govt and OFSTED guidelines 'because it is deemed appropriate'. Coupled with very entitled parents and endless paperwork, it is not a job I would take up if I wanted an easy life.

Jeremy Clarkson gets suspended for beating up a producer, teachers are often not afforded the luxury of seeing disruptive children excluded

I agree. A good teacher is a brilliant, gifted, priceless thing but there are a lot of bad ones about. If the unions would accept this and allow "something" to be done about it, the profession would be far better respected , pay might even increase (due to increased demand/reduced supply) and quality education could be provided to all children, not just the lucky ones.

IMO teaching is a vocation. Those who have it, can do a great job without working that hard. For those who don't it's an impossibly hard job and they should do themselves and their students a favour and do something else.

Some of those would discover, for the first time in thier lives, that actually, most jobs are pretty hard work.

My eldest child is almost 20, my youngest is 8, in all these years in the education system I have only encountered 1 hopeless teacher (and a lot of that was due to personal problems). I have met a few mediocre ones, several I haven't agreed with and a good few whose hearts aren't in it but generally I find teachers to be hard working and supportive under very difficult circumstances.

Oh fucking hell we really are going to hell in a handbasket.

Teachers have enough shit to put up with without another fucking teacher bashing thread, and this one started by apparently one of our own.

I privately don't have respect for a lot of parents... and I'm not a teacher but I am a parent. Some parents always think they know best - about everything, down to the very last detail.

I feel sorry for any teachers having to cope with entitled parents and their offspring. From the threads here it seems to be a never-ending stream of them, "Up the school!". Urgh.

I couldn't care less whether you don't respect 'a lot' of us. I do my very bestby every single one of my students (even the ones who tell me to fuck off and threaten to attack me

• I teach the kids kicked out of

mainstream). The vast majority of staff where I work do their best too.

You sound like one of those people who just tars everyone with the same brush. God, poor teachers. I don't need to reiterate what's been said above. There's good and bad in every profession, mostly good in our children's cases. But I will say this: YAB totally U. You go out there and get the degree, train to be a teacher, establish your career, get into that classroom and deal with all of the bureaucratic BS that comes with the job and then send us all a postcard letting us know how it's going. Teaching is no picnic. Being a good teacher is a gift. And we're lucky to have as many good teachers as we do.

There's bad in every profession.

I think teachers suffer in a way virtually no other profession does because everybody went to school once and therefore believes they are an expert.

Perhaps that's it mayfriday? If your/their best isn't enough, perhaps they shouldn't be doing it?

Before education, I did 20+ years in the commercial world and people who were doing their best, but not getting results left.

What's this malarkey about union needing to 'allow "something"' to be done. What was something you has in mind, Holepunch. The union's job is to ensure that due process is carried out when a teacher's performance, etc is in question, nothing more or less.

And since, I think, September 2013, the exit route for those deemed no good has been speeded up, though I rather think it will be populated by the older, more expensive and less malleable of the workforce.