Teachers and the current status quo

[Lifeisabeach09]

Maybe a teacher bashing thread or not, I can't decide.

My experience of this current lockdown is that my DD's teachers are streaming live or pre-recorded sessions from their homes. Support staff and teacher rotation are dealing with the kids in school. Learning is the same-school or home, it's streaming on Ipads, so the children are being treated fairly.

Surely, not have to deal with 30 unruly kids, not having to discipline, and being able to pre-record lessons or even livestream from home has made life easier (lovelier??) for some teachers. Obviously, each school is different and teachers situations are different (own kids, etc).

Any teachers enjoying the new status quo or AIBU?

@TheHoneyBadger I totally agree. If anything it would be wonderful to educate young people with tips on how to cope at this time, life skills etc..

I absolutely appreciate that this is my own responsibility to teach. But my 14 yo listens to teachers in a different way and respects what he is told by them. They can deliver it in a better way than me, and reinforce what I'm trying to achieve.

He is depressed, and desperately struggling. Meanwhile he is learning about King John, equations of a straight line, Macbeth etc etc..

He's succeeding at this school stuff but falling apart at the seams IRL.

I'm doing my absolute best to help. But I have to work or we will sink. He's alone all day. It's isolating and hard.

I work outside with animals and am tempted to remove him from some lessons so he can join me. But I feel awful for the teachers who are trying so hard.

It's a farce.

@RandomGrammarPun

Plus, teachers are the best placed to know just how unsafe schools are so I know my colleagues with small children are keeping them at home if they at all can.

This. I didnt even consider for a second sending my junior age children into school. Thankfully dh can work from home. Im in school as normal.

doublefaced
Still struggling to find the ‘1.9 times greater’ stats but hopefully someone can link to them soon

I don't think teachers are the reason for schools closing so whatever the likelihood of teachers getting ill, it's not the reason to close schools. Even if teachers were tested regularly and vaccinated first, the issue is that children and teenagers pass covid on to each other. As they are mostly asymptomatic they then take the germs home and pass it on that way. So schools haven't closed to protect teachers, it's to stop the virus spreading quickly due to students being in small rooms for an hour at a time.

I'm a teacher and I'm at school! I'm teaching the children in my class AND online teaching five sessions a day. it's completely unsustainable 😣 I would love to have all my children in class!!!

alphabetsoup

Before lockdown, so from October we had to do this every day - if someone was isolating we had to stream the lesson home. It was really hard work especially with having to move rooms all the time due to the different bubbles, so taking time to get logged on again and attach all the cables etc...

I don't expect a round of applause but just hope parents aren't listening in and criticising me.

I am a secondary teacher and am truly gutted by some of the posts I'm reading here. Reading them is so.upsetting. I'm mentally and physically on my knees, as are my colleagues with whom I teach. I'm getting up just after 5 each morning to get some peace to create and post suitable resources to teach my over 200 pupils, then teaching, responding to emails from colleagues and staff regarding both pastoral and academic matters and trying to create some robust system to record marks in order to estimate gcse and a level grades this summer. I'm also alone during the day with an 8 year old and trying to home school her too. My working day often lasts late into the evening as I am constantly trying to create new resources that will work well for pupils from home. It is so hard as I'm crap with iCT- everything takes an age due to my lack of skills. Give us teachers a break please. It can take ages to either source or create the 'crap' ( as a previous poster described them- thanks very much) that we upload. The word thank you wouldn't go amiss.

You have no clue!

Teachers are in school teaching classes, my class has halve the normal amount of children in, as does nearly every other class in the school.

Staff are all in working, because we're not allowed to work from home unless we are clinically vulnerable. If we chose not to come to work it will be unpaid.

We are teaching the children in school, at the same time as preparing, recording and doing live lessons and marking all the work that comes in. Answering numerous questions on line from the children who are doing the work and chasing up all the children who haven't done the work. As well as dealing with all the other incidents that this situation is throwing at them including cleaning classes, equipement and toilets down multiple times a day because the school can't afford to pay cleaners to be in all day.

So yes my life is full of relaxation time and sitting on my arse all day thinking what a great life I'm currently living.

YANBU OP for some teachers it's a real headache. Especially if they have their own kids. For some it is easier. My friend has said it's quite relaxing because she has 2 hours of live lessons a day then 2 hours of prep and marking. A few meetings and that's it. Normally she's in school 7:30am - 6:00pm and takes work home too. Not saying it's the same for everyone and if anyone deserves a break it's her. She does say she misses the kids though.

Should add she's primary and the way their school operates only certain teachers do keyworker school and she isn't one of them.

Who is?

The OP. I tend to agree.

@QueenoftheAir

The OP. I tend to agree.

Based on what?

Cheers, folks, it's Friday!
and

Any teachers enjoying the new status quo or AIBU?

I teach in an infant school. Due to my role and my health issues I'm working entirely from home right now. I'm shattered. I am working far longer hours than normal - I finished and out my laptop away about 40 minutes ago this evening. I will need to work most of Sunday. My job when in school normally is much more pleasant.

My colleagues are in school full time with around 40-50% full classes daily. The teachers get 2 half days out of class to do their pre recorded videos. They can do this from home though many stay at school. They are doing two jobs at once many of them. You can't record all the lessons and weekly phone calls to all children at home in 1 working day really. They are doing all the feedback of remote learning after work hours.

Every one of us would prefer to be teaching normally but in safer conditions to September. Too many of us ended up ill with covid last term.

I just wondered if there was a silver-lining to working from home for some (I recognise not all) teachers.

My 'silver linings' include:

• I can do my first half hour or so in bed on my iPad as that is responding to remote learning and emails that have come in overnight.

• I can nip to the toilet pretty much whenever I want to

• dh is working from home 3 days a work and when home keeps me frequently topped up with cups of tea

• after last term and covid, I can spend the day sat down and not rushing around, up and down stairs, stood all day . Covid has left me with ongoing health issues plus a flare up of my arthritis. I can now access the rheumatology and the GP surgery's telephone system ( they don't say when they'll call and you can't request times). So I've managed to finally get a steroid injection to reduce my pain, see the nurse about my blood tests and blood pressure readings, and the GP regarding long covid symptoms and blood pressure issues. Also linked to this is my new medication (needed since covid) is making me sick every morning at the moment - this is easier to manage out of class and at home

• my wifi and computer at home are better than those at school, so I'm not being hampered by that and some things, such as file upload and downloads get done quicker

And yes, the biggest drawback is the missing fun.
I enjoy teaching, I enjoy chatting with my pupils. I enjoy seeing them make progress. I teach a subject most of little ones enjoy.

I enjoy seeing my colleagues, I enjoy a catch up,over a coffee at lunch time for half an hour or so.

I currently don't have that.
My role means I teach a]everyone and don't have a class, but as I'm overseeing the remote learning I deal with every class and families I've. I've taken to adding extra comments under children and parents posts, relevant to what they're doing in the absence real life chat.
For example a child this week had been reading a book and writing about a country they want to visit, where I went in holiday too in 2019. We (me and him, via his mum as he's only 6) had an online chat about what it was like there, what I enjoyed most, the more unusual bits, etc. It felt like a normal conversation for a change!

Yes, I meant the OP. Attitudes like this are why I left teaching last month.

Just like everybody else teachers are finding a new way to do their jobs.

God no, I absolutely hate teaching this way. I'm a KS1 teacher and it's very hard to know how best to teach such young children remotely. I'm physically in school 3 days a week, trying to cover all remote learning the other two days. I pre-record some daily lessons but it takes me twice as long as usual to prepare all the resources I need because I can't rely on discussion, questioning, explanations like I can in class. In many ways I'd rather live-stream but lots of our families have requested we don't do this. There are a lot still sharing devices even though we've given out all the government ones we've been allocated and we have a lot of parents who are shift workers and don't want to be tied down to structured times. We have a couple of weekly live catch-ups and around 1/3 don't attend.

Lots of our families want printed resources, so everything I plan has to be doable online and in paper format. I spend ages printing and photocopying packs of work.

Marking online is a total PITA and takes far longer than normal. Might be quicker if I had an iPad and pen but I only have a laptop.

I feel like half the class are engaging really well and the others have already given up. I spend all my time worrying about how to engage them more. I have my own primary-aged kids at home on the days I'm not in school so I'm trying to get them to do some work too. DH is live streaming lessons (secondary) upstairs so we're all battling over devices and broadband capacity.

Things were bad last term in school - several colleagues caught Covid and my class had two periods of isolation. The lockdown in this area (major hotspot of the new strain) seems to be working and I don't want to rush back into school, but I definitely am not enjoying what my job has become. I'm sure there are people in all professions who feel the same.

@mineofuselessinformation

Cheers, folks, it's Friday! and

An exhausted cheers

Cheers.

I actually quite enjoyed today as I got to hear some of my year 7s and 8s voices as I had a kind of help clinic open in google meets for anyone struggling with the work. Some just popped in to say hi

Very glad it's the weekend though.

If I sound too relaxed for teacher bashers don't worry I'm very part time and you're definitely getting your pound of flesh with me doing more hours and live input than I'm paid for but my load is less than my full time colleagues.

My DD is teaching from home, she still has meetings at 8.00am still has parents evenings, still has marking. After she finishes the lesson the pupils can email her with questions. She then has to prepare the next weeks work, still has to take her turn in school, still has to attend open day. All this and looking after a two year old who is in to everything and doesn’t sleep through the nigh also home schooling two step children a couple of days a week. I forgot about the uni work she is doing to further her career and the parents calling to ask advice about their children’s subject choices. The only thing she doesn’t miss is the travel and the fuel and of course nursery is closed.

Well I’m up at three in the morning stressing about Monday! I’ve been put in a new keyworker group so a whole new set of names to learn, new timetable etc. It’s going to be really difficult to make sure I get my work done as well as supervising the group, I’m still expected to do some live sessions and phonecalls etc. All very complicated and frustrating when I’d got into a nice routine with my initial keyworker group! So much easier in lockdown 1 when we only had a handful of children and were going over old work rather than being expected to teach them a whole new curriculum. We also had two teachers per group last time, making it easy to duck out and do work. There’s so many children in this time that just isn’t possible any more. Plus I feel much more anxious about public transport this time around because tubes and buses are much, much busier than in previous lockdowns.

Oh god, I’ve been trying so hard not to click on this thread based on the title as it has become so upsetting reading teacher bashing threads lately, but it just kept popping up in active so against my better judgement I’ve read the whole thing.

@Lifeisabeach09 OP, you must realise that the “silver linings” that some people have mentioned and that you keep bringing back up, such as being able to go for a wee, get a hot drink and have no commute, are pretty tongue in cheek and do not make up for what is actually happening and how difficult things are just now?

The long and the short of it is: what we are doing is not teaching. The part of the job we like is teaching. Being with the children, being interactive and creative, responding to things that occur throughout the lesson, seeing children “get it”- those lightbulb moments.
Those are the parts we aren’t doing. The part of the job we like less- paperwork, scrutiny from SLT and parents etc, we are still doing in new and more difficult ways.

If teaching online was in any way preferential to the usual way, then it would’ve already been brought in. Obviously it would be much cheaper for local authorities. You would need fewer teachers, could have larger class sizes, would need fewer premises which would lead to less costs. Wouldn’t need teachers to be local to the pupils.
But it isn’t the way we teach, because it isn’t teaching and it isn’t how pupils learn- results would take a terrible dip.

We’re all just doing our best to get by and being able to go for a wee isn’t enough to make it “lovelier”. So stop referring back to those things saying “well most people said it’s harder but some people did say positives”. Those “positives” are really not worth it.

OP, as has already been pointed out to you, you should’ve started the thread to ask about everyone’s experiences of working from home more generally. E.g. “Are you working from home? How are you finding it? Are there any little perks that help see you through the day?” You would’ve had replies from a range of professions, probably including teachers.
I think some parents feel they have an ownership over teachers, perhaps due to paying their wages though taxes (?) and, as you’ve said, since they’ve maybe “seen” a bit more of the teachers via their child’s online lessons lately it is fresh in their mind to feel they can make some comment about the job. But your OP and subsequent posts show that you really have no idea about what teaching is (because what we are doing just now is not teaching), why people do it and also on a basic level, how upsetting and judgemental your comments are.

to all the teachers out there, keep on keeping on and we will get through this and be back in the classroom doing what we love and being with our pupils again. Take care everyone