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!

Yabu
I feel stressed out reading people’s accounts
My DC starts school in Sept. DH and I promise to do whatever we can to be supportive to the teacher
DH and I are uniformed police officers and I could not be a teacher altho when I worked in CID the stress was dreadful-maybe similar. It’s chronic stress which sounds like it never goes away that is a killer. Nothing is ever good enough. Sod that!

Not stressful at all. Loads of time off and we finish at 3.
Please apply for a PGCE. It’s easy!

However, a lawyer working for a big London company did just that to gain work/life balance. She said it was the same stress and lack of social life for a ridiculous cut in pay.

It's stressful to go home to children acting up when you've been dealing with it all day!

A fantastic post grizzlybearatemyhomework

I hope that the OP reads it.

Yes, teaching is stressful. Even more so in recent years under the current government...but that’s a different thread entirely. However, it is not the only stressful job, but it is very all consuming. My brain is like the internet with about 40 tabs open all day! I imagine your friend would be mortified if she knew you felt you were being shot down. (Some people do cope better with stress than others though too!)

@Piggywaspushed shit, piss & even eat when you want to! And re someone else’s example: if a client threw a chair at me I’d get a payout - not questioned & paperwork

“However, a lawyer working for a big London company did just that to gain work/life balance. She said it was the same stress and lack of social life for a ridiculous cut in pay.”

And the lawyers outside the big London firms don’t earn nearly so much...in fact they don’t earn much more than teachers with the same amount of stress and much shorter holidays! How do I know, my brother is a teacher and I am a lawyer...he is looking forward to the summer break whereas I face even more stress trying to combine looking after the kids with working and feeling guilty when my five year old asks me if I have to go to work tomorrow...cos it’s the holidays...

Op it doesn’t sound to me like you have any interest in changing your mind about how you feel about your friends stress. You’re paying lip service to it but you are still saying the exact same things in your posts. You just want to hear that you’re right. 🤷‍♀️

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to combine looking after the kids with working and feeling guilty when my five year old asks me if I have to go to work tomorrow...cos it’s the holidays...

We feel guilty too when we can’t attend a sports day or school play or first day at school or a Parents Evening or assembly etc.

I'm a 1:1 TA. I'm the only TA in my year group of 90 children. In my class, we have the high needs autistic child that I look after, a child who clearly has ADHD but that is not diagnosed, another two who are very definitely autistic but not diagnosed, two diagnosed dyslexic, one not but who should be, one who has recently arrived from another country who has very little English, three children with learning difficulties (one whose parents refuse to sign the SEN register), two children who come to school wearing the same filthy clothes every day having had woefully inadequate breakfasts, one who thinks that he should be running the class and that all women and girls are beneath him, one who would rather be doing his sport and thinks school is a complete waste of time but whose parents are endlessly complaining to school about other children, one that thinks shouting out random words at inappropriate times is hilarious, two who cannot for the life of themselves STOP TALKING. Let's not even get started on those struggling with difficult home lives. Mine is not the most difficult class in the year.

Our school has recently been converted to an academy having had a bad brush with Ofsted. As a result, everyone is under an immense amount of pressure to get results. Parents who really care about their children's education are pulling them out of the school leaving us with a disproportionate amount of parents who just don't care. Ironically those children would be fine, it's the ones who need extra support who are struggling without TA support. Even in my role, I have sleepless nights worrying about those children.

Would I want to be the teacher? Not a chance!

I am not easily stressed. My main complaint with my job (primary teacher, 4 days per week) is that it really isn't possible to do the job well without spending hours working from home during evenings, weekends and holidays. I just find myself putting in whatever hours are necessary, while DP and the DC go to bed and the unfolded laundry piles up in a corner of the bedroom; there's no point resenting it as it is just what I have to do to fulfil my role. Make myself a coffee at 11pm, and then power on for a couple more hours, especially during busy times like during report writing season (oh, pleeeease, read the damn things, I pour my heart into making them meaningful and personalised because I really do care for your child and want you to know how hard they try and how much they delight me), when mentoring a student or in the run-up to big assessment events. There's always something.
And RingPiece, I am one of those teachers who plans and organises extra curricular events out of hours, because I really want my pupils to have those experiences. I think it is enriching and transformative to participate in Arts or sporting events, and sometimes these have to happen out of hours, in 'my own' time. The way you talk about that makes me sound like a mug.
DP is periodically very fed up with the hours I keep term time, and I don't know what to do about it.

I am following this thread with interest as my DD is training to be a teacher. I am concerned by so many saying it is stressful and that there is a high drop out rate within the first 5 years. Is it primary or secondary, state or private, or all of it that is stressful? Does it make any difference what subject you teach? What career opportunities are there for those who decide to leave the teaching profession? Is it hard to change?

Rock4please
It's both phases with the drop out after 5 years.

Unfortunately, threads like this get heated because people turn up being goady claiming the job is easy, can't be that stressful etc. Generally staff I know tend to only share the struggles with other teachers or close friends, but when people are doing the 'teachers moan over nothing' arguments then people, understandably, want to point out the reality.

I really enjoy teaching. The first couple of years are the toughest. There are certain external pressures, other stress depends on your school and school culture.

If you would like some more information then having a read on the staff room boards might be useful. There's a few threads where teachers have been offering advice to people considering training.

Look at it as a management position where you are responsible for a team of 30 who can’t cooperate, can’t follow instructions and don’t really want to be there.

People have given very good examples so I don’t have much to add except that DD’s learning journal updates tend to come through at about 10/11pm on a Friday or Saturday night. I guess that says a lot in it’s self

@ Lola. Thank you so much for your advice and I will look at the staffroom threads.

I was a teacher for around 3 years in a private school before having children something I wanted to do since I started infant school. It was the most stressful time. I had a class of 18 (brilliant and small!) more than half had special needs, and half of those had severe special needs and I had 2 children who were extremely gifted ( reading chapter books first week of reception). The school wanted all children to be at the end of ks1 maths by the end of reception year! (Not going to happen!) I would get to work at 6.30am, and leave around 5.30-6 depending on staff meeting. The school hours were 8.20-4.10 (so longer than standard). My mum took me to the doctors because I was so poorly from the stress, being sick, collapsing due to exhaustion.

I continued in early years, i was a manager of a preschool for 5.5 years and have now stepped up as an administration manager for our group of preschools. It’s a lot less pay but I am happy, I get to see my children grow up, they can come to work with me or I work from home and I am able to choose my hours.

I couldn’t have imagined teaching with children. I’m not sure I really want to go back into teaching

Teachers get such long holidays, surely that gives them time to destress?

Yes, it is intensely stressful. I was primary school teacher for 10 years, and in the end, just couldn't handle it any more. Yes, there were good years, but there were years where I was just so stressed that I made myself ill. Twice I developed what I recognised was a borderline eating disorder.
I loved the face to face daily teaching with the children. But it was all the other background stuff that got me down.

Teachers get such long holidays, surely that gives them time to destress?

I presume you haven’t actually read any of the posts?

Teachers get such long holidays, surely that gives them time to destress? All the teachers I know have to work through one of the half terms completely and at least go into school for 2 weeks of the summer holidays. Plus working at the weekend . RTFT

I had a role with Local Authority dealing with public some decisions I had to make causing reactions that were challenged by public, Councillors,MPs, official monitoring bodies even High Court in London. (My decision was upheld in law). My basic hours 9 - 5 but in reality I was at work from 7.30 am to 8.30 pm when computer system was closed for backing up, or out meeting with those with issues trying to clarify why this or that had been decided. Or I would be at home working to 1 in the morning, DH having made evening meal. Usually had to give up when feeling cold due to heating having gone off hours ago. When on annual leave of 5 weeks per year even had work with me. Time spent in airports is valuable work time. There are loads of jobs out there that are just as stressful as teaching. However the public don't hear of them, people just leave as I did after 22 years, 2 episodes of absence for stress/anxiety and a near divorce. I loved the work but Jo Public came to expect more and more from a system that could offer less and less due to lack of staff and financial constraints. I was so envious of teacher friend who went off with her family to France camping for 5 weeks in the summer! Sometimes wonder if the selection of those for teacher training is robust enough these days, different skills must be needed now from say 20 years ago as well as of course scrutiny of the actual content of the course.

Teaching a room of children is very very hard. You have to engage, control, teach and support 30 odd kids- all day long. Tons of admin, deal with often agrreesive and unhelpful parents. If the school management is unsupportive/badly wrong you will find teachers heading for a break down. I'm intrigued that you seem to have taken how she feels personally, that it means you can't work as hard/be as stressed her. Why don't you just listen, empathise and not make it about you? Life isn't a competition and I'm always unsure why people want to make it so. Tbh you sound a bit mean, why does accepting she has a stressful job (that is no doubt more stressful than your life) bother you so much?

@manicmij She went camping for 5 weeks? You're lying of course becuase you want to prove your point. I agree work at a council is stressful, especially with the cuts but you understand that doesn't then mean teaching isn't stressful? They're not the same thing. It's apples and pears. As for concluding teaching training assesment might not be robust enough, I hardly have the words. What brought you to that conclusion? What did you base it on? Oh a vague feeling of bitter resentment? I think your thought process isn't quite robust enough!! Perhaps gather real data before concluding on things you don't really know about.