To be mildly irritated by most tiring job ever?

[brasty]

A friend who is a teacher has been saying how exhausted she is, and that only other teachers would understand. She is not joking. AIBU to be mildly irritated by this? Yes teachers do a hard job, but there are other jobs that are also exhausting.

I find the who can work hardest/be the most exhausted/have the shittiest working conditions competition really depressing.

It even goes on in our office where we all have the same type of fecking job! There's always the I-got-in-at-six-this-morning-and-won't-leave-til-8-because-I'm-under-so-much-pressure crowd. They don't seem to get any more done than the nine to fivers though.

No one has 'I wish I'd spent more time at work' written on their gravestone.

What I do often wonder is, if teaching is such a cushy job, why are people leaving the profession in droves? In fact, we don't we all jack in our super-exhausting stress-ridden jobs and become teachers?

I think part of the stress and tiredness in teaching comes from the feeling that the job is never done. No matter how hard you work there are always more things to do. That in itself can be demoralising.

I am busy but I can't say I'm busier than anyone else. I am tired but I can't compare it with others. I do work hard but it's ludicrous to suggest that as a teacher I work harder than anyone else.

But is that really what teachers are saying? I find that yes, it can come across as defensiveness but in fairness it is usually in response to some thoughtless comment or a generalisation about the whole profession.

I don't know how hard nurses work. I can take an educated guess but having never nursed I can't say. The same goes for other jobs.

Most of my friends are teachers. The few who aren't still complain about tiredness and overwork. A common theme perhaps. Because they're friends I listen and sympathise. That's all that's required surely?

SetPhasersTaeMalkie

The thing is, that this thread wasn't started by a teacher, it was started by someone that doesn't know about teaching.

That teachers are on the thread defending their jobs is what is being classed as "whining".

I know and I agree it is irritating.

Sorry blueskytrain I really don't believe that all your friends that are teachers go out every night and all weekend. Would be interested to know also what school you went to that got 5% a-c in English.

Apologies if they do - but they certainly don't work in any normal state school if they do.
Interestingly a couple of posters on here who say that their partners don't find teaching stressful have partners who don't teach in mainstream schools ...

I get very tired of teachers feeling sorry for themselves!

I'm a teacher and teach in a tough secondary school. It's exhausting. The hundreds of interactions you have per day with students who are sad/elated/exhausted/excited/confused is taxing. You are constantly having to make decisions about dealing with the unpredictable. Whilst having to be smiley and 'engaging.' It's all the communication that wears me out. There's nowhere to hide from it except for the toilet!

teaching stressful have partners who don't teach in mainstream schools ...

Yes because teaching teenagers with social, emotional and behavioural problems is a piece of piss compared to a mainstream school...

Look, teaching isn't the most tiring job in the world. It just isn't, deal with it. If you find it so tough, you are in the wrong job - maybe try working a zero hour contract in Sports Direct or being a full time carer, for an easier life?

Try working a 12 hour night shift on a busy hospital ward, its the most exhausting job I've ever done by a long shot.

whattheseithakasmean

maybe try working a zero hour contract in Sports Direct or being a full time carer, for an easier life?

What makes you think teachers haven't? or in the case of carer aren't doing both?

Oh sorry I forgot, teachers only exist in an external dimension where all they do is teach 9 - 3 and have no "real world/life" problems.

Try being a foster carer for teenage lads! Often a 24 hour job literally with two weeks paid leave a year. When an ordinary Friday night can often involve sitting in a police station for hours. When trips to A&E are the norm for fights and broken bones. When distress results in suicide attempts or self harming and requires sitting up all night with a young person. But the next day ( with literally no sleep ) it's business as usual, going to school meetings trying to keep your eyes open.

I would hate to be a teacher and don't doubt that it is a tiring stressful job. However, at this time of year, I am very envious of their 2 weeks off over Christmas. My sister is a teacher and is always telling me how exhausted she is. Today is my first day off in 2 weeks, and I really looking forward to working Christmas Day Every job has its pros and cons but teachers do not have a monopoly on being stressed and tired. I work for the NHS

What makes you think teachers haven't? or in the case of carer aren't doing both?

But that is irrelevant to how tiring the teaching part of their job is. Working zero hours in a sweatshop or being a carer is shit pay with crap job security, little to no paid holiday & zilch pension. That is far more tiring than the unionised work place with a decent pension and stellar holiday entitlement enjoyed by the teaching profession.

Experienced (20 years) teacher here.

The job in no way looks like it did when I first joined the profession.

I get in at 8. Mark, prep etc until 8,40 when the children come in.

Register. Collective worship - I play the piano so am in all the assemblies where other teachers stay out to listen to readers/finish off their prep/see groups of children.
Then it's lesson - break - lesson - lunch then a full afternoon because there's no break. After school is gate duty. Staff meetings. Year group meeting. Or otherwise trying to stay on top of marking and assessment.

What I find tiring is how full-on you have to be when teaching. You obviously have to know what you are trying to teach, the methods that you are going to use, what you are looking for in terms of assessment (inc ongoing afl strategies) and how best to help the children achieve what you want them to learn. Any and all resources need to have been found/made/ready for the children to use.

At the same time you have 30 children and their different needs to cater for. They work at different speeds so you have to plan for those who will finish and those who won't get finished at all. In my class I have children who are hearing impaired/visually impaired/autistic/adhd. A standard mainstream class.

You have to help some children with what they are doing so they can do their best. If you take your eye off the rest of the class to help a child any one of the handful (it used to be one or two in an average class when I started teaching, not 5 or 6) children will stop working or start chatting/messing. Parents expect their children to be listened to read individually weekly (or more) but when do I find the time? Especially as when I say I've listened to children as part of guided reading that's 'not good enough'. Often the parents who complain don't bloody listen to their own child read, but don't get me started on that one If I sit with a reader I can't help children with their work.

There's a school behaviour system. Which is backed up (unlike in some schools) by the SMT. I have to adjust my behaviour management techniques according to the needs of the children in my class. And remember how far down a particular scale any particluar child who is causing a problem is. Are they on a reminder? A warning? Do they lose golden time? Did they lose golden time last week? Do I involve the HT? Do I need to involve parents? If I involve parents, will I get backup? Or will I get their backs up?

Our topics are changing. Our curriculum (Wales) is due a massive change and we are preparing for it. Our performace management is about to change - online - ad it's just one more new thing to take on board. Topic planning is supposed to take more notice of what children want to learn about, while still meeting the curriculum. So you can't just follow a topic plan and know where you will be 4 weeks in to a topic. 'Recyclig planning' is seen as a bad thing.

I manage my time well. Rarely take anything home with me at 5-6pm and don't do much work at home. But when the new curriculum does come in that will probably change.

I wouldn't dare say it was the most exhausting job though. I've worked ina supermarket and as a waitress and in a clothes shop and found being rushed off my feet for long periods of time to be very tiring. I'd never be a nurse doing 13 hour shifts!

To be fair, teachers work from 9am to 3pm, five days a week for 39 weeks a year! No wonder they're tired, the poor overworked things.

But seriously, aside from the extended holidays it must be hell being a teacher. It must be one of the only jobs where you have such power over your "colleagues" (the kids) but equally have very strict limits on what you can do to them to keep them in line.

In the army or in the prison service, for example, the "colleagues" can be disruptive but you have power to restrain them or otherwise deal with them. In school, you have to take the abuse and remain calm. Teachers can be subjected to bullying and harassment to an extreme level which would not be tolerated in a normal working environment.

Actually, I think I'd only be able to work a six hour day if I were a teacher too!

Astonished at the number of people on this thread running teachers into the ground. I can only hope you don't let your children hear your distain for teachers as they'll end up as some of the disrespectful little delights teachers have to deal with on a daily basis.

I'm not a teacher but my mum is. For those here that think teachers work 8.30-4pm think again. My mum never leaves her school before 6.30pm (often later) clutching trays full of marking and planning to bring home to carry on with for another few hours. This, she also did when she was a single mum to me and my brother, only then, she would leave her school at 4pm, drive to our school to collect us, drive us all back to her school where she'd carry on while me and my brother waited until we could go home.

As for the holidays, i don't of any teachers who don't spend a proportion of their holidays in school preparing for the next term.

And as for those of you

Are you serious snatched? Teachers don't rock up at 9am and leave at 3pm!?

I volunteer in my sons classroom and his teacher (who's been there for 33 years) is in school every morning for 6.30am.

Do people really believe teachers work these hours? If they genuinely do, I can't fathom why we're having a crisis recruiting new teachers!

YANBU I'm a teacher and don't think I am any more tired than most other people who work full time and have a young family. Personally I like being busy and the days go really fast because I enjoy it and am always on the go.
I can think of lots of jobs that are more tiring and that require weekend/ shift work and don't have the holidays e.g nurses, doctors, soldiers, builders, midwives.

whatthese yes I've done the full time carer, zero hours retail amongst many others.
I've no idea if teaching is the most stressful job but I'd say it was the most difficult one I've tried.

To be fair, teachers work from 9am to 3pm, five days a week for 39 weeks a year! No wonder they're tired, the poor overworked things.

Gosh if only someone told the teachers this! If only they knew!

i remember at one college them saying for each hour they pay you, they are really paying for 1 hour and 40 minutes and that is what they expected back. I did a spreadsheet of the actual hours they got and it was already over 2 hours for each hour we 'were paid for' over just one term what with the extras they wanted. It didn't go down well as they were wanting us to do an extra hour a day to help out on some project at the time.

I think it makes sense that only a teacher could properly understand another's exhaustion, the same way that only doctors know how tiring FY/FY2 years are and the amount that medicine takes from you.

Cynically, I think the government wants us to all fight amongst ourselves and compete to have the Most Stressful Job so we won't spend our time campaigning for better working conditions, better pay, fairer politics etc.

I know that being a teacher is a tiring job. It is simply the - most tiring job ever, that grates.

It really is impossible to understand the demands of teaching if you have never done it. Every single person I know who has entered the education profession, particularly when they have already had another career or have just been a parents, have been stunned and I mean stunned at what the job actually entails.

Which I guess is similar to lots of other careers. Although it only seems to be teaching that the public feel necessary to make such wild judgements on.

And i do think that a lot of the teacher 'moaning' is just being defensive of their job, in a way that people in other professions just aren't required to do.

'what do you do then?'
'im a teacher'
'ah id love to only work 9-3 and get so much holiday's
'um actually its not really like that'
'oh you teachers, always whining about your job'

I don't find out what someone does and immediately start going on about the amazing pay, the bonuses, the flexi-time, the ability to go home at the end of the day and not think about work until 9am the next day, the hour long lunches etc.

And people are so patronising as well, especially as im a primary teacher.

Teachers can be subjected to bullying and harassment to an extreme level which would not be tolerated in a normal working environment.

Unfortunately there are other jobs like that, although I do not think it is right that anyone should have to accept it as part of their job.

And the entire education system relies on the good will of teachers working absolutely tonnes of completely unpaid overtime, volunteering their spare time to do this that and the other, and generally going above and beyond the call of duty. And they do.

If all teachers worked to rule and went home as soon as the clock marked the end of their core hours the system would simply break down and we wouldn't get abywhere near the govts current requirements.