Not sure why teachers always think they have it the worst!
I really can understand just how stressful so many jobs are. However, the thing about teaching is that few other professions have to deal with 30+ people at once, with 30+ sets of stressors/ issues. Many have hungry bellies, appalling home conditions, have been beaten/bullied at home and at school, have adolescent hormones, anger and resentment, health and sensory problems, drug issues. Many can't see the point of being there, resent the kids who can, need an outlet for their anger. There is frequently low-level disruption, deliberate noise, they lack the tools for the job, have no lunch and there's always the class clown who deliberately causes chaos. A teacher is no longer a guide, educator and role model; crowd control is their first task before any actual learning can go on. Wasted time for education, seriously disadvantaging the kids who desperately want to learn.
That's just the start.
Then there's the lack of support from SLT, so frequently a snivelling bunch of cowards who hide from their responsibilies. Teachers are judged on the exam pass rates of their pupils...and are obliged to explain themselves and what they have done wrong, should the students fail to meet the targets. Classrooms are frequently dank and unwelcoming, peeling paint and mould. No other profession would countenance having to work in such unhealthy conditions with vulnerable children. Textbooks are torn and covered with grafitti, frequently one between two, so cannot be taken home to do homework - not that it is done anyway. Many pupils have no pencils or pens, and if the teacher buys them in herself, they are not returned. I had boys, after being asked to return my pencils, simply holding them up in front of me and deliberately snapping them. This is apparently the method by which certain ethnicities show their disdain for female teachers.
There's the 3 hours of marking, planning, extra reading every evening, and most of the weekend.
There's the couple of kids who have filthy school uniforms which are never washed, appalling hygiene, noses running with green snot, and who want so much individual attention, which is almost impossible to provide. There is so little time during the day. Lunchtimes and breaktimes are for pointless meetings and duties, rather than giving help and support to the people who really need it.
I spent a term doing long-term supply in a school close to the bottom of the league tables, as the fifth long term supply teacher in a matter of months. The other four had left in tears, and the poor girl previous to me, in an ambulance following a complete breakdown. It was the 3rd term of year 11, the kids desperate to pass their GCSEs despaired of doing so, owing to the classroom environment. I simply told them that if they were prepared to work their socks off, I would do the same and we together would get them through, despite them saying "Miss, we've had all these supply teachers, we're so far behind, we'll never pass." We worked together like Trojans, lunchtimes, after school. Strangely, the school had the best pass rate in my subject in many years, and the school tried desperately to persuade me to stay on. Eventually, they were obliged to employ a teacher completely unqualified in that subject. Those poor, poor, kids.
It is an impossible and thankless task being a teacher today in very many state schools. One term in that school nearly broke me, despite my 30 years' experience.I went on to an elite private school and an environment where I could actually teach...my next GCSE class had 100% A* passes.