Wondering why there's so much hate for teachers?

[Nannyogg134]

I've just been reading some responses to another thread concerning teachers and working over summer and there's a real mix of thoughts. I know that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I'm always very taken back by the amount of negative comments regarding teachers (especially regarding workload and school holidays.)

I've taught in a state secondary school for almost 13 years and I came to the job after working in a care home for a few years. There are pros and cons; the school holidays are great (and yes, they are unpaid- teachers are paid per day of their contract, this is term time only, the wage is delivered over 12 monthly payments for ease of life.) However, there is no flexibility, so I rarely see my own children in sport's day, nativities, or even on parent's evening (if it clashes with something at my school.) Overall, I feel very passionately about giving my best to my students and extra time I spend on them feels mostly worthwhile.

However, whenever there is chat about teaching, the general feeling seems to be very negative. I'm just wondering where this seems to come from? Is it the classic 'horrible teacher' stereotype we see on TV etc.? Or is it a leftover from some of our own school days?

I suppose it's not really AIBU, more of a wondering where this issue comes from and if public view can ever be shifted?

It seems pretty average pay to me for actually rather shit conditions. No air conditioning, bloody awful heating, teenagers or primary aged kids all over the show. Do they get health insurance? It seems to me that it's very hard to take sick leave or holidays outside of the primary school holidays. Having to buy supplies out of their own purse. Being shortstaffed meaning it can be quite hard to take a pee or have a bite. Being expected to respond immediately to any email from a parent. No certainty of back up from seniors in the case of an irate parent. Constantly being in the cross hairs of the Government and the media. Being expected to make up every shortfall in family life - but all the responsibility, none of the authority. Dealing with parents. Those that don't want to know that little Johnny is a psychopath, or that little Jenny isn't so much gifted, as a really precocious and spoiled little brat.

But - holidays! Oh and pension. Very diluted pension from the sounds of it now.

ITS NOT A COMPETITION!!!!

I'm a teacher/SENCO. I don't work after 6pm or during the holidays. There's lots of brilliant things about teaching:

Teenagers
It's never boring
Colleagues
The human interest
Holidays
You have to think on your feet all the time.
I laugh a lot at work.
Every day is different

But also lots of very shit things:

Constantly having to diffuse conflict/absorb other peoples rage/anxiety.
Firefighting constantly
Meeting needs does not fit the level of funding/resources AT ALL and it's really unfair and depressing.
So many more complex children with high needs SEN that need a level expertise that mainstream teachers don't get in ITT yet are expected to support in a large class with very few (underpaid/undervalued) teaching assistants.
Bad things happening to kids outside of school. This bit is hard if you deal with safeguarding
Paperwork
Emails
Some difficult and entitled parents and the constant stream of emails.

This has all got a lot worse post covid.

I don't think it's the worst job in the world but it's a lot worse than it was when I started twenty years ago and I'm planning my exit!

@izzy2076

This has all got a lot worse post covid.

I don't think it's the worst job in the world but it's a lot worse than it was when I started twenty years ago and I'm planning my exit.

This. With nobs on. And yes I am a career change who had a real job before teaching.

I fail to understand why all those who think it’s such an easy ride and so we’ll laid for what little we do don’t join the profession….

oh god this again, where has anyone said its an easy ride? People saying other jibs are just as hard is not the same as people saying that it is easy!

Also if its sooooo hard why don't you leave? Yes recruitment crisis (see also nursing, carers, doctors, midwives etc.) blah blah but someone who moans so much about a job and stays in it is jist a martyr. If every other job is so easy compared to teaching then why not go do that and stop moaning? (generally aimed at moaning teacher btw not specifically at PP).

I have on the whole been very happy with my childrens' teachers, and like everyone else my own teachers were a fairly evenly distributed bunch of good and bad, but I do also know some teachers on a personal level, both friends and family members. Some went straight into teaching, one cousin took years and years to get there and had to go through various low level jobs while working at it (she's not that bright). This particular cousin is the best example I can think of for why people aren't huge fans of teachers, due to the level of arrogance and self-importance she has developed since.

It took her until her forties to finally manage to pass whatever qualifications she needed, with many failures along the way, so we were all delighted for her. Everyone is now bored as fuck by it. Bored by the refrain of how important her job is, thinking she sounds cool and intelligent by constantly but inappropriately and irrelevantly spouting the ridiculous jargon schools use, while we all stare in horror as she once again shoehorns phrases like 'greater depth' into the conversation. Even though in my experience her command of the English language makes DelBoy sound like Prince Charles. I realise this all sounds very derogatory and snobby, and these are things none of us were bothered by until she became a teacher, or what she seems to see as God's gift. We all flipped over to the dark side within a fairly short time after, unable to take anymore teacher bullshit.

If I based my opinion of teachers solely on those I know then I would also be deeply unimpressed - not a problem as they're all so impressed by themselves that they certainly don't need approbation from me. And frankly most of them are nothing special and I'd be gutted if my child were taught by any of them.

On the other hand, I wish I could contact some of my old teachers now and tell them how good they were and what a good influence they were on me, and what excellent memories I hold of them.

@NCNCNCN Apologies @Testina, I was incorrect. Evidence is insubstantial.

Thank you for accepting the correction. I feel the word “insubstantial” is a little disingenuous though - it suggests that there is some evidence but not enough - when I can’t see any researched references at all.

More than half of teachers retire early.
Now you could say that’s because the job is so hard that they have no choice, can’t carry on and are forced into early retirement. Or you could say that teachers have had a salary that’s enabled them to buy and pay off property, make additional savings, and build up a pension that can sustain the actuarial reduction. All of that would certainly be a pro for the job!

I do think that ceases to be as relevant as today’s younger teachers will have (relative to earnings) higher mortgage payments and lower pensions. So that large cohort of early retirees may not be replicated. I also think the number of female teachers in older generations is relevant, as many will be the second income in a family (statistically) and younger than a husband (statistically) both of which would impact retirement age decisions.

I’m sure a proper dive into the statistics would be fascinating!

Headteachers, for example, retire older on average than classroom teachers. It gets easier at the top 😉 (or harder to performance manage out for cheaper NQT fodder?)

This negative perception definitely pre-dates Covid, but I personally think that Covid - specifically online school - has increased a perception that some teachers don’t do much outside that 09:00-15:00.

Anecdote I know, but my Y7 had the post Xmas period as online in second lockdown. The first lockdown was her Y6 - so I can’t say how the secondary handled that, but I can say that her Y7 experience wasn’t their first go.

Now it is not the fault or decision of her individual teachers that anything on a Teams call was voice only, and children muted and listening not talking. Those will be school and possibly Union decisions.

History: absolutely fantastic, the teacher talked to them for the full period (they could answer with messages despite being on mute).

Maths: taught / tested for 30 mins in every 1hr10 period. Pretty good - I don’t think he’d have held them longer.

French: no Teams calls at all, but very detailed feedback to written work, and recorded instructions on PowerPoints.

Every other subject? Zero teacher contact, no feedback on work, and in most cases fairly lame worksheet work set.

Now teachers here might tell me that the reality was that some of her subject teachers were managing key worker children.

Better still, they may have been involved in long 1:1 calls with older children nearing exams, or vulnerable children, or those who were academically slipping down a hole. Which would all be good reasons to leave my “average to good” well behaved non vulnerable child, who was completing her online (unmarked) work. She was absolutely the “safest” type of child to let slip.

But no-one communicated that. And so all the parents I know just say, “why the hell didn’t they have a single science “lesson” in all that time? That teacher did nothing.

All anecdotal and one school - but I’ve heard it from friends at other schools, and online comments. Some schools really gave the impression their teachers weren’t doing much… and a bit of PR would have gone a long way if that wasn’t the case.

The first bit of this thread exposed the root of the problem:

teachers do not understand how they are paid and what they are paid for (despite it being published each year in the School Teachers’ Payvand Conditions document or your school’s equivalent).

This means that teachers resent workloads that they perceive as unreasonable; it also means that they find it difficult to challenge workloads that actually are unreasonable.

Also, there isn’t that much that unites us as a profession. My department doesn’t have much in common with other departments in the school; there’s independent vs maintained; maintained vs academy; MATs vs Federations; soft vs hard federations etc; there’s the suspicion around your training- was it PGCE? GTP? Teach First etc.

We all hate each other and we all work really hard for our students and then present ourselves appallingly to those outside the profession, undermining everything that we do and the reasons for why we do it.

I have no idea what the answer is, except that I am not surprised that the DfE don’t listen to us, and I think that the Unions have failed us on every single issue.

And attitudes to teachers that were exposed by the pandemic shocked me. It turned out that people didn’t respect teachers. I had thought that it was a widely respected profession. It isn’t.

Your second paragraph (sorry don’t know how to quote that bit) is totally spot on! The stereotypes surrounding other professions I think are way more negative. Yes there is carping about teachers, and eye rolling, but ime in real life there is a bedrock of good-natured respect and a strong sense that teaching is a byword for slightly downtrodden decency. As I say, ime. Try, on the other hand, working in a profession thought of as arrogant, uncaring, money-grabbing and up-ourselves.

On the other hand, my experience of negative perceptions has shown me that these things really do have the power to get to you, so I get where teachers are coming from. It’s hard when people don’t ‘get’ your job.

Depending on the job a significant portion would not be able to accept a gift from a client without it either being declaired or handed over. Every FTSE 100 conpany I have worked for all gifts are handed over and then raffled off with proceeds going to charity

Most schools require staff to declare gifts over a certain value.

I think aspects of the job demand characteristics that are fairly obnoxious when viewed out of context, or employed elsewhere. You must need a certain self importance to impose your will on thirty potentially hostile adversaries every day.
Also, everyone has been to school and will have negative experiences. Who hasn’t been humiliated by a teacher? And who hasn’t been given duff information by one (eg birds aren’t animals).
I think teachers hanging around on this thread to point out that nobody can have a rational reason for hating an entire profession are being a bit of a pain. This isn’t a thread about teaching: it’s a thread about people’s perceptions of teachers. Let people answer the question.

People saying other jibs are just as hard is not the same as people saying that it is easy!

But bringing in job comparisons on a thread that does not invite it is irrelevant. Yet every every time..........

See, this is something that mystifies me about teaching. Why does it matter if someone is in a different department? Or if they did PGCE or whatever? Why would you all "hate each other"?

I do a job that has lots of routes in; there are various departments which do very different things to mine, and there is a wide range of levels of qualifications. If I ever suggested that I couldn't work with someone because of any of those things, I'd get in trouble, and rightly so.

DH is a teacher, and the level of pettiness in his school is unbelievable to me. For example, a new teacher started a while ago, and DH was the only one who helped her out with resources, lesson plans etc. He said it's not generally "done"; people are expected to produce their own resources, kind of to "prove" that they can. I pointed out that in any other workplace you'd be disciplined for withholding information that would help a colleague to do their job. It all just seems to be weirdly competitive and everyone almost suspicious of each other. Every time someone volunteers to do something DH is all "Oh, she must be planning on going for promotion", like it's not possible that someone just saw something that needed to be done, and did it.

I'm sure it's not like that everywhere, obviously, but it definitely seems to exist.

@echt I am sure you’re not ignorant enough to think that individual teachers have never had another job/career to which they can compare?

I suspect it's the self-referential nature of it all. You know, the endless marking, the nightmare parents, the emails that need to be answered, the parents who expect you to return their 'phone calls, the ungrateful children, grim staffrooms, TAs who expect to be shown your lesson plan, having to produce said lesson plan, parents' evenings spent with parents who have the temerity to question you, children asking questions that deviate from your lesson plan, it's just so unfair.
A bit like the neurosurgeon writing up her notes, dealing with traumatised parents, staying on at the end of a 24-hour shift to return 'phone calls, shitty break rooms, colleagues and family members who need you to explain why your child is dying in a language they understand, children not wanting your interventions.
And the fact that doctors can take cheaper holidays in term-time.
It really is a hard life.

I think the term “teacher” needs to be a protected job title. if it is already - more needs to be done to protect it.

I am really sorry but when teaching assistants announce they’re the “teacher” (when they aren’t!) - I’m afraid it devalues the profession a lot.

Its the cause of most mocking amongst parents. Especially the admin / pastoral care lady stomps about like she’s the headteacher and then declares “this school wouldn’t be a school without me” - and we’re all there thinking “no, the school wouldn’t be a school without the teachers”…

Teachers are highly educated and professional. There’s a HUGE difference between roles. And there needs to be a firm separation between job titles.

I work with TA’s and they ALL refer to themselves as a teacher to parents / visitors / children. It’s really embarrassing for the school.

I don’t know any TA that calls themselves a teacher. A HLTA mug by say they also teach, which they can do.

what I have seen and also from directly from a parent who was a teacher is that a lot of teachers treat TA like they are their personal admin bitch.

I think it's just that around Mumsnet - like the rest of the Net, the rest of the world - there's a high proportion of deeply unpleasant people.

For me it's because I had really shit time off teachers at school myself, not one good or nice one then you think your free from it but it just starts up again through your children.

It's not just teachers op. Doctors, nurses, police officers, council workers in fact most public sector employees seem to be hated by the general public. A feeling of being let down by the services they provide and jealousy over what they perceive as 'having it good' seem to be the main reasons afaics

I find a lot of it comes from the assumption that rank and file teachers make decisions about the running of the school, what they teach, how they teach etc. When those decisions are made higher up and the staff then have to implement them whether or not they agree. So if the French teacher tells your DC to put their blazer on it's not a personal vendetta, he/she has just been ordered to do that by the head. Likewise, your primary school DC's homework, what options are available at GCSE, whether your trip to see great aunt Ethel counts as authorised absence because she's 99 3/4 years old, how long the lunch break is, etc etc. The average teacher gets zero say. But 100% of the blame when parents don't like something.

That's probably because they haven't got a degree in A/R Clerking which cost a fortune, took 3-4 years of work and isn't particularly transferable.
If you have a mortgage, kids etc. You might not have the luxury of 'just changing jobs'. A predicament which is surely easy to understand and of course not unique to teachers.

Yes because teachers with a degree earn more than someone starting out in an area of work with a generic degree. Lots of people start on lower salaries than teachers do with a degree. So your choice is to do this or carry on doing a job you hate. Personally I would have thought it is a no-brainer if you are young.