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?

a day for Christmas shopping

I've been teaching 30 years and never had a day off for Christmas shopping!

Someone up thread said "It's not a race to the bottom". I agree. Teaching and nursing are both extremely stressful careers. We should be supporting each other, not arguing about who has it worse.

I'd like your answer to the question I've asked you twice as well.

My point is that it isn't the only job that is stressful, has long hours and lots pressure.

Hand on heart, how many teachers have you heard literally say "Teaching is the only job that is stressful, has long hours and lots of pressure"? I'm going to make a guess at: zero.

Nah
Teaching is stressful. Lots of jobs are stressful.
I think teachers tend to talk about it because of those who think it’s easy. We don’t think it’s MORE stressful- we are just fed up with everyone thinking they can do better.

What I will say is, as a teacher, I laugh a lot too. Kids are great. So there are upsides

And it's okay to acknowledge the perks of a job (like holidays) without being defensive. I work 3 x 14 hour shifts a week. I often get told "it must be nice to have 4 days off a week". And do you know what, it is

But are you ignoring the part where the teachers are telling you that they are working these holidays?

That would be like you having to go into work for an extra 2 days, unpaid, on your days off and then still getting people saying "must be nice to get 4 days off a week"

@Smileeachday. I want teachers to stop talking about their jobs as though it's a 'race to the bottom'

Thank you for your answer. I’m a bit unclear about how this thread will achieve that. Would you not be better off talking to your friends, whose attitude you seem to have an issue with?

Also - I’m a teacher and I work with about 120 teachers on a daily basis. There are perhaps 4 I can think of who moan. I think they’d moan regardless of their job.

There are quite a few people on Mumsnet who have several teacher friends who do nothing but whinge about how they have the most stressful job in the world. They really need to get better friends.

Just pointing out that Miss Popular is about today.

I'd like your answer to the question I've asked you twice as well.

I have answered your question already!

So what did you expect from this thread that hasn't been posted many times before? When you have time. Thanks.

I want teachers to stop talking about their jobs as though it's a 'race to the bottom'. It's not a competition.

If that’s what you want, then what have you done about it? If it bothers you so much have you told your few teacher aquaintances who do this and represent the whole of the world’s teaching population this?

It’s funny because I saw a thread not long ago on mn where a teacher asked how many days other teachers had been in over the summer! The general consensus was that they hadn’t been in at all!!

I dont think you have. I'm not holding my breath since you won't even acknowledge how goady the thread is

Life isn’t a ‘who can get the most stressed by their job?’ competition and it’s annoying if people try to turn it into one. I’d just roll eyes and ignore this sort of thing.
Also most people haven’t worked in many different fields so aren’t really in a position to make assumptions about other people’s stress levels.

I want teachers to stop talking about their jobs as though it's a 'race to the bottom'.

But literally no one has done that apart from your friends. If they are as you describe they sound annoying. Have you emailed them the link yet?

If not, are you expecting them to be psychic or are you sticking to your sweeping generalisation that all teachers are like that, even though all the posts so far have been to the contrary?

Someone up thread said "It's not a race to the bottom". I agree. Teaching and nursing are both extremely stressful careers. We should be supporting each other, not arguing about who has it worse.

Now shush, you are supposed to be saying how teaching is worse than anything else in the whole world ever, so OP can have her thread.

God, do these teacher threads never end?

It's our fault for biting, I think I shall just report and move on. This one lacks subtlety.

Okay I'm going to get this thread deleted because it's just turned into a pointless bun fight.

Okay I'm going to get this thread deleted because it's just turned into a pointless bun fight.

A bun fight that YOU started, some might argue...

Get this thread deleted = it didn't go as I wanted.

You should be admitting you shouldn't have posted it in the first place.

I used to be a teacher, I hated it, but id still take it anyday over being a nurse, especially given the manning crisis and chronic issues with the NHS. Night shifts alone are horrific (I worked them in call centre sat on my arse whilst at uni), let alone on your feet for 14 hours, dealing with death, relatives, knowing you can't give the care to the level you want as your are short staffed, and knowing that a mistake could be horrific. Also the nature of shift work in general, missing weekends, bank holidays etc. I did a lot of work at home, but I knew I would have weekends and Christmas etc with my family, not caring for other people's. It's not a competition but cripes!

Okay I'm going to get this thread deleted because it's just turned into a pointless bun fight

What on earth did you expect?!

Imagine walking into a dentist’s waiting room where 30 people are waiting. Two are having a fight. One has her arm in the fish tank up to the elbow. One is behind the desk, trying insistently to talk to the receptionists about model railways. One is quietly scratching his name into the wall with a pair of nail scissors, which he then passes to someone who scratches her leg discreetly until blood flows. One is weeping. One is wheezing loudly. Two are scratching their heads furiously. The dentist appears and says “I will see you all now”.

Teaching. I couldn’t do it.

Oh also, can you imagine someone starting a thread complaining about nurses saying their job is hard? The OP would be ripped to shreds. But teachers are always fair game.

Because nurses are selfless angels slaving away for 'our' NHS. Teachers are petty little tyrants who only care about having long holidays, and live to harangue innocent children about pointless uniform rules.

Fwiw I'm a teacher. I think nurses are amazing and I could never do what they do. But the public perception of teachers is hideously unfair, and a poor national attitude to teachers is bad for schools, bad for education and bad for children. So stop contributing to it.

And I thought MNHQ decided about deletions and bunfights.

"What on earth did you expect"?

A sensible conversation where people can post their perspectives like adults without getting aggressive and telling me to fuck off maybe?

Here we go again. Must be a week or so since we've had one of these threads.