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.

@Downton57 you are right, there must be pressure in being in charge of the safety of very young children, even in a controlled environment. The teachers I know don’t tend to mention fear of injury to themselves or the children in their care as one of the big main negatives of the job, though. They do occasionally mention struggling with behavioural issues or violent/disruptive kids of course, even the ones with excellent discipline, but it’s really not grumbled about in the way that taking marking home or making up exams/prepping lessons, or being underpaid is. I’m not sure why. I’m not a teacher myself. (Or a nurse!)

Do you find that in your circle of colleagues the main complaint is the pressure to keep the 5yos safe, rather than the pay/conditions/work life balance? Interesting to think maybe the complaints being made are different when it’s between teachers, rather than when it’s teacher to non teacher.

Teachers have sod all responsibility to justify themselves to me, or to tailor their complaints about work to suit me, but I would understand and sympathise with someone complaining of the stress of child safety, far more than I would with the much more often - in my experience - expressed outrage at taking lots of work home (which most of us have to do).

as someone wrote in a more articulate way than myself can, on a recent thread, it isn't the pay or conditions exactly that makes teaching difficult. It's the high stakes accountability without the trust, financial support and freedom to actually do the things that you know would make the difference that is frustrating and I can imagine that's another similarity to nursing.

I'm a teacher, my mum's a nurse. We both marvel at how hard the other works. Your friend is disrespectful.

Teaching is hard work.
Nursing is hard work.

They're relatively comparable jobs where a wide variety of specialisms and skills are available. Both underpaid, underfunded and both could do with a little more respect.

Lol @ not being paid for holidays. They get the time off and are paid a salary over the year. For anyone else those would be holidays. But for teachers, apparently not.

So much this. Fucking ludicrous to claim the holidays are unpaid

Do an advanced search of the word ‘teachers’ on the other hand...
I would rather google dragon butter

I'm choosing to take a more positive view of these goady threads, as a chance to hang out with some of my favourite mumsnet teachers MNHQ has made it clear to me before that goading teachers is fair game so might as well sit back and enjoy the show

@nomdunchien I just took 400 children to the panto. I can tell you that fear of injury or god forbid a "runner" meant that I lost most of my sleep the night before. My watch was telling me that my heart rate was very high all day.

Fucking ludicrous, happycamper, and yet so true.

OP, at least she's not a vegan.

Teacher here. Couldn’t be an A&E nurse as I simply don’t have the physical and mental stamina for that. Marking is terrible but at least you get to do it in peace with a cup of tea. It can feel like a slow death but isn’t actually life and death. Same for making PowerPoints and worksheets: very time consuming but it’s done sitting down rather than rushing about like an idiot. The teaching itself is bloody tiring but after 6 hours it’s over. 12 hours on my feet would finish me off for good.

as a chance to hang out with some of my favourite mumsnet teachers

Hi fam!

I have explained how the pay works up there ^ snappy.
I hope that makes it less ‘fucking ridiculous’

Mistressiggi
It's oh so predictable.

Poster starts goady thread, preferably with some story about a friend's aunty who is a teacher who only works 5 hours a week and never does marking / friend is in the NHS and they say...
Waits for pile on from those with teacher chips or who have nothing better to do than spread misinformation for some weird reason
Teachers challenge the misinformation and explain the challenges of the job
Furry handed ones and those with teacher chips shout "see! Look! They all think their jobs are the hardest in the world".

We're on page 9 and have almost got a full house.

Our pay is worked out as being in school 195 days (students do 190, we have 5 INSET days) plus the 5.8 weeks holiday. So we are effectively paid for 223. Full time (5x52) would be 260 days so we 'lose' 37 days.

Re the moaning increase towards the end of term, because of the nature of how the work is broken up into the three terms it does tend to feel like a sprint each term and your energy starts to fall towards the end. I would not say my job is harder than anyone elses, I have only done one other job which was a doodle compared to teaching but it is a relentless job with very little give hence the fading towards the end of term. Mentally it is draining.

Oh and someone up post said part time was easy to come by. That might be true but in my experience - 2 schools, shortage subject degree in subject, I am the bottom of the barrel in terms of timetable so I am barely using my subject skills!

Something about how easy it is to get into teacher training with a sub standard degree been mentioned yet? We really should make up an actual bingo card

I was a teacher for 15 years and I began to really dislike my job. Was working ridiculous hours every day, sometimes until the early hours. No work-life balance and felt I was really letting my own kids down (esp when I became a single mum).

So I left teaching and got a job as a ft 1:1 SEN HLTA. I went from £27 an hour to £9.50 and although of course this is not easy at all financially, I have my life back! I love what I do with a passion. I get to spend quality time with the kids (the reason I chose the profession in the first place) and not on irrelevant paperwork. My boys have their mum back.

I'm now engaged and 20 weeks' pregnant - neither of these things I'd have been blessed with had I still been in teaching.

I doubt I'll ever return although financially I may have to consider it (OH doesn't earn much more than me working ft in social care).

Teachers don't tend to talk about how difficult/scary/nerve-wracking it can be within the classroom on a bad day/term/year with non-teachers for lots of excellent reasons. I've left teaching and the daily stress of trying to manage kids who weren't coping in mainstream while keeping the other pupils safe and educated was a major factor, though constant unreasonable parental expectations from the vocal few- "I couldn't see my child properly on stage" "He's lost his jumper. You'll need to look for it" "Why can't he wear his smartwatch?" also got me down! And getting home exhausted, wanting to lie down in a darkened room, but knowing there was lots of school work still to do, was draining. I loved teaching, don't get me wrong, and I miss the kids a lot. But enough was enough, so I left, as lots and lots of us are doing or planning to do. But I wouldn't be a nurse for all the tea in China.

Anyone mentioned the holidays yet?

Those of you saying about teachers being paid for their "nice long holidays" are wrong. Teachers are not paid for their holidays. The salary they earn for the weeks they've worked are spread over 12 months. Otherwise we wouldn't get paid in August, and get reduced pay in other months.

I used to be a teacher. Yes it's stressful, but so are lots of other jobs. There's no point in competing as different people cope with different stress in different ways. Just tell her to change the record.

Teachers are not paid for their holidays.

^

We know this. They get paid at another point. Do they have to be there in the office at 8am? Can they have a week in Tenerife? Yes. See that puff of smoke? That's my sympathy for whinging teachers.

The teaching itself is bloody tiring but after 6 hours it’s over. 12 hours on my feet would finish me off for good.

^^

Thank you! Finally! Front line NHS?! Waaaaay harder.

You know I've been teaching for getting on for 20 years and while I've heard a lot of teachers complain (and seem many have breakdowns/ leave teaching with no other job/ quietly disappear never to be seen again) I've never ever heard one say they're job is harder than a nurse/doctor/ social worker. I feel I should be reporting this as absolute shit just made up to instigate another thread of teacher bashing...

From five till end of uni they are in a ‘classroom’ then they go off to work , in a classroom. It’s hard for teachers to understand the real world where most work longer hours for four weeks off a year

Seriously? No teacher ever did a job in your so-called real world? I entered the teaching profession at the age of 40. I know exactly what it is to have 4 weeks off a year. I also know what it is to teach. There is no comparison.

It could be worse, imagine if she was a vegan too.

She'd explode from martyrdom.

^

@greathat I believe the OP as I had a friend who was a year 5 teacher ina middle class country primary school and she whinged and whinged and whinged that her job was harder than her friend who was a police Sargent who had extra time off work every time she was injured. Please note the last three words of that sentence.

I won’t add “she gets paid physio and what do I get?”

@Sotiredofthislife me too - I’m also a mature entrant and have done a number of other senior jobs in offices.

What always makes me smile in a kind of exhausted-heard-it-all-before way when I read these threads is that if our job is such a doss and the holidays such a draw for people why oh bloody why are we facing an absolute crisis in teacher recruitment and retention?

Fascinating.