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?

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.
You agree with Testina’s main point then, @Scatterbrainbox, significant numbers of teachers stick in a job they dislike and whinge about it.

Not really. Somebody who 'is stuck' (through circumstances) rather than someone who 'sticks' (makes a choice) are different scenarios.
Someone who is stuck, through personal circumstances(either due to financial commitments or a commitment to their profession) in a job that requires 3-4 years of vocational uni study and all the debt that comes with that, but has increasingly awful working conditions are allowed to vocalise their dissatisfaction (or whinge, as you so empathetically put it).
Suggesting that all of the dissatisfied teachers leave isn't really the solution...society needs teachers and there are already difficulties recruiting (and there would be none left!). You would be singing a different tune if your child's class couldn't recruit a long term or perm teacher. That is increasingly the reality in some areas.

I left teaching earlier this year, because of unbearable workload, from a SENCO role (SENCO, English subject lead and a full time class teacher for a 240 pupil school). My school still haven't managed to replace me. The deputy head is covering the senco role and is a heartbeat away from a breakdown, the class has had a string of supply teachers. People are voting with their feet.
Before I was a teacher, I worked in financial services (sales role) for 10 years, so I am saying the working conditions are unbearable in the context of having worked in other industries which are considered demanding.

You seem to be reading into Testina’s post a judgment about whether teachers should be complaining, when their point was to explain one statistical reason why teachers might complain more than people in some other jobs. Testina actually said that they thought that the complaints were justified, but you seem to be jumping to the conclusion that they are having a dig.

I was relying to Slowingdownanddown who used the word 'whinge' to describe teachers' complaints. I think the word 'whinge' implies a fair but of negative judgement. It's a word that would normally be used to describe a tantrumming toddler etc...

Ok @Scatterbrainbox I’ll rephrase that. You agree with Testina that significant numbers of teachers remain in a job they dislike and then complain about it? It seems to me you do agree.
It also seems that however insightful anyone’s comments you refuse to give them credit for them.
I’m not suggesting teachers leave the profession or stop complaining or do anything in particular. Teachers aren’t the subject of the question. The question is why is there so much hate for them.

I don't need it rephrasing, thanks though.
The main point you keep making is (however phrased) that they are choosing to stay in a job (remain) and complaining (raising awareness of the poor working conditions and that this is affecting everyone, children and staff alike).
That's OK. People can try and raise awareness and want to improve things without leaving, that's actually a good thing.

I'm not ignoring the many insightful comments from other posters.

Just responding to your comments which really do read a bit as 'if you don't like it leave' whichever way you phrase it.

That's a ginormous hourly rate then !!

Yet there is a massive recruitment and retention issue.

I’ve been a teacher for 13 years and as far as I’m concerned I get paid the same amount every months -holidays or not? A lot of teachers have no experience of another job so have nothing to compare it to, I have and am thankful of the pay, conditions, union support and obviously long holidays. On the flip side, it can be extremely stressful and giving up your evenings and weekends is non negotiable if you want to do the job properly. No one sees this side of it.

How on Earth does this pro rata thing work? The advertised salary for a teacher here after 5 years is £42336. If it’s pro rata does that mean they don’t actually earn £42336, they’ll only earn a % of that given they only work 195 days per year?
Or does it mean that £42336 is the pro rata salary based on 195 days per year, and if they worked the standard 240 days per year they would be paid more?

On the flip side, it can be extremely stressful and giving up your evenings and weekends is non negotiable if you want to do the job properly. No one sees this side of it

I have friends who are teachers (STEM subjects, high schools, senior level and very well thought of) and none of them work every evening and all weekend on top of their contracted 35 hours per week. They don’t have classes from 8.45-3.45 so will work on marking, planning etc during their contracted 12.5 hours non-teaching time, or will work on until 5 or occasionally extra hours during the evenings or weekends if absolutely necessary, but it’s not a standard thing. They look at it as balancing out with similar level jobs over the year - and far prefer doing additional hours in a shorter period of time whilst benefiting from the longer holidays.

The latter

I’m just talking about my own experience as a primary school teacher. It does seem that the more senior you are, the less hours you work at home though!

That’s an extremely generous non-teaching allowance. I can assure you, this is not usual.

The main point you keep making is (however phrased) that they are choosing to stay in a job (remain) and complaining (raising awareness of the poor working conditions and that this is affecting everyone, children and staff alike).

That's OK. People can try and raise awareness and want to improve things without leaving, that's actually a good thing.

However rational or ‘good’ it may be, complaining strikes me as seriously annoying behaviour in many situations. That’s what this thread is about: why what seems good and rational to teachers drives everyone else mad.

work on marking, planning etc during their contracted 12.5 hours non-teaching time,

Yes, I wouldn’t take much work home if I got 12.5 hours non-teaching time! The statutory PPA time is about 2.5 hours-that is what the majority of teachers receive. We receive ours in 30 minute blocks-it can be quite hard to get any substantial planning done in that time.

I think a generation or so ago teaching was a fairly attractive job. Very little of the time consuming red tape and box ticking that goes on nowadays; parents in general supported teachers and respected their decisions and, as a result,pupils overall were better behaved.

Nowadays teaching has become mired in bureaucracy, many parents are obstructive defensive and litigious, many more pupils have complex or chaotic home lives, discipline is very hard to impose and social media has brought new challenges.

It's not the job it used to be.

Plus the teaching my DC received at primary level was atrocious

and how exactly did you come to this conclusion? So all teachers in her 8 years were terrible?

I used to work in teaching but had to leave due to a terrible illness. I taught 2 girls who were sisters;neither were submitting homework so I politely informed mum through the school system as part of my job and that I did to everybody else as school policy asked.

Said mum had an issue with this and wrote a huge email to the slt about how I was a bully etc, was a terrible teacher and how I deliberately were trying to get her daughters into trouble and wasn't happy with what I was doing and saying in the class etc.

It was during lockdown, she said she wasn't happy how I was teaching on the online teams-this was during lockdown and that I was aggressive and forceful teaching and intimidating. I was completely puzzled as was my partner as he was usually in room when I was delivering lessons and neither of us could think of anything that I did that was aggressive. He said I was always so calm and asked me how I remained so calm...

Head called me to a meeting and as there was nothing specific in the email that could nail me I was asked to ring the mum and ask what I was doing that was so wrong. I did and the mum couldn't give 1 example of anything wrong/inappropriate/unprofessional I had done.

I even asked her what I had done during the online teaching thinking she must have seen it but she hadn't even seen it herself. She just seemed to be irked that I flagged her daughters were not submitting homework and again could not give me 1 specific thing or example of bad quality in my teaching or tratement of her daughters.

But because of this, she would and tell everybody I was the worst teacher ever.

At GCSE exams a few months after the daughter was 1 of the few in the class who hadn't submitted her project for my subject but the mum would likely delude herself that it was my fault somehow.

So my point being is that some parents will blacken a teacher's name because they have complete unrealistic expectations and don't like the fact that their child has to follow the rules like everybody else does.

That’s the contracted non-teaching time here I know for a fact they’re not teaching for anything like 35 hours a week with their timetables set as they are.

They're poorly paid. Not well paid but it balances out. A teacher's pension is worth £500k - £1 million whereas the average pension pot in the private sector is £50k

only very few make it to retirement age these days so the whole pension is a big faux ami.

So it’s not really pro rata - it’s the salary for a contract of 195 working days per year? And then it’s divided into 12 and they’re paid monthly?

Also, as a weary teacher friend once suggested to me after one too many run-ins with horrible parents, teachers are the authority-figures most people can easily encounter nowadays and take out their frustrations on.

In past eras there would be the local vicar, the local big-wig etc, but now there's just the poor old teacher for most people. They represent authority (although the profession doesn't help itself by seeming desperate to relinquish a lot of this) and disaffected parents, who might have been disruptive themselves in their school days, see teachers as punch-bags sometimes.

When I did my PGCE, we had a lecture on the social standing of teachers and teh lecturer pointed out that, of all the professions, teachers are treated with far less respect (than doctors and lawyers, for example). Having worked as a teacher for many years I have been frustrated at the way teachers do themselves down and seem willing to accept blame for so much that's wrong in society. I've sat in so many staff meetings where the old chestnut 'the school has failed such-and-such a child' is trotted out when it's clear to anyone with half a brain that the school is probably the ONLY element in that child's life which hasn't failed it.

After long years of thinking about this, I really do think that if the teaching profession was a bit more self-interested and not such a walkover for government and parents, they would help themselves and ultimately the children they serve. Remember - parents and government need teachers more than teachers need them...so use that power to stand up for better conditions for YOURSELVES (not just the kids, which is what teachers always do), insist on being treated as professionals just as docs and lawyers do. If this happened, I think more good people would come into the profession, working conditions would have to improve and teachers would be less stressed and better equipped to help the children, rather than running themselves ragged to please everyone (parents, kids, government) and burning out before they accrue the experience which makes them really valuable members of the profession.

I think a generation or so ago teaching was a fairly attractive job. Very little of the time consuming red tape and box ticking that goes on nowadays; parents in general supported teachers and respected their decisions and, as a result,pupils overall were better behaved

Agreed, I think what fucked England was ofsted, it just made it far too stressful. There is no ofsted in other countries so when people say teaching is harder in England they are correct.

*The other thing is teaching is a profession which is largely made up from women. People love to hate women.

Whenever I read posts by those who seem to have irrational hatred for teachers - my main reaction is that they've probably got something to work on in therapy*

Your theory fails that so many male dominated professions like lawyers, politicians, government ministers,bankers, police etc are hated too.

Personally I think teachers do an amazing job. At all pt meetings their observations were spot on and showed they actually knew the kids’ issues well. BUT I have experienced, as we do in all walks of life, people who cause damage because they don’t click with a student or students etc. but don’t realise they have the power to effect that person for life. my favourite teacher was horrendous to one of my best friends, under the guise (or not, I don’t know) of ‘you could do so much better’. My son’s best teacher, who I hold responsible for changing things for him for the better in school, used to make other children cry and dread coming into school. The people on mn who hate teachers could be dealing with their children being affected by teachers such as this🤔