Bored of teacher friend banging on about how hard her job is

[JustACog]

Friend's a teacher and I'm tired of the chat about how her job is harder/longer/more stressful than everyone else's.

Almost every conversion now gets round to her moaning about how much she's overworked how much time she spends marking or planning. I do believe there is a lot of work involved in teaching and it's not a job I could do but I'm fed up of it being laid on thick. Fed up of the martyrdom around the sacrifice she's making for the children

CF said to me that I'm lucky to have my job (nurse full time shifts in A&E) as I just get to switch off when I leave and she's on the job from dawn to dusk.

AIBU to call her out on this, really feeling like I'd like to ask her what she really thinks other people do that's so much easier than teaching.

@FloreanFortescue whatever...

How long have you known her? Has she been a teacher all that time? Perhaps it’s time she left like thousands of others. With all her qualities she’ll be able to walk into another job or set up her own business

Just a reminder...Teachers are not paid for holidays.

Teachers get paid for legal set amount of annual leave, but that’s not the entire 13 week holiday,

It’s in the red book and would equate to 6 weeks paid annual leave

@Yeahnah2020 indeed

I think you might know my sister! 🤣

YANBU

I am not in the same situation as I you as I don't work (full time carer for disabled child) but my sister used to go on about how hard it is being a teacher, how she never got a break as it was constant with the work and how she wishes she could be like me and get to stay at home all the time as it must be so easy just getting to relax all the time (her actual words not implied) 😡😡 Relax? I haven't had a full nights unbroken sleep for 5 years.

I don't doubt teaching is a difficult profession but there are a lot of other jobs (such as yours) where the stress levels must be awful and in surr you don't get to switch off.

How much do teachers get paid per year?
How much time off do they get per year?

This getting paid or not getting paid for the holidays thing is a red herring!

As pp have said there is clearly a problem in teaching and it's getting worse. And I don't agree that "no one will die". Clearly there's no immediate threat if a teacher does a bad job. But children with poor life chances can have that amplified or moderated by bad or good teachers in a bad or good school. It's very important.

I really hate the form “bored of” rather than “bored with”. Regrettably, it’s become very common.
I’m a teacher BTW.

Can't be bothered to read the whole thread because I'm just having a quick cuppa before I get started on the three sets of books I have to mark today, but I just wanted to comment on something someone said about part time work earlier.

Part time work is easily available in teaching because most teachers in high workload subjects can't cope with full time work and raising a family. My DH works away in an extremely demanding job. I'm an English teacher. I have three kids - 16, 13 and 6. I work a 0.8 contract, but I always work on my day "off" and always work at the weekend, although I try to make sure I take one day off completely. I don't know any friends in other professions who are part time so they can catch up with work on their day off.

I love my job, and don't want to leave. But I don't know a single English teacher who isn't horribly overworked. As a parent I worry. I am lucky enough to work in a supportive department in a good school. If I didn't, I would be looking around for a new job. Teacher recruitment and retention should be a concern for all of us with children.

@wherehavealltheflowersgone I come from a family of teachers. They are paid for holidays, more so than other professions, just not the full amount of time they have off. Also, no one is saying they don’t work hard, they’re saying it’s a joke to compare it to the stresses and pressures of an A&E nurse.

@TimeAfterTimeAfter what a brilliant excuse for not wanting to be a teacher. You have no idea but you stick with your excuse and carry on slagging off the profession if it makes you feel better.

Agree that there does seem a tendency amongst those in the teaching profession to tell others how hard they work. I've been on nights out with a dozen teachers and this topic does crop up a LOT. None of them has any experience in any other jobs to compare it to - perhaps it is "compared to 10 years ago" rather than "compared to all other professions".

I will also say that I've got friends in the care sector who get paid peanuts for long shifts, unsociable hours, cleaning up poo, wee, sick, who have been punched, strangled, slapped, sworn at by service users and their relatives and have had to watch people they've become close to in their dying moments, who complain less about their jobs than some teacher friends!

If you don't like your job, change it (I say this as someone now on my 3rd career - it's tough, but doable!)

Teaching can be an amazingly gratifying job.
Depending on where you work, statutory safeguarding and child protection responsibilities can be daunting and a big part of your professional role. In other settings, not so much.
It is shit to not be able to just 'switch off' when you leave work. That's not just about 'needing better strategies' but about being personally invested in one's work, taking the time to research and create quality learning experiences for the learners in your class. If all it was, was a couple of hours of marking of an evening, OK; but for me, it is the constant thinking about how to create enriching and meaningful experiences that, although stimulating, is wearing. Creating cultural capital where there isn't much, broadening horizons, contextualising lived experience, raising personal aspirations and scaffolding the attainment thereof.

Children with very complex medical conditions attend even mainstream school and yes, depending on a teachers class, if they fuck up someone could die or be seriously injured. Im not suggesting that its harder than an A&E nurse at all btw as my mum was a nurse. Im just highlighting that some of the choices teachers make for the 30 children they are responsible for are significant.

I've been on nights out with a dozen teachers and this topic does crop up a LOT.

In fairness here, being out with 11 other teachers would give me the impression that they were letting off steam in a pretty ‘safe environment’ with so many other teachers.

If you also went out with 12 other care sector workers at the same time, I’m positive that some of the conversation would come round to having a good moan with each other about their jobs.

Can you honestly say that if you were out with 11 other people who also did your job, conversations about your job wouldn’t come up???

Teachers find it hard to leave the profession because

A) they love the actual teaching, building relationships with the children
B) they are not qualified to do anything else on a professional level.

If you look at Facebook teacher groups they are full of staff who've had enough of the workload but are considering taking a huge pay cut to start again in another field. That's not to say teaching is particularly well paid, it isn't really considering the effort and expertise it involves. Pay hasn't increased in the last 10 years. Many teachers are trapped in teaching due to mortgages etc. Others find work as teaching assistants on very low pay to get some work life balance back.

I'm a teacher and if I can't switch off when I get home, I don't know how a nurse in A&E could?!
I would definitely talk to her about a lot of jobs being stressful, not just teaching, and take the friendship from there.

I have lots of teacher friends who don't moan about the job

I used to be a teacher...just another week training in a and e as radiographer...not as stressful sorry.
The level of responsibility is more and more technical but unless you have to spend every evening planning and marking to have 30 kids pick it apart next day...noone has a clue. Hence why i left.

Besides now the accountability for trachers is high.

cleaning up poo, wee, sick, who have been punched, strangled, slapped, sworn at by service users and their relatives

Guess what? All those things apply to many teachers, too!

I don’t understand why the thread has rambled so far off the specific point made in the OP, and the question she asked.
It’s not about holidays, or pay or whether teachers are hard done by.
Her friend constantly complains about the same issues, and the OP is fed up with it. It would be the same complaint, whatever the friend’s job, ISS astronaut or Amazon worker. It’s the relentless whinging that’s the problem.
Use your words, OP. Tell her you are bored witless by her moaning and just put headphones on next time. Big ones, so she can see you aren’t listening. Surely, after years of friendship, you have other topics of cinversation?

It wandered off because she deliberately stimulated it by putting teacher in the post. It was guaranteed to run for pages! MN golddust!

Dancingontheedge

The reason it has turned into a general thread about teachers being bastards is because that’s exactly what the OP intended 🤷🏻‍♀️

Her comments are not on. Of course you don't just switch off as an A & E Nurse! I am not an NHS worker but even I can appreciate that!

Some teacher are very vocal about their stress in a way that NHS workers aren't. Possibly because you are helping people who are having a very difficult time, so moaning about staying late, not eating all day, not being able to go to the loo (!) is seen as really bad form.