To ask what is really so bad about a teaching career compared to other jobs? Does anyone actually enjoy it?

[yardstickss]

I earn reasonably highly in a career in finance. I manage the pressure ok and it’s quite competitive, which I don’t enjoy, but just try to focus and get the work done and go home/log off. I often work until mid evening and will usually but not always work Sunday evening for 4 ish hours to make the start of the week less stressful.

I have always considered working in teaching and very nearly did a week PGCE. I feel finance is such an empty job in comparison to teaching. I feel I would make more of a difference in teaching. I know it would be a pay cut but I’d also have longer holidays. I hear so much about the downsides to teaching though. Does anyone enjoy it? I know lesson planning takes up a lot of time but I think perhaps similar to how I work late now anyway? Just interested in whether I’m actually missing something (likely!) as I don’t know anyone personally in teaching other than one who really likes it but he works in the private sector.

This financial world you work in..

I am envisaging nice buildings, airy maybe airconned offices, the ability to go to the toilet when you like- a nice, clean toilet. Maybe some perks such as healthcare, gym membership? Probably your own phone and maybe a nice kitchen. Properly cleaned. Quiet and calm. WFH potential? Colleagues who have time and space to think , reflect and speak to each other. Meetings in the working day. A proper lunch hour maybe you are even allowed to go offsite without signing a billion bits of paper to explain ). No one shouting at you or being aggressively uncooperative. No parents complaining! Probably admin support and IT that functions. And I doubt your job is a political football.

Not saying people can't adjust to these things but you need to know the environment is not remotely corporate or even very professional. Unless you end up in a SLANT school and that's a whole different set of challenges.

I taught for 40 years and retired 2 years ago. Over the years it has changed beyond recognition mainly for the worse. We 've had to implement stupid things that those of us who'd taught for years knew were a heap of shit, interference from parents, decline in behaviour - I could go on.

The actual teaching of the children was the only enjoyable thing. However all the other stuff far outweighs this so I would never advise anybody to go into teaching nowadays and if I had my time over, I wouldn't do it again.

It's a very different job from what most people think. Because we all went to school as kids, have our own experiences, maybe saw some things that wouldn't be allowed to happen today, but mostly had experts who'd practised making it look easy, people think it's easy.

It's full on and inflexible. It's not the long hours and working at home that take it out of you, it's the intensity of being in the classroom for five or six lessons back to back and giving it your all, providing exactly what 30 different people need at once, anticipating misconceptions and changing what you planned, answering questions, and making thousands of decisions to manage behaviour and ensure everyone learns. Then, all you've done is generate work for after the work day should finish: marking, data drops, behaviour logs, reports, reading.... Then you have to work to plan what's happening the next day before you can get there. If you're ill, this needs to be redone because your plans won't work without you, and you have to change for a non specialist before you can actually look after yourself.

You work so you have work to do at work, then work on the work from work.

Amongst this, parents might question a perfectly reasonable choice you made because their child didn't like it, or tell you to run a detention for their child's bad behaviour during your unpaid lunchtime to suit them, SMT might walk in while you're sitting down for a second and criticise you, you don't have time to have a drink or go to the loo if anything happens to take up your break or a child or colleague needs help, because that's the only time you're not in a lesson, the general public thinks you go home at 3 as well as never being more than a couple of months from a week off, which is the only time you can ever ring the doctors when they're open.

I don’t think @Thepinkyponkc is teaching any more. I used to have a TA I could direct to photocopy when I started teaching 20 years ago. Now I have 2 children with ehcps in my y2 class and one TA in the mornings only. The idea I could send them out to photocopy! Things have changed A LOT in the last 10 or so years.

I’ve been teaching for 8 years and wouldn’t recommend it. You will:

Never ever get everything done on your to-do list (or switch off from it)

Work every evening and part of your weekend and still not be caught up on everything

Have no social life apart from during the school holidays. Genuinely can count on 1 hand the number of times I’ve been out and socialised on a ‘school night’.

Go into work when you are ill, because it’s less stress to drag yourself in and struggle through the day, than to try and arrange stuff for whoever is covering and then catch up on all the stuff they’ve missed out/not done properly when you return

Constantly have to re-plan things that worked perfectly well last year, but don’t quite fit with whatever new scheme or initiative your school has jumped on the bandwagon of

Get to the stage where the only way to get a pay rise is to leave the children in the classroom (the best part) and join management in an office

You also mentioned about wanting to make a difference. I used to feel like I was making a difference to the children in my class, but I now find that I have such a big mental load and am always having to think a million steps ahead of how I will get everything done, that it sadly leaves less space for the fun and nurture that the children in my class deserve. So not only am I only just keeping my head above water, but I also have a massive load of guilt about whether I am being the best teacher that I can be, as I don’t always feel that I am.

I suspect so, too.

It's never been that way in secondary , mind. But we did used to gmhave a specific photocopying lady. And far less of a worksheet dependency.

Yes, we used to have some maths text books in primary way back in the 90s when I started teaching, but somehow they became synonymous with lazy teaching! The curriculum seemed to change too often as well so they quickly became obsolete.

I would love a few decent sets of textbooks! And a good (slimmed down) curriculum that isn’t going to change with every new bright idea a changing government has…

A couple of points here

• the pay scales are almost on parity now?
• younger teachers will be entitled to state pension and us elder lemons are not !!
• regarding recent teaching initiatives I assume you might be talking about planning in the Language curriculum? This was all massively cut back on . What other subjects are you referring to ?

Also the reason we have a ‘recruitment crisis’ is due to housing costs ? As opposed to people wanting to be teachers ?
It’s still a much sought after career .

You also mentioned about wanting to make a difference. I used to feel like I was making a difference to the children in my class, but I now find that I have such a big mental load and am always having to think a million steps ahead of how I will get everything done, that it sadly leaves less space for the fun and nurture that the children in my class deserve. So not only am I only just keeping my head above water, but I also have a massive load of guilt about whether I am being the best teacher that I can be, as I don’t always feel that I am.

So much this. I took on an extra responsibility this year (basically because there was nobody else to do it), and that bit extra has tipped my job from 'just about manageable' to 'not manageable unless I cut corners'. My classroom teaching has suffered and I feel like I'm much less of a fun teacher.

I had a career in business and then moved into teaching. I love it, BUT, I work in a small private school, teach A Level, and have a supportive SLT. It is the most fun and enjoyable job I have ever had.

I’ve been teaching for near on 20 years. I cannot tell you how much it has changed over that time.
It’s got to the point where actually teaching the children feels secondary. There’s so much paperwork. So much. Especially if you lead a subject. Just one small thing can turn your day on its head. A letter from a parent, a playground incident, a pupils response to something, SLT observations. Its relentless.

I’m looking at getting out. The tipping point for me was when I had to take a call from my child’s school hiding in a cupboard. My child was ill and needed picking up. In what other profession would you have to do that?

I had a flexible, well paid managerial career in Local Government and gave it up to retrain as a primary teacher in my mid 40s. I taught for 16 years before retiring last year. I have many fond memories and absolutely no regrets, but there were times when it nearly broke me.

Perhaps the hardest thing is that as soon as you enter the classroom, all your hard earned experience and achievements in the non teaching world count for nothing.

Just mastering the basics is incredibly challenging. Anything you do well is taken for granted and you have an endless list of criticism and development areas which make most ECTs feel they are failing.

There is always so much more you could be doing - to meet each child's needs, to complete the paperwork, to liaise with parents, to fulfill curriculum requirements that you may or may not agree with, to lead a curriculum area, to organise trips and creative learning experiences. It truly is endless and if you care deeply about your pupils you will always feel you could do more.

I was never bored, managed to work in a range of challenging and creative roles, and know I made a small difference to some children in really difficult circumstances. I lasted a lot longer than most of the people l trained with, and interestingly, some who had achieved more in their previous careers didn't last very long at all. If you're used to having a lot of autonomy in your work, it's very hard to be micro managed. But I'm glad I hung on in there.

I'd be happy to have a chat if you decide you're seriously considering it.

@Padfootnprongs - totally agree with your list. You need to get a kick out of the absurdity of things and yes- confidence and resilience are key. You can never be perfect and if you try you’ll drive yourself nuts. That’s not an excuse to be lazy but overwork helps no one.

How are you not entitled to state pension?

I've left now but I think the difference from other jobs was that it felt so 'unwinnable'. Lots of jobs are hard and take a lot of time but teaching feels like you never have the time or resources to achieve everything you are being asked to do. It's also very critical, I've been amazed at the positive and strengths based way things are done outside of teaching.

It's all consuming and a bit thankless. I think some jobs are more time-intensive but the financial reward is greater, other jobs are worse paid but the responsibility is less etc. teaching just feels like the worst of all worlds!

I work in a student support role rather than teaching - have been in the education sector from early years to secondary since 2009.

It’s incredibly rewarding but bloody hard work, and I don’t have to take marking and planning home although am usually doing one course or another by choice to keep up to date and learn new things for my role.

I think teaching has to be a vocation, not a career choice, if you’re going to doing it well and be happy doing it.

I'm a primary HT I have loved it for years but the balance has tipped . I'm leaving this Summer , I have a nice school with generally nice parents , I have been told that I'm a fair and supportive HT.
However ,the constant cutbacks are stripping the heart of education away . It's not what I came into .I'm stretched way beyond my capacity, and now my children are reared and my mortgage paid off , I'm done walking away ,along with my 25 years of experience

I've said this weekend I'm giving it two more years then I'm done. 11 years in and head of a core subject but I've stopped working weekends and evenings. My child comes first.

DS is a teacher. He was always brilliant at maths and we thought he would end up in finance or similar but he surprised everyone by choosing to teach. I think it helps that he loves his subject and lives and breathes teaching maths.
However, he hates the behaviour issues and is lucky enough to be in a high achieving school where he teaches mostly A level age group. Has no intention of seeking promotion to any leadership roles.
He mentioned recently that his HOD and other colleagues barely go a day without crying. No job should do that to anyone.

So the pay scales are unequal then, I’m glad we agree on that. And let’s not ignore the additional allowances (teaching through Irish etc) that younger entrants are blocked from receiving.

My age group do not expect to receive State pensions, certainly not as they are in their present form. The numbers just don’t work in our favour. It is what it is, you just have to be smart and invest accordingly.

Recent initiatives: maths and language curriculum changes, JC reform, proposed changes to the LC, changes like running LC orals in holidays, SET allocation model off the top of my head. Not all primary obviously but they show an overall trend. If I were still teaching, I would be highly suspicious of the incoming overall curriculum reform and the slow creep of oversight for the sake of oversight. Even Droichead (which I support, I was a Droichead mentor myself) is continuing to pile workload on schools.

If teaching in Ireland was wonderful, we’d still be seeing high levels of job applicants - and we’re seeing the opposite. I have a friend who’s job hunting at the moment to get out of teaching and doing some subbing to tide her over. She has the hand bitten off her by lovely schools looking for anyone to come cover for them, it’s quite shocking.

I’m in a sector that’s booming now (in Dublin), if the biggest issue in teaching is the rental crisis then my new field should struggle massively in recruitment as well. But it’s not true because we are still desirable. The rental crisis is bad but it’s not leaving offices across the city empty, can’t say that for classrooms - so you can’t deny that additional things are at play in teaching.

Pay less PRSI ( social insurance ) and get pretty good occupational pension .

‘Vocation’ is a bit of a bugbear word for me. Ime it’s often used to guilt people* into burning themselves out on a job that would replace them in an instant. Teaching is grand and all like but sometimes I think people treat it as a facet of their personality and not just a job.

Not disagreeing with you really btw - or saying you think like that - really just musing aloud. I think a work to rule would do wonders for education system reform.

*women, mainly!

Sorry , I’m primary so don’t feel I can discuss second level .
I also think second level is much harder . Nobody I know ( primary ) would prefer to teach second level .

I taught primary and worked extensively with secondary (I don’t want to say exactly what I was doing, it was a very identifying niche). So I understand both well, I think. Secondary have it worse than primary in many respects but I feel that the changes in secondary are slowly bleeding into primary. Similar to changes in the USA, Canada etc and they are also seeing teachers desert the system.

Secondary was not as bad as I thought…1st and 2nd years were great, 5th and 6th were great. The ones in the middle years were sent from some circle of hell to try me 😄