I am not sure I agree that Teachers have absolutely exhausting jobs - much more so than most jobs - as said by man on r4 this morning

[RevolutionHere]

i am not sure what my dh, former welder would make of this statement

this is an argument regarding long summer holidays,

This is absolutely a completely different kettle of fish.

I don’t think you have any idea of the pressure involved in teaching in a national curriculum school, with the threat of lesson observations, ofsted, the expectations for time spent marking and assessing the children’s work, of communicating with parents, of having to keep up to date with the new initiatives that are introduced regularly

Yes welding might be tiring, my husband does some as part of his work but the exhaustion of teaching, physically, mentally and emotionally is something else.

You are arguing about something you don’t know shit about

Who said it wasn’t?

@surreygirl1987
i didnt bash any teachers

There are certain jobs that are harder than others and some that have different types of stress and pressure.

The pressure that a medical professional feels with someone’s life in their hands can’t be replicated. To then be subject to scrutiny and criticism with little rewards or breaks - to have the NHS policies to adhere to and with strict NHS budgets and understaffing and people complaining.

The pressure of looking after someone else’s children all day, while also trying to teach them in line with a fixed national curriculum (where many don’t learn in line with set national standards), while being underpaid and having a 20 mins lunch break if you’re lucky, while being subject to (a lot of the time, unfair) parental criticism is hard.

Working a manual labour, physical and risk to your personal safety job out on a site where you could at worst hurt yourself and be unable to work again or at best, have a chronic pain from doing constant manual labour is hard. This role also usually comes with targets and deadlines and “do ABC within an hour but do it to 123 standard, which usually takes 1.5 hours”

Many jobs are hard in very different ways - I’m a lawyer and my husband is an accountant - we’re both under strict deadlines, a lot of mental pressure and expectations. We can however work from home a couple of days a week and walk away from our desks if need be - none of the above jobs can do that whenever they like. (I know more senior leadership roles in our industry also couldn’t walk away for 5 or pop out for lunch either but they’re usually compensated very well and knew what they were signing up for!)

As someone with a mum and sister who teach in primary schools, their job is a lot harder and more demanding in other ways than mine is. Schools are understaffed, so TAs on very low wages will stay behind to help out teachers with their work. I’d never ask a paralegal to help me regularly and without compensation for doing so - it’s my job!

I also know never, ever to question how hard and stressful teaching is if you’ve not been a teacher. I’ve tried to explain this to my dad, brother and now husband when my sister/mum have brought up how hard their job is in the past. We listen, we sympathise, we say how hard it must be (because it is!) and we do not interject or question it…. It’s usually brought up at a really stressful time and only results in WW3, when they objectively do have a stressful job anyway, just not THE most stressful job ever known to man. It is still stressful!!

Maybe if teachers are all saying the same thing then someone should listen?
I suppose none of us know what someone else's work experience is truly like until we've lived it. One counter I will give your comment is that I have had other jobs were people swear at me or become aggressive and in any other role I am allowed to refuse them service. I am allowed to say "I will end this call if you become aggressive" or "I cannot see this client because they hit me". There is none of this in teaching, I have to go back into a room and be patient and kind no matter how deeply a teenager has hurt me (physically or emotionally).

I think unless you’ve taught and done something else, you should avoid making comments like “X is definitely way more tiring than Y”. It’s a pointless statement unless you’ve experienced both. Teachers tend to highlight how hard their job is because people are referring to them as childcare rather than educators and spend a lot of time suggesting they have it easy. You can’t get annoyed with people who have experience in that role defending themselves because they find the role challenging. And saying a job is tiring doesn’t mean that all the other jobs are easier.

When a lot of people are telling you a job is hard and you haven’t done it, I genuinely don’t understand why you wouldn’t just listen and empathise.

@Braygirlnow I arrive 2 hours before the children and leave 2 hours after them every day. I also take work home. I won't list all the tasks I do, too tedious but there is mountains of work to do.

By parents? I’m so sorry. I have a teenage family member with challenging and complex SEN and I have often wondered how their teachers and staff do it when I see everyone else has slowly withdrawn from them.

@PinkBobby
because it has been a bunfight, not exactly an interesting or intelligent thread. it has changed my opinion on teachers, and on mumsnet,

Please tell me what job this is so I can apply.

Is this normal for teachers though?

I think teachers are underpaid and over worked but I don't know any teachers doing this - and I know lots of teachers. Definitely working longer than classroom hours (obviously) but nothing like this. The ones I know all have their own kids to get ready, fed and got to school/ childcare though so it just wouldn't be possible.

I always think the issue with teaching is the fact you are constantly “client facing” I am “working” now but having a quick social media break, in comfort. I do see clients but it’s for short bursts of time. I think any role that requires constant interaction must be challenging. It must be exhausting portraying a persona all day. Plus teachers have to lesson plan.

I think summer holidays etc and totally not conducive to the modern world and pose a real issue in a society where both partners are expected to work. But I also know my son was on his knees and ready for the break. I do think it’s good to have a period for kids to switch off completely from the routine of school. But you might not achieve that if they’re in holiday clubs whilst parents work.

Whatever the solution or issues teachers aren’t the problem.

I know it’s not the norm because I use the breakfast club and afterschool club and know most staff have left by 4.30pm pick up. All but the afterschool staff have for the 5.30pm pick up.

And that’s the point isn’t it? People commenting on a job when they don’t know anything about it!
I found out the other day that my dad thought as a university academic, I only worked when undergraduate teaching was taking place and assumed I didn’t work between May - September!

It explains why he never offered to help with childcare during the holidays! 😂

You have no idea, have you? Try teaching history to a series of groups, each roughly 30+, and aged 11 to 16. All day. All week. All year. You don't get paid for the hours you actually work and tho you get 12 weeks a year off, you are only paid for c.4 of those weeks but you are expected to do prep in them i.e. in your unpaid leave.
Try it.
Also, I have a union that is actively hostile to using e.g. group prepared or pre-prepared (tailorable) lessons, whilst inducing stress by following the mixed ability model of class organisation and denying that phonics + a knowledge rich curriculum is the only way to teach reading well. Mind, they did provide me with a good barrister when a 15 year old boy lobbed a dictionary at me and only by chance did not break my neck, so they do some good.

@HighLadyofTheNightCourt the old 'when do you break up?' question. I have to explain so many times to family and friends that I get annual leave when I book it, just like most people...only I am not allowed to take it for most of the year.

But not about how hard they work or how demanding or difficult or exhausting their jobs are.

Personally, I think teacher pay is ok. But the workoad and conditions are not. The lack of support and blame culture is not. The lack of necessary resources to do the job properly (and without which the job can be near impossible) is not.

I also don't think it's fair to compare professions or jobs.

One of my close friends is a nurse, another is a social worker and another is a GP. When we compare, some of our stressors and specific circumstances are different. Of course they are because they're different professions. But I would say they are equally difficult, demanding and exhausting and for similar reasons, tbh.

As for comparing manual jobs, yes, they're physically far harder and more tiring in that respect. They're also demanding in different ways.

I'll never have to go into work over Christmas, for example. I'll (hopefully!) never witness someone die under my care. I'll (hopefully) never lose a finger. I'll never be the one removing a child from their parents for their own protection - all things people close to me have experienced. But it isn't a competition.

I've ever claimed that teaching is the hardest/most exhausting job. I couldn't possibly say. I've never done all those other jobs/professions to compare it to. And I've never heard any teacher say that it is.

But there ae plenty of people who are happy to express ill informed opinions and make sweeping generalisations about an entire profession based on nothing more than what they can or cannot 'imagine'.

I don't understand why we ways have to talk about teachers. Every job has it's pros and cons. How exhausting a job is depends on workplace, expectations (personal, managers and clients) and personality of the employee (and how they take it all). This includes teachers and other occupations.

I was a teacher.

Before that I was a clinical physiologist. I spent a lot of time working in cardiac cath labs wearing a lead apron.

My longest day I was called in in the early hours and still working at close to 11pm and I was knackered.

But not as knackered as I have been at the end of term.

It's not just physical, it is the mental load, the planning, the dealing with teenagers, their parents and other teachers.

Who thinks retail isn't tiring? It seems awful to me, particularly if on your feet all the time. So physically tiring and also emotionally tiring dealing with customers all the time. I thank God I don't have to do it every time I go into a shop.

With teaching I presume a lot of it is all the extra paperwork that wasn't so bad when we were young and the decline in discipline. At least we could be sent out of the class if we misbehaved.

but you have no idea about welders, their pay and conditions, their hours of work, the physical affects on their bodies

Haha exactly! Can't remember when I last managed to take all my annual leave. DS has spent many a school holiday on a university campus!

@2021x
Nobody is saying that there isn’t also a crisis in those occupations. However, you don’t see endless posts belittling nurses and prison workers for claiming their jobs are stressful. Why is it acceptable for them to feel this way but not teachers? I have no doubt nursing is stressful, I couldn’t do it but generally they don’t take work home with them and if they do extra hours they get paid for them. Teachers are expected to give up so much of their own time unpaid and as others have said it is like giving 5 presentations a day when it’s your job to get the audience to listen whilst dealing with constant interruptions and poor behaviour. It’s absolutely draining on a level you can’t understand unless you’ve done it.
I honestly think some people still have the view of a teacher reading from a text book to a silent perfectly behaved class, handing out a worksheet while the students all sit there working hard for the rest of the lesson. This could not be further from the truth these days.

Yes, I understand that most teachers will take some time over the summer to work. My close family who are teachers will take a day or two at the start or the end of the summer to prepare their classroom - their schools open specially for this over a three day period.

But they will do this during a five or six week summer holiday block,

Teachers do get loads of holidays. They do get long holidays. I don't hate them for this. Good for them! I am just a bit nonplussed when they pretend that they don't and I am schlepping off to work 235 days a year compared to their 195. Forty days extra holiday a year!

Can you explain to me the mental and emotional affects of welding as a profession?