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!

Oh and all my friends think I do is sharpen pencils

Sorry i am not sure if i was very clear there so want to clarify: Obviously the job is the job like any other when at work, it's just that when at home you have the mental load as well which never goes away so yes you bring home paperwork, sometimes ridiculous amounts but it isn't even that it's the fact you can never let go or switch off: these are always your children and you will always carry the mental load of being their teacher and all that entails.

I suppose it's hard to explain; a bit like trying to explain the mental load of parenting to a non parent which is where my comparison came from.

Yes

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

This is the same as a lot of jobs though. I am a dentist. Every appointment is like being on stage - I literally have a persona I put on. Every interaction with a patient could trigger a complaint.
I do think teachers have a difficult and stressful job but no more than doctors, nurses, dentists, police- lots of professions. Teachers pay isn’t great but they get lots of holidays.

An example of the juggling required on a daily basis. (Real story from 2 weeks ago)
Child a is having a hard time understanding why child b has gone in his bag and hidden his water bottle. 28 other children are sat on the carpet waiting for maths to start.
You negotiate a settlement between child a and child b just as 2 girls start squealing that the carpet smells of poo. They both have fox poo on their shoes from playtime and it is up their legs and on the carpet.
TA and teacher deal with this whilst 28 children sit on carpet waiting for said maths lesson to start.
Just as girls sit on carpet with clean socks and p e shoes on (avoiding carpet yet to be cleaned) head teacher walks in showing parents round and asks happily “so what are we learning today in maths?”

Real life randomness every day that can not be planned for. No allowance made for having children with major challenges at home nor English as an additional language.
Just expected to produce the results at the end with a perfect paper trail.

genuinely I don't mean to come across as goady
Of course you don't op. Your wide eyed innocence about how teaching can't possibly be more stressful than most other jobs comes across as completely sincere and without agenda

I used to be a teacher and found it incredibly stressful and tiring - I regularly came home from school and fell asleep on the sofa before dinner. I left and now work normal office hours with a normal amount of holiday and find it much easier - I'd not go back to teaching with 13 weeks leave for all the tea in China! I worked more hours a year teaching, even with the holidays, than I do now.

I don't have experience of professions like medicine, which sound incredibly stressful too, but for me teaching was far harder than my more office based job now!

Every lesson is like being on stage
This. You’re “on” all the time. You can’t go for a wee, or have a coffee, or a quick chat. You can’t interact with other adults, you’re isolated as the only adult in a group of children. You’re responsible for everyone and constantly watching everyone like a hawk. If someone doesn’t do their work it’s your fault. If someone doesn’t achieve highly enough it’s your fault. If someone is naughty it’s your fault. If someone sneaks out it’s your fault. With older kids you’re often verbally abused and are wary of being attacked. This is why my DH quit teaching, because he was crying every night and having panic attacks about going to work.

Plus the workload is ridiculous, as are the hours. If you teach full time you literally have no life except during the holidays. Another reason why DH quit, because he wanted to see our DC grow up.

I work P/T. I teach 18 1 hr lessons over 3.5 days. One after another. All practical activities.
Full on 1 hr workshops 4/5 times each day, no sitting back. I get 2 hours P/W to plan, prepare and assess.

That's 180 different KS3 children and 40 different KS4 children.

All are individuals (obviously) - different abilities, interests, personalities. Some with behaviour issues, some with SEN (all different - Autism, anxiety, dyslexia, attachment disorder- you name it).

I am expected to tailor my lessons to suit every child's learning style,

Children are unpredictable.

I also have a form group on top of this. I am expected to monitor their progress in all of their subjects and address any problems with behaviour in lessons. I am their first contact point in school.

I could go on but I'm boring myself... it's knackering.

Imagine looking after and occupying 30 children ON YOUR own for 5 hrs straight day in day out. Then going home and planning the more for the next day and the day after as the day after... Would you be tired???

I'm a nurse with two jobs and four kids- that's no walk in the park tbf.... but would I swap to be a teacher...? thinks of holidays.... NOPE 😂😂😂😫 hth 😂

It's ok here in Ireland but getting worse
Apparently awful in the uk with huge work load so yes and with small kids very draining

When your teaching ur always on and dealing with the ups and downs of little people plus all the prep and parent al expectations

Don't compare she's obv finding it very stressful if she needs a break

Thanks, appreciate all the responses. I completely understand it's a difficult and stressful job, i guess I've never quite understood why it's so much more so than other jobs.

Without wanting to say exactly what I do, I prescribe maybe 100 or so drugs a day for lots of patients, I often go home wondering if I asked the right questions, picked up on all the relevant symptoms, referred to the right service, prescribed the right drug, haven't done something that will be detrimental to my career that I've worked so hard to build up. Guess my main issue is that my friend doesn't seem to acknowledge that we both have levels of stress and difficulty in our jobs, just obviously different.

And what Aria says.

@ValleyoftheHorses

There is a difference between being ‘on’ for cooperative patients who want to be there and have booked to see you as a professional and having spent two hours carefully planning a lesson where at least 50% of the audience cannot be fuck, 25% actively hate each other and about 5% haven’t slept or eaten.

Plate spinning is the closest I can get.

An actual monologue from last week:

Ok, so Macbeth in this scene is... yes Jack. No, not right now. Ok, so Macbeth is trying to show here that he’s... no, sorry. Not now. Right, now we’re all together. Yes, ok get your books.

And on and on and on.

The most draining thing about being a teacher is fighting to finish every fucking sentence and then answer questions form the five people who weren’t listening anyway.

I'm a police detective, I've dealt with seriously horrendous child sexual exploitation cases, and now work with gangs who are involved in organised crime and seem to think shooting each other is ok. My job is long hours, at times high risk and can be very stressful.. one wrong decision could literally put a life at risk or cause a case to fall to pieces...

My husband is a secondary school teacher. He's lucky he works in a good school that doesn't really have any serious discipline issues. I wouldn't swap my job for his job for all the tea in China. As pp have stated.. literally like being on stage all day looking after emotional and educational needs of a few hundred teenagers. He's been away the last 2 weekends on school trips. Teachers don't get paid overtime for things like that, they do it for the benefit of the kids. I do get envious of his holidays but he definitely needs the breaks.

As per pp, lots of stressful jobs out there.. teaching is definitely one of them!

As a parent I find summer term really stressful, so much going on and as a result ds is tired, stroppy, tearful and difficult.

I’m pretty sure teachers do not have an easy time of it either - quite the opposite in fact. Reports to prepare, plays to organise, sports day and a million other things that we will probably never know about.

All whilst dealing with 30 tired, stroppy, tearful and difficult kids. They deserve a medal!

Obviously paramedics, police, docs, nurses and so on have stressful jobs too but I think teachers are up there too.

I have 3 DC under 5 I've been teaching for 10+ years I have a curriculum responsibility, year group responsibility and am now about to be assistant principal. It is very stressful and consuming but not so much that's it's crossed my mind to give up. Hard yes but totally manageable

I'm sure it's like this with some other jobs, buy for me, I just have it hanging over me all the time. The job is never done. The 8.45-3.30 bit is just the tip of the iceberg. That's the bit where you are "on" and performing, having to keep 30 small children constantly engaged, reacting to their differing levels of understanding, knowing what to do if they haven't understood something.

But every hour of that has to be prepared and resources and then feedback provided. I always say to office workers, imagine the work you put into a presentation, then imagine you have to do 5 presentations a day, with differentiated activities then mark 30 pieces of work for each lesson afterwards.

We don't have any textbooks, so I travel the internet for resources or more often than not make my own, eg write a reading comprehension about the book we are reading or make up some reasoning problems for maths . I plan all my own lessons - even when I've taught the same year group two years in a row something has changed. If I prepared every lesson as well as my best lessons, I would never sleep. But if I deliver a not great lesson I feel really bad and go home and dwell on it.

Last week I also had to prepare and give an assembly, visit a historical location at the weekend in preparation for a class trip, write a risk assessment for the trip, input this term's assessment data onto the assessment database etc. I have to leave school by 5 to pick up my own children and sometimes take them to or pick them up from brownies, swimming lessons, dancing lessons etc, fit in doing homework with them, cook them meals. I only have 90 minutes at the end of the school day, assuming I have no meetings, to do stuff in school so I have to do at least another couple of hours once the kids are in bed. That's the bit of the job I dislike most.

I'm lucky, I work in a school where they don't micromanage but there is still the pressure of results and progress.

I don't doubt that there are other jobs with more immediate pressure - nobody's going to die if I make a mistake. And there are other jobs where you have to do a lot of work at home. They tend to be better paid though.

My family are mostly teachers as are my 2 best friends. All primary, all different schools. None has quit, none complain and none work ever in school holidays. I don’t doubt it’s hard but I never hear anything from any teachers I know resembling the comments on MN

@ValleyoftheHorses you don't see 30 patients all at once in the same room and have to provide constant attention for every single one of them. The minute you turn a blind eye to one of them there might be a fight, a mobile phone out, spit balls being blown or nazi symbols being carved into your desks?

I thought I’d this meme:

‘A student asked me what it was like to be a teacher so I interrupted her every ten seconds until she cried.’

Nailed it. Keeping my cool and being professional in the face of this requires at least 50% of my daily energy.

By the time I get home I have no patience for shenanigans of any kind because I’ve had other people’s children being rude to me all day. Really rude, disrespectful and soul destroying in the way only teenagers know how.

And for those of you who find it soul destroying, are you planning to leave the profession?

@summertime06 I already am. I'm starting uni again in September. It's costing me thousands to retrain (4 year pharmacy course) but it can't be worse than teaching.

Yes

@sanityisamyth good choice, I'm a pharmacist!