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 didn't have any "danger to my life" instances like I do now and had no issues with alcoholic parents or any of that kind of thing but you also need to have eyes in the back of your head.
I had one incident when I turned my back to write on the board and one boy decided to unscrew the power board and pull the wires out of the box in the physics lab benches. I am only 5 ft 1 so found it hard to see over the tops unless teaching up on the platform bench. The power went off in the whole building. Silly little bastard. The kids were chuffed, the biggest issue I had was with one of the Teachers abusing me for 20 mins straight in front of the whole class.

I have a friend who had a city job and swopped when she had her DCs to become a teacher. She loves it and says it's much less stressful than city working, but does say that she has a really supportive SLT and it's a school in a good area.

I don't disagree that teaching must be a hard job, but I have had the experience of one of my DMs friends giving me the old 'never go into teaching its the hardest job in the world" speech and even then as a teenager I did wonder how she knew this as she'd never had any other jobs.

Really the OP’s initial post was about not acknowledging that she has a stressful job too. It isn’t a competition. Or rather it is, but it shouldn’t be.

Many people have stressful jobs. We get that. Stressful in different ways. I really thought we were moving to the point where people understood that it’s not 9-3.30 with 13 weeks holiday. Clearly not. Because most people went to school, they think they know what it’s all about. No, you don’t. No one says ‘Oh look at that pharmacist, she has a really easy time of it’ or ‘ working in a bank is so easy, just tap a few keys on the he computer and chat to people .’

No one says those things, but everyone has an opinion about teachers. It is a stressful job. Other jobs are stressful. Some more than others, but surely the fact that teachers are leaving in droves, that the average length of time someone stays in the profession is five years, should tell you that it’s becoming more and more unsustainable.

I know. I did it for nearly forty years. I wouldn’t choose it again and I would actively discourage an one who asked, from entering the profession. There were some great times, some fantastic experiences, some wonderful students. The joy, the creativity, the pleasure has left. Not for everyone, but for many.

And when there are insufficient teachers in schools, or none, what then? What will happen? CEOs of MATs will teach? Don’t think so.

OP, do you have people constantly telling you that all you do is count coloured smarties into a box and stick a label on, that you have a big book that tells you all you need to know, you just look the drug up and it tells you what to do, that anyone could do your job because the GP writes it down and you just pick packets from the shelf? That everyone knows what your job is like because they've been in Boots.That's what being a teacher is like, everyone knows what you do because they've been to school, everyone has an opinion and everyone knows better than you!

I've worked in sales and marketing, and am currently a primary school teacher (on mat leave at the moment, though).

Even with the holidays, teaching is far more stressful than my previous job. It's not a competition though, and no one is saying that teaching is the most stressful job.

Like PPs have said, it's emotionally exhausting. You're performing, parenting, gathering data mentally, trying to hold in a wee all day during your best 8:30-3:30 hours. When the children have gone home, and you're tired, you then have to use what's left of your brain space and energy to mark and assess, to amend plans for the next day, resource, respond to emails, complete paperwork, attend meetings, write reports, write the script for an assembly etc. It's this, amongst other things, that sets it apart from my previous private sector jobs. You have to use the statistically least productive hours of the day to do that crucial admin.

The responsibility of teaching and caring for 30 children is an honour and a privilege, but the lack of respect for the job from the general public is a little heartbreaking when you put so much of your soul into every minute of the day. The children need the breaks, especially at primary level, and the teachers have to work during those breaks to keep their heads above the water. I don't know of a solution to appease those who begrudge teachers their holidays? Do parents really want their children in school 52 weeks a year?

I am paid far less as an experienced teacher than I was in marketing. I do it for the love of it. No one would do this job for the 'cushy' hours and holidays! It's not worth it.

Everyone has made some brilliant points. The only thing I think I would add is in your OP you said you thought it was expected to bring work home as you got 'up the pay scale a bit.' In teaching this is almost the opposite though, because as a NQT or teacher in your first couple of years your work load is often at its absolute highest and your pay at its lowest. Which is probably why many people quit in their first few years.

My pet theory is that teaching used to be a bit stressful, but was offset by the large amount of autonomy and ability to make your own decisions. My mum used to teach primary and if she saw some lovely bluebells on the way to school she would take them in, do a drawing class, orient her work around flowers. Now it's all decided in advance, there's tick boxes and schemes of work and everything is documented. That lovely freedom teachers used to have to respond to their pupils, and to come home and not spend every night marking has gone. It used to be a nice job with some stress, now it's just continual stress without many nice bits and a sense of impending crisis. Same in academia, same in medicine. These jobs are no longer attractive to professional type people as they are basically like being on a factory line producing patients/students and the fundamental autonomy/creativity of the job is so much less.

NearlyAlmost50 you make an absolutely excellent point.

I love my teaching job for 3 reasons:

A. I am in my late fifties and dependents have grown. I have no one to look after and the support of a loving husband.
B. I officially work 0.5 having stepped down from management to main scale teaching in an area with smaller groups but can give far more time without it impacting on a young family. Nobody else suffers because I do this as they would if I had dependents.
C. We have an amazingly brave leadership team who ignore lots of government crap, have shed loads of integrity, trust their staff, love our students and support us to do our jobs wholeheartedly.

We are a busy comp in a deprived urban area doing a bloody good job most the time. I still don’t know how full-timers with children manage it, even much more understanding than in most schools.

"My pet theory is that teaching used to be a bit stressful, but was offset by the large amount of autonomy and ability to make your own decisions. My mum used to teach primary and if she saw some lovely bluebells on the way to school she would take them in, do a drawing class"

MY DF taught primary. In his time, they didn't have to make detailed lesson plans, quite often they could just carry on in the text books (pretty sure this happened at my secondary as well). There were no exams or anything to mark in primary.There was almost no homework to mark either and the marking was pretty simply, ticks and crosses and a comment on the end. The paperwork did increase during that time and I remember a reception teacher in the '90s complaining about how it had grown.

At secondary, there definitely wasn't the pressure there is now. I remember one teacher just writing on the board the activity of the day e.g. exercise 2 and 3 on page 10 and spending the lesson marking so he hardly ever stood in front of us and talked to us. Also, if a pupil was disruptive they could be sent out of the class.

To the poster saying teachers get an hour for lunch - hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

We had 35 minutes for lunch at the time I left, down from 45 minutes to help address behaviour incidents at lunchtime. If the lunch wasn’t taken up by students dropping in to ask for help, it would be taken by seeing an incident happening outside and having to step in, or having to call ten parents to find out why their child’s attendance had dropped (yes!) or having to email Parent A to explain why their precious child has been moved on the seating plan. That time was rarely my own.

"There is an opt out Gwen. I am guessing private companies have this built into contracts "

I know there is an opt out. I mentioned it.
It cannot be inside the contract, but it is presented at the same time as the contract as if it's a requirement, which is totally wrong of course.

Actually thinking about it , it always grinds my gears when people claim superlatives in any situation. So the FB posts " Best husband in the world ever" really have you tried many others ?

That's why I get so annoyed with the #teaching is the hardest profession in world strapline, and believe me it does exist and it does get wheeled out. Yes I'm sure teaching is hard - is it harder than being a care worker or viewing pedophile images as a police officer or being a nurse. It would be difficult and rather odd to say that yes teaching must be harder than that.

Maybe just one person can give a decent answer to the question of why, if teaching isn’t more stressful than many or most other professions, there is a recruitment crisis? It has never been easier to become a teacher. There is a thread in Education which demonstrates that you can become a teacher without basic qualifications now (a degree and English/Maths) and teach as an unqualified teacher. So why are we struggling to recruit?

I expect what your friend meant is that she was working until 5pm with barely enough break to have a wee never mind look at her phone and text you. That’s not my experience of normal working days.
Yes, as in ' no, I didn't text you because I quite literally didn't stop working until 5pm' not 'I was in the workplace until 5pm but can check my phone a few times a day, spend my lunch browsing social media and catching up on my texts'.

Of course someone will always say 'look teacher complains they had to work until 5!' when the reality is 'friend who has time to text during the working day finds it surprising that anyone else wouldn't have time to be messaging during the day'

Yes I'm sure teaching is hard - is it harder than being a care worker or viewing pedophile images as a police officer or being a nurse. It would be difficult and rather odd to say that yes teaching must be harder than that.

Why? I am not saying it is harder (I’ve never been a nurse or a police officer) but why must it automatically be easier? Unless you have done both, extensively, working for several different employers in both sectors, how would you be able to say for sure?

I left teaching (secondary, taught 600+ kids a week over 5 subjects) when dh got a second foreign posting.

It took 18 months from when I left for me to stop waking up at 0500 in a muck sweat, panicking that I hadn't done my planning.

I taught for 5 years, left when I was 40. It was hard, but I loved it. I cannot say that I will be looking for a teaching job when I return to the UK for good this year. I've been out for too long, and I don't think I have the patience, tolerance or stamina any more to do it.

I think that your friend was finding teaching more stressful than you were finding your job at that time OP. I would imagine that when she was in the middle of it, it probably did feel like teaching was the most stressful job in the world, and no one else could possibly understand, because that is how things can feel when you are very stressed. I would hope that after some time off she may be more receptive to listening to your experiences.

@rookiemere It's harder because the pressure is incessant. A HCP will have a particularly stressful case but usually within days that case will end, the patient will be discharged/ transferred/ die. The police officer will have to look at some disturbing images but then will move on to another task. And most of the time they're dealing with one person per case, and they don't take the work home with them. Teaching you never get a break, you're getting constant pressure from above, constant targets to meet, and all of that in front of thirty children. There's never the chance to step away, to confer with a colleague and get their support with a task, hence the countdown to the summer holidays, it's the first chance they have to breathe in months.

So yes, all the mentioned jobs are very stressful, but teaching is one of the few that expects you to work under constant pressure sixteen hours a day for months and months on end.

This is such an obnoxious question.

Have you ever held a child's birthday party in your house? Ok, so imagine that: you have 30 + children in your house, you have to care for them, entertain them, ensure they get fed, etc. There will be weeing, pooing and sick accidents too. Now, don't forget, you have to educate them too, all day from 8:45 to 3:15. Prior to that you have to plan that day, following the day, you evaluate. After the party you need to tidy up then spend an hour in a meeting, maybe lead a meeting or do a special club for extra children. Repeat every day. Write reports regularly on children. Back at home there is a deadline for work so you complete that after your own children have gone to bed. This post, by the way, is not a complaint, it is a way of helping a non-teaching adult to understand what teaching is like.

@herculepoirot2
I think it’s a good question, but until the crisis deepens and teachers stop masking shortages so that the real problems impact on children and their parents, things won’t change.
Until parents are faced with 4 1/2 day weeks, teachers changing constantly within a year, GCSEs and A levels taught by unqualified and unskilled people, children’s learning constantly broken as the system fails, parents will continue to look at chalkface workers and blame them for their child’s unhappiness and failures.
Instead of looking up the ladder.

When a teacher complains I think they are saying: I am finding this too hard now. They are not actually saying: this job is the most difficult.

Teaching will always be a stressful job, however the level of stress depends on so many things- the country, government policies , the school ethos, the children, parents, colleagues, funding levels etc etc.

I taught in NI and now live in England. I no longer teach but have Re trained and still work in education. I also come from a family of teachers. Teaching in NI is so much more of an enjoyable and rewarding experience than England (can't comment on Scotland or wales). Teachers are way less stressed ime. And my two siblings who still teach do leave at 3.30 just after the kids 4 days a week. School meeting on the other day. Yes they do work a little in the evenings but mostly marking or writing reports. They both run summer schemes for half of the holidays because they get bored of the 8 weeks off.

Teacher stress in England is a huge problem but I don't see anyone doing anything about it. Government don't have a clue and are insistent on changing curriculums and expected levels on what feels like a yearly basis.