Okay, about teachers...

[KitKat1985]

Okay I'm being brave here. I know a few people who happen to be teachers. Whenever they talk about their jobs, there's a real 'no other profession has to work as hard as us' vibe to their speech. I am fully aware and in agreement that it's a stressful job with long hours and ridiculous amount of pressure if you don't count the long holidays but it's hardly the only profession that has these issues. I myself am a nurse, and 14 hour shifts on an under-staffed ward with no breaks and several severely ill / abusive patient to look after are hardly a picnic either. But whenever I discuss work with teacher friends there's a definite 'if you want to talk about stress you should try being a teacher' element to the conversation, and it's starting to really get on my nerves. Lots of jobs are stressful, teaching isn't the only one! And it's only teachers I know that seem to have this general attitude about their profession. AIBU? Is it really more stressful than any other profession out there?

With the holidays, the school year is arranged so the holidays are filled. All your classes do assessments at the end of a unit so you head into the holidays with about 200 pieces of work to mark. And you also have to plan your lessons for the next half term.

Now I work as a hcp in a therapy team, I much prefer having less holidays, being able to choose when to take then and how to split them up...and actually being able to not work during them!

The funny thing is I read the first bit and then said to myself "she's never spoken to a NhS worker, obviously" then I read that you're a nurse! I think all the service type professions have this about them because we are chronically underpaid.

But it's hard not to get irritated by the rhetoric of 'you don't work as hard as I do' which is what I seem to keep hearing from teacher friends. I don't feel the need to tell other professional groups that they don't work as hard as I do,
But if the public repeatedly said to you "nursing is so easy. All you do all day is sit down and eat chocolates and then clear up after the drs, who do the real work" I think you would feel the need to constantly state how hard your job is, how stressful it is and how hard you do work.

Teaching is almost a perfect storm - it is stressful, it's long hours and low pay and people don't appreciate it or respect it.

I can't really think of another profession that suffers from all of that.

My bf is a teacher. When the kids break up she’ll usually have 2 weeks of meetings in the summer holidays after they’ve gone and will be back in school at least 1 week before the kids get back. At xmas & Easter she’ll be at work a week after the kids have broken up and back a week before they are. Just because the children aren’t there doesn't mean the teachers aren’t

And if teaching is such an easy cushy job with loooads of holiday & good pay, why is there such a shortage of them?

Seriously, this again?

Where's your solidarity? I have noticed it is often nurses who start threads , or join in, to criticise teachers.

I would never think of starting a thread to criticise nursing.

What exactly is the beef?

A day off for Christmas shopping??? Never happened in my 17yrs of teaching.

Nor in my 35+ years of teaching - where is this school/college?

This again? Teaching is a hard job, nursing is a hard job. Some teachers might think their job is harder than anyone else's, some nurses might think their job is harder than anyone else's. Most think their job is hard but that other people have hard jobs too. People are entitled to complain about their stressful jobs without having to preface it with "I know that other people have stressful jobs too, but...".

I do resent it though when teachers say how they are the only ones who feel stressed

Oh come off it fgs - teachers have actually told you they are the only people who feel stressed? Yeah, of course they have.

Sounds like your friends are just shit don’t blame all teachers

Your friends are allowed to talk about the stresses in their lives, but if they are dismissing your stresses then they are shit friends.

yet in teaching it just seems to be a culture of teachers all saying 'no-one else works as hard as us'.

I have never heard anyone say that. Generalising about everyone who shares a particular job is silly. I think you may just need new friends.

I don't think there are many professions which do have the same periods of prolonged, intense stress as teaching, but medicine is certainly one. I have a friend who was very dismissive of talk about stress in teaching when he was a bomb disposal expert. Now he's a teacher he claims even active service was a doddle by comparison.

@ILoveSooty because, as you have rather proven, most teachers I know are so tetchy if anyone mentions the fact that they have long holidays!

Look at person A I know for example who is a teacher. Moans constantly that there's no benefits to her job, but went on 5 week trip to Australia last summer holidays. That's more annual leave in one go than many people have for the whole year, and many people simply wouldn't be allowed to take 5 weeks leave from work in one go. And friend B who moans about being a TA, but because her hours pretty much fit in perfectly with her daughters schooling (bar the odd inset day) and she's off in the holidays, she never has to pay for childcare. That's an enormous benefit.

Find different friends. Seriously, this has been done to death on MN. I bet your solicitor friend earns a shed load more than the average teacher and more work = more money. I got so frigging irritated by this attitude on MN I decided to keep track of the actual hours I work. It's about 43 a week in term time, 0.8 FTE. I do 39 weeks a year. 43x39=1677 hours a year. If I did 0.8 FTE in an office with 5 weeks holiday, I'd be working 47×32=1502 hours a year. In actual fact I also work in my holidays, so I do more still. So yes, I do work harder than a lot of people, and in term-time I put a lot more hours in than my ft working DH, who is on 1.5x my salary. I would never say no other profession knows stress like it and there is no way I could ever be a nurse, but teaching is tough. The defensiveness comes from the perception that we all work 9-15 for 39 weeks a year, when in reality we do a lot more. Combined with the rubbish pay and the fact that the work is never done. Moreover, it is impossible to do the job to the standard that most teachers would like to as there simply aren't enough hours in the day. And then there are the constant changes imposed by the government, created by people with zero classroom experience except from their time at Eton which adds to the workload and makes the curriculum all but inaccessible for significant numbers of pupils. I'll talk to you when you've spent 2 hours of your own time updating patient records in your living room and have to justify why an obese patient's diabetes hasn't improved despite your best efforts. Because that is what it's like teaching pupils who can barely read properly, have no motivation and no parental support, to pass the GCSE in literature.

You’re not being brave. This argument has been done to death, hasn’t it?

Being a TA is not the same as being a teacher, FFS! I bet you'd be pretty irritated if people assumed your job was the same as that of a HCA. It's a good job your friend doesn't need to pay for childcare because TAs are paid so badly she would probably be unable to.

OP I’m wondering what you were hoping to achieve with this thread?

Are you hoping lots of people will agree with you and use it as yet another opportunity to slag teachers off? I mean, that’s what has happened, soooo...

Or are you hoping teachers will come and defend themselves- as you seem to be treating us as one homogeneous body - so then you can say “see? Moany bastards!”

Or something else?

Years back, I decided I wasn’t going to be dragged down by the stress of the job. So I don’t talk about teaching outside of the job, my resources are in a huge cupboard with doors I can shut so they are out of sight, I don’t belong to any groups on or off-line linked to teaching and I hid the primary Ed sections on MN.
I also try and stay out of conversations like this, because they go round in circles until they disappear up their own arse. Many jobs are stressful, some roles are more appreciated than others, no one can understand what a job is like until they’ve actually done it for a few years.
Tell your friends they bore and annoy you with their irritating conversations. See what happens.

I was a teacher for over 27 years and I had to retire early at 56 as when going through menopause I just could not cope with symptoms and stress of job. Try thinking a teacher has about 30 pupils to deal with at once whereas I would think a nurse has less than that all at once. I might be wrong as I have never been a nurse but when i was in hospital recently there were fourteen women and three nurses to deal with them plus a doctor came around with a student too. None of the nurses seemed at all stressed. I realise some nurses are in A&E and will be busier but they still tend to deal with one or two patients at once.

I agree with PP that you are being goady rather than brave here. Of course other jobs are stressful. But do all teachers complain the way your ‘few people you know that happen to be teachers’ do? I know a lot of teachers - I am one - I’ve never heard anyone say it’s harder than nursing or any other high stress job. Sounds like you’re looking to start a bun fight over a non-issue. Boring. Next.

ILoveSooty because, as you have rather proven, most teachers I know are so tetchy if anyone mentions the fact that they have long holidays!

You seem so lovely and empathetic, OP- your friends must be very insensitive. I think you should just post a link to this thread to your teacher friends, so they can understand how to do better.

Unusually avoid threads about teaching, and I'm done with this one now, but I've been heartened to hear so many teachers and non teachers be reasonable here xx

@KitKat1985 I haven't been a teacher for years. I still think your post is deliberately goady. And that's your justification for the strike through? Give me strength. And what did you expect from the thread that hasn't been said before?

Don't get me started on the paperwork......or the constant specification changes so all the prep you have done cannot be used more than two years in a row.

@KitKat1985 did friend mentioned that she probably paid more than double for the privilege or going in the summer holiday?

I've got friends who are nurses who talk about their job in the same way as the OPs post. Nobody ever did a job as demanding as them. And I've got friends in various other professions who talk about their jobs in the same way (anything from police to academics) so I think generally lots of jobs are stressful but we only know what we do.

I would rather join the armed forces in non peace time than be responsible for a room full of children, be at the mercy of their parents and judgemental colleagues piling on.
Everyone has had a teacher, so we think we know all about what they do, but not everyone has met a heart surgeon, so nobody judges what they do.

Autocorrect.

sigh