Why is it that people assume that just because something is hard work

[lucyellensmum]

that i should consider it really carefully before i take it on???

I was chatting to a woman i know at M&T today and asked her about her teacher training. I am seriously considering this and have spoken to this person about it before. So she said "oh are you thinking about doing your PGCSE now then (or whatever its called now)" and "yes" i say, "good" she says and answers the question i ask her about being thrown in at the deep end. So, her friend standing with her, who i don't know from Adam, pipes up and says "Ooooh, well its very hard work"

WTF???? Um, of course it is. So clearly, in the two seconds of meeting me, she has weighed me up and decided that i am clearly not up to hard work and she clearly is. This has happened more than once, what is it with people, that they consider that they are the only people in the world capable of doing their job?? You don't know me, so fuck off!!! I wrote up my PhD, whilst balancing my baby on my lap - i CAN do hard work, believe it or not .

Just to say, the lovely mnet teachers on here who have discussed this with me, and have told me its hard work, i don't mean you, you DO "know" me, and know where i am at just now. I'm sure im not the only person this happens too.

Indeed, we at MN should be hardened to the 'oooh, it's hard work, you know'-line

And I don't think wanting to murder your own children is going to be any clue to how you will react to your class, lucyellensmum. We all want to murder our immediate family from time to time, it's because they're ours and noone can get on your nerves like the people who are close to you. You don't have the option of muttering smugly to yourself 'ah, you will be in mrs X's class next term'.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest sleepy, in fact it makes me more determined. But it just seems to me that there is an element within the teaching community who say, "its sooo hard" "its so crap because of xyz"

If i am stimulated and challened by it, i will have no problem with the hard work - well no more than anyone else. There just seems to be soo much snobbery associated with this sort of thing. If it were THAT hard, there wouldn't be any teachers would there. But i do agree that there is an element of "well i'll do teaching then because it will be a)the soft option or b)i can't seem to get a job elsewhere etc, but i imagine that they are weedled out early on in the course.

I remember attitudes when i was at uni - People doing science degrees looked down on people doing humanities because science degrees seemed to involve mountains more coursework than humanities. So, maybe we were jealous because they were down the pub by lunch time but we were stuck in lectures til 7! Of course there is no comparison, i think both types of degree completely different, but i remember reading some library graffitti once: humanities/arts = mickey mouse degree (clearly written by a resentful scientist), underneath it was countered by; Science = no life degree! Wtf?