Do other professions get critiqued as much?

[DottyLS]

It seems relentless in teaching but maybe I'm just not aware what happens in other fields?
I mean things like lesson observations etc, rather than society's view.

Yes being a lawyer. There seems to be a culture of watching for mistakes so they can sack you. Mistakes are not allowed.

It obviously depends on the employer, but it's my experience of quite a few employers, both law firms and company legal departments. The latter may be worse. They may not sack you at the time, but I've seen people be top of the list once redundancies are being considered even when the "mistakes" weren't even directly their fault. It can be very aggressive indeed.

So don't leave teaching to go into law!

Yeah a lawyer friend mentioned how brutal the law field is and that anything could get you sacked but the salary made up for it I guess. The scrutiny is real in teaching, you can never have an off day.
I appreciate that observations help teachers grow BUT it feels we are not trusted to do our jobs ever.
Reason why I am leaving. A colleague mentioned how some teachers just " can't handle it". I disagree, i have too much respect for myself to put myself through constant scrutiny which is not helpful

Which job are you going to do instead?

I take it you're being sarcastic?

Anything non classroom based. Looking at how to transfer my skills
I essentially need work I can leave at work

My dh is a pharmacist and they have on the spot inspections with absolutely no warning where all paper work is examined and serious checks done on storage etc. Constant continued learning is compulsory and it is stressful. But necessary as its literally a life or death situation so tight controls are needed.
In teaching the nature of the work demands that teachers not be stressed so they can bring their better selves to the children. The whole over supervision leads to worse teaching not better so serves no purpose.

I agree with this - there seems to be constant message in teaching that everything you do every minute of the day has to be absolutely perfect and there's no room for having an off day (or even an off 5-minutes).

We have 'coaching' at our school where your line-manager drops by to watch you teach for 20 minutes or so and then gives you feedback to improve - but it basically means they pick up on any minor thing that they feel you could have done differently in that time and use it to critique you. Add this to people monitoring the feedback you give in books, and everything else you do, and it really does start to wear you down and make you feel you're never going to be good enough.

It doesn't help that good teaching is so subjective and opinions can completely vary. In my old job in accounting, as long as I met all my KPIs, no-one was looking over my shoulder and critiquing how I did it.

I find you have to grow a thick skin. Constructive feedback they call it!!!

Yes i have done lots of jobs before teaching and all involved as least as much of not more feedback

Can you share what those jobs were and the nature of the feedback?

I would also be interested which jobs those were

Charities, HE, blue chip science - all had a monthy at least 1:1 with manger - most hat anual rating for peformance and pay increase feedback could be anything - from report could be improved, performance on targets, postive stuff too obviously

Of course, in every job. I used to work as a waitress at a restaurant and I had all of this.
However the nature of being observed whilst you teach, so having an adult stare at you in the act of teaching is mostly a teaching thing.
It also depends on your school culture, in my school there are very frequent observations and always someone on roll doing these. The observations are not meant to demoralise teachers but are " support teachers practice" however it is so stressful. It most jobs you have targets you need to achieve but nobody is judging you in the moment.
I cannot have an off day ever in teaching, SLT might walk in 🤣🙏

Exactly, that's what I mean - someone just watching you doing your job and taking apart what you say, how you say it, where you stand... and so frequently

It is so ineffective too. We have frequent drop ins of a few minutes each. Someone writing furiously, bending to talk to students, looking in books - it is unbelievably disruptive. I stop teaching when they come in as I’m surprised, then have to try to get into a flow again. Sometimes they will interject. The other day an observer shouted at 2 students while I was helping another one 😬
the vibe is always ‘what are you not doing?’ Rather than ‘these are the strengths of our staff’. Makes you feel crummy.

Precisely this. It would be better as a more positive thing like you say, highlighting strengths rather than " what you are not doing".

Ex teacher. New job. My performance is heavily scrutinised based on what I produce. No one comes to watch me in the process of producing those outcomes. They couldn’t assess my performance based on watching me type away at my computer and spend some time reading and thinking and talking to colleagues. Teaching performance management is a million miles away from plenty of other jobs.

Exactly this. All professions are scrutinised to some degree. They way its done in teaching is really soul destroying as there are so many variables to way a lesson could go wrong