Is teaching really so stressful?

[summertime06]

Really trying to get my head around this without getting flamed. I have a good friend who is a teacher, part time since having kids, doing the same hours as me (I'm not a teacher), 3 days a week.

For the past year or two, all I ever heard when we met up was how stressful her job was, how difficult it was to be a teacher and a mum at the same time etc etc. I get that there's work to be done outside teaching hours, but I do the same in my completely different job and just get on with it, I think it's part of the job when you get up the pay scale/responsibility level a bit. Any time I did mention that things were similar in my job, I was put down, I couldn't possibly understand how stressful it was to be a teacher?!

And now she's made the decision to take a career break for a few years because there's just no way she can continue to be a teacher and a mum to 3 young kids. That's fine if that's what she wants to do but she's making out that she's been left with no choice but to make this decision because teaching is just so difficult. Is it just me or am I missing something? I get that it can be stressful as are lots of other jobs, but there are surely also lots of advantages? Not having to sort out summer camps and childcare during school holidays? Is it really so much more difficult and stressful compared to other jobs? I genuinely want to understand!

I’m working in a school (non teaching role). I went for a couple of interviews, was asked at one if I was interested in training as a teacher. I asked the interviewer whether it is as stressful as it is reported to be and he said it really depends on how well the school is managed and run. In my current role, I can see the teachers do work really hard and some of the children are challenging but I can also see many ways in which they just do what they always do but there are ways they could do things differently which would make some aspects of the job easier.

Teaching is harder than most jobs because children don't all want to learn or even be in school.

Shop assistants, waiters, doctors, nurses etc all have 'customers' who want to be helped.

I have been a paediatric ward manager, a stay ay home mum a teacher and a health visitor.
Health visiting stressful but at least there is a little down time between clients even if its only walking from one visit to another.
Teaching was by far the most stressful. Imagine having to retain 30 children attention , be aware if each individual is engaged and learning or not and also having to plan what you do in minute detail and record EVERTHING

To be honest, I’m a full time high school teacher in a really deprived area. We have high levels of violence , drug use, and staff abuse in school - recently a year 10 boy brought a machete into school and we frequently do ‘drug busts’ as many pupils bring weed (mostly supplied by their parents) into school.

Do I find it stressful? Yes . I have the same teachings standards to uphold as teachers in better schools, I want to ensure my pupils get grades to help them to progress into further education or apprenticeships which often takes more work as there is literally zero parental support from a good portion of my pupils parents, who are often a third generation of unemployment, or in situations which are dangerous to our pupils such as substance abuse, domestic violence, neglect etc.

BUT I do think some teachers martyr themselves. I could work all hours of the night if I wanted to, making resources, designing assessments etc. But I don’t because I have my own family who at the end of the day, come first. I get into work at 6.30am daily. I work for two hours before hand, marking or planning. We do get higher than average PPA at my school (5 hours a week) so I always have an hour in the day to do any admin. BUT, I leave at 3pm everyday so I can be home to have tea with my children. I don’t do any work at home unless I need to mark assessments, or unless a lesson has gone so badly or I feel so little progress has been made I need to re think my week for that class. I don’t work weekends, except for 2 hours on a Sunday evening where I run over my lessons, and organise my week.

I work hard, my pupils get good grades and I am considered an outstanding teacher. I will go above and beyond for my pupils, and I have high expectations of myself, and them.

Teaching is hard, but I would consider nursing to be harder. My husband is an architect and he frequently bring home more work than I do. I know that some teachers struggle, and we are under pressure but I don’t think we hold the monopoly on stressful jobs.

Only thing that pisses me off is the fact that people think I get 13 paid weeks of a year to sit on my arse 🙄

The two hours I work beforehand is 6.30-8.30am just to clarify..

Factors to consider:

• Overcrowded classrooms
• attainment levels for students
• attainment levels for teachers (they are hauled before the board if they fail and often this is not the teachers fault)
• lesson planning and marking in home hours
• asshole children who run around yelling, screaming and crawling around on the floors instead of being at their desk quietly
• students with social problems
• students with various learning difficulties
• aggressive students
• aggressive parents
• endless target setting days/parents evenings
• short staffed constantly

I met a teacher who claimed fo have 30 students in her classes with 26 different languages and english was not their 2nd language so they were all failing.

My 13yr DD tells me that the noise level is SO bad and the teachers have no control so learning anything is almost impossible.

So no, you're really not seeing the bigger picture at all, not even the tip of the iceberg.

You are looking at the from a total lack of understanding and in doing so you are being a very poor friend.

I started my degree and one year in I thought FUCK THIS. I knew that to be a good teacher I would have to go above and beyond and would never have time to myself.
I made the choice to go somewhere in between a TA and teacher and it is still draining as hell. You’re being pulled left right and centre by staff and children. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.

We are retired teachers. We have 3 daughters. None of them wanted to become teachers, despite the eldest being offered a 'paid for' course to train as a teacher by the school she was a TA in - she refused. That says it all . A few weekends a year my lovely MIL used to come down the motorway to look after our children for the weekend so that we could do our schoolwork, including reports. 30 children in the class = 30 hours to find to write reports. I used to do lots of babysitting ( taking my school work with me ) and save up babysitting tokens so that I could splurge all the tokens on paying another mum for 1 saturday to have our 3 daughters whilst we did schoolwork. Our summer holiday used to involve a couple of weeks to become human again, a week camping with the girls and then 2 -3 weeks of getting ready for the autmn term. I am glad that my daughters have not become teachers and inwardly flinch when non teaching friends proudly say that their children have become teachers.

I think it depends on your situation. If you have an unsupportive management team, badly behaved children, marking 120 + books in detail every day ready for the next day, little time to prepare for lessons (only 2 hours a week and no this really isn't enough time to do that job) and parents who think they have the right to tell you how to do your job/verbal abuse you (on occasion) then yes it can be.

Yes I'm a teacher and I've moved jobs recently and it's miles better. But it's tough a lot of the time!

Not the only stressful job in the world obviously! But it is incredibly emotionally draining.

Nobody has mentioned especially the violent child with parents who cant cope. The medication that has to be done for a child at a certain time every day, the ones who come to school unmedicated at the weekend and so are acting strangely, the special needs children (there seem to be increasing numbers of them in each school) the children who come in sick because their parent cant take a day off. And then there are the "runners" who are trying to get away from the school at every opportunity.

I have heard teachers say that their school is a lovely place - when the children haven't arrived.1

Op, you compare the role of a teacher to considering a patients needs although you are unclear as to exactly what your job title is.
Following your analogy - try having 30 patients, all in the same room, all have to be treated and show progress, every one has a different need, many don’t want to be there, some don’t speak any English, some are spoiled and entitled, some are victims or witnesses of abuse, some are squabbling, one is highly anxious, two are hyper-active, you have some who are in great health and some who are very unwell and the rest are somewhere in the middle - your treatment must suit all of them and you must deliver it to 30 at once, you have no adult company all day and are ‘in role’ all day.
Add to that the fact that all of your ‘patients’ are children and you’ll have some small idea, but never the whole picture until you’ve lived it.
I taught for 20 years, out for 3.
Just having a quick chat to another adult and going to the loo when I want is sheer bliss!
And that’s just in the classroom, the staff briefings, the meetings, the endless marking, the justifying, changing displays, behaviour management, parent meetings, planning.
There’s no quick phone calls, snack or a coffee at your desk, quick charts - it is FULL ON and when I look back now, I just do t know how I did it.

I think your friend will have had other jobs to compare her teaching to. And so, in comparison she finds it very stressful.
I have every reason to believe teaching is one of the most stressful occupations you can have. If its is not the students/children, staff room politics, you have targets to achieve which are totally based NOT directl on YOUR performance but on other people's attendance and pass rates! Not to mention organising lessons, classroom management and marking. Parents and students can both be awful to deal with.However, it's a rewarding profession in some ways because your input is crucial to people's development.
Your problem seems to be with your friend and you comparing jobs and lifestyle and balancing it against her attitude to your own occupation.

CarrieBlu. So agree with you. I’ve volunteered at my children’s schools over the years and one thing it taught me was 100% utter respect for teachers, one job I could never do as it is completely draining and the pay is laughable. I see too many parents who cannot control their darlings and yet teachers have 30 of these darling to control.

It's as stressful/hard work as most other professional jobs. If it was well paid with six weeks annual leave, no one would give a shit.

Because it's relatively poorly paid, some people give them a bit of credit. Whilst others don't give a shit about them because they get thirteen weeks leave.

They can't choose when to have a holiday, always go at most expensive time. Often ill in holidays, have to do work and keep up with things in holidays. Pressure not to take sick leave. Constant monitoring and targets.
Two teachers in my family, they look grey by half term and are so tired they can barely speak.

I've done nursing and worked as a staff nurse then retrained as a primary teacher. They are both full on jobs, but I don't find teaching to be any less stressful. I have children too and did my degree part time whilst working and looking after them. At least in nursing when I left work that was it for the day/night. In teaching I am constantly looking for ideas for new projects, completing paperwork admin etc I often think if I added up my hourly rate it would be very poor with the extra hours required before I even face a class.

Mrs. T is a teacher. The workload is ridiculous as the amount of control and assessment (and the implications of failing it are bad) is ridiculous.

She's gone part time and now works 3 days per week and then does 2 days unpaid keeping on top of the planning, paperwork and marking (woe betide you if not every single piece of work is marked and commented on with improvements).

I've done senior management jobs and started my own company from a start up, and all these have been a walk in the park compared to teaching.

Why anyone does it I really don't know.

I've been fortunate to have a highly employable skillset so left jobs where the working conditions were poor, unfortunately virtually all teaching jobs have the same problems so the choice to go elsewhere doesn't exist.

The only good bits are teaching the kids and seeing them learn (the reason people go into teaching) and the pension.

Without wanting to say exactly what I do

Why Op? Why such a big secret? Either you have a low stress job or you get paid shedloads more than teachers. You've made many comparisons so why not just get it out there and tell us what it is that you toil away at?

The only good bits are teaching the kids and seeing them learn (the reason people go into teaching) and the pension.

Except your pension will be shit if you have been forced to go part time because...

A-you are too stressed to teach full time and this is about the only way you can save your mental health or
B-you have gone part time to have kids but can’t get put back to full time hours because you are now UPS and too expensive!

It is stressful, yes. Pressure from SLT and parents as well as an often huge workload leads to unbelievable stress. But...you have to be organised and prioritise what needs to be done above what could be done. Many excellent teachers I have known have been terrible at organising their time. They burn out and stress takes over. Many eventually leave the profession.

The most stressed teachers I've known never seemed to get anything done. After school they'd chat/ gossip for ages then, when it got to 5.30, moan that they had too much work to do.
Bizarrely, they were also the ones who would offer to give up their own time to run after school clubs, work on huge art / music / cooking projects all weekend, rather than plan lessons, mark work, write reports. Massive procrastinators!

You also have to develop a thick skin, particularly when dealing with parents, rude, badly behaved children and disgruntled child-like colleagues.

Teachers are heroes! I get frustrated doing homework with my three, I can't imagine having to do it all day with 30! 😲

Teaching is REALLY difficult and draining; non-stop, nowhere near enough frees/PPAs for the amount of planning/marking required - always so much extra work to be taken home, behaviour is getting worse each year and so are the needs of children both SEN requirements or due to parental neglect.

"It’s emotionally draining. Every lesson is like being on stage, every interaction with a child could cause a parental complaint.

Holding a class of 30 kids at just the right work rate and then also dealing with their emotional/social issues is extremely draining. I am often sad that when I get home I have so little left to give my own daughter"

That was from Belle Sausage, and I think she has hit the nail on the head.

Not RTFT but have read one of your updates @summertime06 - I too used to work in many dispensaries as a relief dispenser. I found the job stressful and hated the pressure of finding MURs left right and centre, NMS or dreading dispensing errors when we were over a thousand items in, feeling your heart sink as your RDM walks in and I was tired because I was covering a 100 hour the night before and in the next day at 7am. I was given the opportunity to move into education and I took it with both hands and thought I’d never look back. There was a woman in one branch who had moved in to start training as a DA who used to be a teacher. I couldn’t get my head around why she’d do this and I remember saying to a colleague - “She must be mad with those holidays. Imagine having Christmas off!”
Then I started doing it. It was great at first, you have an enthusiastic energy and you don’t mind that you’re working several hours a day beyond your pay, plus weekends and most days of your holidays.
Then you start to mind because people say things to you like - “God I wish I finished at 3pm” or “13 weeks a year?! You don’t know you’re born!”
You are the centre of attention for 30+ kids for around 6 hours a day. You need eyes in the back of your head, you need your ears everywhere in that classroom. You need to pick up the boy who is down because he’s worried about his mum, chivvy along the girl who would rather be outside, sanction and try to diffuse two who are winding each other up over a glue stick - all while teaching these children something meaningful that will stick with them and prove you have made them progress. You love those kids to bits but 3pm feels hours away in maths when you’ve forgotten to get out just one resource and you’re panicking because you don’t have a TA that day to ask to get it for you and the whole lesson depends on it. I’m worried because I’ve given that child first aid that banged their head, but worried I should have done something different and they might get a concussion and it would be all my fault. What if their parent complains? What if Ofsted came next week? When on earth do I get time to change my displays!!!
I can understand that you are tired and stressed, my pharmacy days were longer and my ‘holidays’ were fewer. I worked the Christmas period and I missed out on nice sunny days stuck in a stuffy dispensary.
But I could book a holiday whenever I wanted. There’s a cheap deal to Majorca in a month? Boom. Booked it. No term time restrictions. I want to go to that festival for a long weekend? You got it. No need to check if it’s an INSET that day.
I was so tired. But it was a different tired. My holidays were my own without work to do, my days off were my own without worrying about the following day. I finished work at 6 but I left my job in the dispensary or the surgery.
Sorry, that was a long post! I’m trying to say, I suppose, that I understand how you feel. But I also massively understand how your friend feels. And there is no grass is greener going on here, working in education is massively stressful, though rewarding - but the hours and holidays are nowhere near reflective of the real work that goes into it.