Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

[Ohdesireer]

Is this saying still relevant?
I only ask because I’ve wanted to be a nurse all my life, I never got my GCSE’S and didn’t think I was clever enough.

I’m now mid 20s with two DC (3&4)
I decided at the start of this year I was going follow my dream.
I’m halfway into my GCSE maths, if I pass this then onto an access course for a year then uni.

But I’m put off, I got myself a job in a care setting to gain experience for my application. It’s shift work and my partner also does shift work, he’s the main earner so his takes priority and probably always will.
Trying to figure out shifts is a nightmare, I also narrowly escaped having to work Christmas Day (some CF was going to call in “sick” and I would be the next person in)
The thought of missing out on Christmas Day with my kids is daunting. I know people do it, but they know they have to do it and still choose to work in that job.
I don’t know if I want to be the mum who isn’t home for Christmas.

As my partner already works shifts and weekends, I want the DC to have some stability and a parent who is there on weekends.

I think getting into teaching would be the best option for me, maybe a primary school teacher.

My partners mum is a teacher at a blind college.
She leaves at 8:30am and is home by 5pm Mon - Fri.
Once in a blue moon goes into work at the weekend and even then it’s not a must.
And obviously has half term off.

I’ve looked a lot into nursing and the further I look the more I’m put off. I live in a small city (I’m not even exaggerating when I say, most people think it’s a town) so jobs in nursing are hard to come by unless it’s with the NHS.

I’ve heard the saying “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”
I haven’t looked much into teaching yet, I’d just like advice if people still think this.

I’m not saying I believe it, I just want to know if others honestly do.

My family never expected anything of me.
My mum always said to me, I’m going to end up pregnant at 18, live in a council house and aspire to nothing. She was correct, this indeed did happen. But I now own my own home. (Nothing wrong with living in a council house, but 90% of them in my area are filled with druggies so not the best environment to bring up kids in)

I feel like if I go into teaching, my family will still think I’ve amounted to nothing. Yes I overthink, but the quote is just stuck on loop in my head and I think I need someone to snap me out of it.

I don’t mean to offend anyone, this is just what has been drilled into my head for years.

AIBU?

probably

First up, your mother is a bitch and you need to work on not caring what she thinks. People like that are never happy.

Secondly, I’ve worked as a teacher in the UK and Australia and, without wishing to offend most of Mumsnet, the UK does not respect its teachers or treat them well. I suggest you read the Secret Teacher column on the Guardian website, it will give you a realistic idea of all the problems facing teachers and the education system in the UK.

Have a good think about what you want from a career. Those who succeed at teaching are the ones who truly want to do it. I wish you the best of luck, OP, I know you’re ultimately a good mum who is trying to do what’s best for her DC.

@MissWimpyDimple

Equally ignorant and offensive. I don't ask my staff to do anything I can't do myself just as well or better than they can.

This was never going to go well for you OP! But honestly the teachers I know have either left the profession or dropped down to part time hours to survive. By part time I mean they work 5 days a week but only get paid for 3 because when they got paid for 5 they ended up working till midnight 7 days a week for fuck all money. The only time they look human is 3 weeks into the summer holiday and then they start getting the fear about going back.

It is not a good time to be going into teaching OR nursing unless you are planning on moving abroad.

I totally respect anyone that has to work Christmas day. If you are a nurse or doctor working Christmas day with kids what a great way to teach them gratitude for their health. Homelessness, sickness, poverty and other problems do not disappear for Christmas day. If the worst thing on Christmas day is you are not with your kids be grateful for all the other blessings in your life.
If the main reason you do not want to be a nurse if you have to work on Christmas day, maybe you are not cut out for it. To be a good nurse I would expect compassion for others in need would be a requirement.

Op, your title probably just highlighted what governments and many members of the publuc think about teachers ad education, hence the national problema that we are now facing.

I teach primary (additional support needs) and to be a relly good teacher, (not saying that i am anywhere near this) you need empathy, understanding, compassion, you need enthusiasm and an ability to relate to and work alongside your pupils and other members of staff. You need to care about very child you work with and not take things personally. You will take work home every night, you will leave late because a parent phoned, child refused to leave, safe guarding issues came up. Late nights every week for meetings, planning, evaluating, reporting, cpd courses. In primary being able to turn your hand to teaching any subject from reading to bridge building.
You will redesign the wheel countless times, reate every resource under the sun, and you know what? It is one of the most rewarding jobs there is, it also kills bits of you daily. You can never quite be a good enough mum or teacher there is always a competition between who gets the most of you. You live being a teacher, you evaluate everything you see thinking would this work for or can i recreate this. Kids and parents rarely appreciate any of what you do, in fact the government and every newspaper will throw it back in your face telling you how lazy and usless you are.

If you want to teach because you want to work with kids, are good with kids, enjoy being around kids and will fight for what is best for them then go for it. Use your experience to inspire others in your situation. Make a difference but don't believe the crap government recruitment adverts, they lie!
Good luck with whatever you want to do.

You can't, in my view, survive in teaching if you aren't at least enthusiastic about the purpose of the job. In the same way, I could never come out of teaching to be a nurse as I would be doing it because I 'should' not because I have a passion for it. That said I imagine teaching is a lot easier than nursing-hats off to all you nurses and allied professions out there!

Heartofglass21
“He who can does; he who cannot, teaches.”
It's from George Bernard Shaw's Maxims for Revolutionists.

It disputed as GBS (TWAT just for this) didn't say whether he adapted it from Aristotle.

OP you can get to uni following an access course, by putting in the required amount of hard work studying.

My younger sister is a life long teacher and I am a life long nurse. We are both in our fifties and neither of us thinks the other has had an easy ride. Over the years we have both come to realise when swapping information, that both jobs are very hard work. Interaction with the parents in her case and patient's relatives in my case, adds another dimension to the stress caused by daily contact with pupils or patients.

My daughter has now just qualified as a nurse. She trained as a hairdresser to start with, but got into care work as a way to earn extra money and found she loved it. She did an access course in her early twenties and did very well, at 27 she is starting out on a new career with a job in A&E in the New Year.

We also know people who have gained access to teaching and physiotherapy degrees by doing well on access courses. If you want to do it you can, but will have to put the long hours of studying in, no way round this.

Just to add that the unsocial hours in the NHS are a problem for some parents, but many manage this very well. Our own kids simply got used to having Xmas on another day if I had to work, so they didn't lose out. They learned at an early age that poorly people needed their Mum to look after them and easily understood this was more important than their own needs at that time.

It isn't such a bad thing for kids to understand these things at an early age. Later they found out that having two working parents was a great advantage when they went to uni and needed financial help.

I think what you need to do first is decide what work "you" actually want to do. Ignore what other people will think as it is not their decision.

Both nursing and teaching could be very rewarding jobs, but both are hard work and require the appropriate qualifications. Getting those qualifications won't be easy in itself, especially with a family and partner working shifts.

Teaching has the perception of long holidays and short days, but the reality can be very different. Not all, but a lot of teachers arrive by 8.00 and don't leave until 4.30 or 5. Meetings are held before or after children are there and often some form of preparation or marking is done in the evening or at weekends. It is not unusual for some teachers to be in school or doing school work during the holidays too. If you have your own children it can mean it is difficult to see them take part in concerts etc as is difficult to get the time off. On the plus side you also get time off when your children do so don't have to arrange childcare in the holidays.

Nursing is, I would think also very demanding both physically and mentally. Some hospitals near us they do 12 hour shifts, which could be difficult for you, but also have advantages as it involves less sessions. There may also be the option to work in nursing not in a ward (clinics, gp etc) which won't involve shift work. Again, there are probably lots of times when nurses don't get to finish work on time, and worry about patients when they have gone home.

Good luck in what you decide.

If you are actually thinking of going into teaching and not just a GF, you are going to have to work on what you say, do and think.

OP didn't express herself as well as she could, but some of the comments haven't been overly supportive of someone who is hoping to make a change in their life.

OP: If you're interested in a caring profession that doesn't usually require shift work and you can gain entry to via an Access Course, why don't you think about social work? Like teaching it's demanding and the hours can be long, but there are probably more options for part-time employment that could help you find a work / family life balance. Starting salaries are usually better than nursing and, at the moment, there are still training bursaries available. It's not, by any means, an easy job, and you have to be committed to it, but it can be immensely rewarding.

Maths and English Lang GCSE at C / 4 + is an essential entry requirement to social work degrees, so keeping working on your current course. Access to Health and Social Care might be a good next step. As some of the PPs have said, it might be a good idea to discuss options with a local FE college. Good luck whatever you choose to do.

PS: Like one of the PPs, I also used to 'do' a profession. Now I teach. Not because I couldn't do the work of the profession, but because I felt I could make more of a difference in society by training 50+ graduating social workers a year. You can tell your Mum that.

I'd suggest you get a job in a school (TA role) , see what teachers really do and see if you can hack it.

Hermagsjesty

Gaining experience in any area that you might want to train in is a great prerequisite. A friend's daughter worked as a teaching assistant and then went on to do the degree course. My daughter worked in community care worker before deciding that she wanted to do nursing.

My son worked for two law firms as a post graduate before deciding to jump in at the deep end and train as a lawyer, he now feels that he has genuinely worked his way up in his chosen field. On the job experience at entry level gives great advantages.

I've read through all 5 pages.
Considering how goady your title was, and how offensive and rude you have been about the profession generally, I actually think everyone has been incredibly restrained, and not rude at all.

However, I agree with all those that have said you need to think very hard about what you want to do, and break free of worrying about what your parents might or might not think. Then you need to think about what you want to do, week in, week out for the next 30 or 40 years. To decide you don't want to become a nurse "just" because you don't ever want to work on Christmas day suggests to me that you don't really want to be a nurse. Don't get me wrong, not many people would choose to work on Christmas day, but, as others have suggested, it is fairly easy to have your Christmas day on a day you aren't working, or you could take up any one of dozens of different roles that don't involve you working on Christmas day.
Same with teaching - you need to really want to teach, to put up with all the other crap that teachers have to deal with. The teaching part is a fantastic job, but it is now a small part of all the hours of rubbish you also have to do.
However, you also have long way to go in your education before you can start thinking about QTS. You will need experience to get a place on a course, so perhaps try to get some experience in some schools before you commit.

This page of comments have been very helpful (and a few here and there on previous pages) so thank you.

I absolutely love what I do, it’s so rewarding and I could do it for the rest of my life, if I didn’t have children.

I currently do 12 hour night and day shifts in a care setting and volunteer at a ward in a hospital so I am getting the experience to say it does not really work for my family.

I know people manage but I really don’t want that life. I barely see my partner due to our shifts. For example, he gets in at 9:40pm, I leave for work at 9:50pm, by the time I get back he’s on the school run, I’ve gone to sleep and he’s back in work when I get up.

I suppose an office job would be better suited for the hours, but I’ve done that before and it just isn’t for me.

I’m not cold hearted, I would care for the children if I did teaching but can you not look for a career that suits your life also? It may not be perfect but it’s better than finding out later on that you just can’t keep doing said job or are unhappy.

Social work is a good idea. I will research more on that.

It’s just a trite saying designed so people can have a pop at teachers. It means nothing and shouldn’t influence your decision to train as one or not.

TheBigFatMermaid

These days most district nurse have to work part of their rota at Xmas and Bank Holidays. Patients who are housebound, elderly or palliative patients who are dying still need community nurses to care for them.

To decide you don't want to become a nurse "just" because you don't ever want to work on Christmas day suggests to me that you don't really want to be a nurse

Misses point.
I never said that.

I know I worded my op wrong but I never once said I thought teaching is rubbish or anything bad.

I was just saying what my mum told me, I know this not be true. I was asking if other people felt this way.

And people saying I’ve got a long way to go, no shit. But I can’t exactly start an access course without knowing what I want to study. (Enrolment will be the end of next year)

Well done OP for wanting to better yourself, that's really admirable and you've had a hard time on here - qualifications come one step at a time.

I'm a teacher and honestly, it's a very demanding job. It takes a huge toll on your personal life. I think it's really something you have to love and feel passionate about to make it worthwhile pursuing, otherwise you will quickly end up resenting it, not to mention the huge expense of going to university these days. There is quite a way to go for you to qualify and unless you're in it for the right reasons, I don't think you'd see the "return" you wanted in exchange for how much time, effort and money you would need to put in.

You say you love your current job? I'd consider looking at pathways that might enable you to build a career based on your existing experience and help you achieve a more favourable home-work-life balance. Could you train as a manager? Or step into a junior HR role and maybe train part time?

Good luck with your studying and I hope you find some answers.

I don’t think the same as most people, my actions are impulsive and I had a great idea that consumed my thoughts. Silly I know but living with ADHD is like that. You don’t think, you say and do reckless things. It’s mainly under control now but I still have these days, as I lived with it for so long undiagnosed some things are harder to control.

It’s odd, once my mind is set on something for example, nursing in a ward at a hospital, nothing else seems possible, I didn’t think about the possibility of going down a different path in the same sector.

Some very good ideas. I will look at my options and see from there.

I fear there will be some more nasty comments popping up, so I don’t think I will come back to this thread.

Thank you to all who have helped. I really appreciate it.

What amazing careers do the rest of your family have, that they can be so critical of teachers??