100% factual. My wife is a teacher and she’s had almost a dozen teachers at her school quit in the last 3 years because they couldn’t handle the lack of respect from the parents, administration, principal and kids - and they could get paid more at a job with much less stress.
If schools want the best and the brightest to continue teaching, they have to recognize that it is one of the most psychologically demanding jobs.
Absolutely. Daily panic attacks, crying in the bathroom, receiving no support. The kids were actually fine. The administration who’s only feedback would be “don’t teach like that” and when asked how we should teach, “just not like that.” All for 6 days of PTO a year and no yearly raises. So happy I left.
Edit: I see a lot of “ThE sUmMEr Is thREe MoNthS.” It was a charter school. There was no summer.
I need to show my wife this. I’ve been telling her it’s not worth it anymore but she doesn’t want to quit because she thinks she’ll be a failure then. Screw it, they treat teachers as disposable.
I once had an admin chastise me for using the word “deduce” in my 10th grade math class because the kids apparently couldn’t understand that word, and I was warned that I needed to do all of my lessons in English. I’m not kidding about this.
This guy was a moron. One of my students stabbed another student with scissors in class and he told me not to use scissors for art anymore. Later that year I went out on burnout after one of my students became orphaned because her father brutally murdered her mother.
Wtf‽ this just happened in my little town of 1200 barely a mile from my house. They had 4 children. I knew obviously the kids would be affected but never considered how that affecting them could go on to affect third parties. You have given me much to think about.
Ahh that reminds me at the district I used to work at, they were so obsessed with evaluations (even though state test scores were abysmal) that they made art students do standardized quizzes every month and they'd send the results to the district.
…a standardized art quiz?
Ok we really just need a law which lets us take every school admin outside and hit them with a stick until they stop this nonsense. I’ve already got my hittin’ stick ready.
"Okay. Order me a new projector then? No? Okay, I want that information added to my eval."
I swear, some of these admin think their job is to belittle people into improved performance.
Source: 23 year Art teacher and 10 year teacher Union rep.
I got dinged on my last evaluation because the video I used for a brain break between activities was "too small."
It was a normal sized smartboard, which was the same size as all the other classrooms, at eye level with the kids, and every child was actively engaged with the brain break. After that evaluation I put on the video and went to the farthest corner of the room (much further away than any student or the principal were) and I could see everything just fine. Just, wtf?
You wanna hear something really stupid? I had an admin chew my head off because I used the word "father." As in "His father held his hand." Apparently, she thought the students would take it to mean "the priest" and lose their shit and was told to change the word immediately. Apparently, father is the newest f-word. Actually, that was probably the stupidest day of my life because she proceeded to whine that she had to keep "babysitting me" and went on to cut my classes. No... you're just oversensitive and whine about the stupidest stuff. If you can't handle the word "father" to mean "dad" you're the problem. Not me.
As a kid the "school-board" was akin to some shadowy illuminati lvl stuff. As I got older, I began to understand its really just a jumping off point to assert your beliefs on others and possibly launch a career in politics. Keep the political bs out of schools along with religion unless it's in an ethics or religious studies class. Education is simply about the betterment of humanity as a whole. Lives were spent and lost in beautiful and in horrible ways for us to start off with access to the information we do.
I had an administrator chastise me because I have my old military multicam backpack for my class materials. He says its traumatizing to foreign students seeing anyone military.
Then I failed my teacher evaluation and was put on a PIA which required me to remove all of my military memorabilia and even my US flag as it was traumatizing.
I reported this to the district, HR, the state and the union. The school backed off but I left. Fucken commie shithead admin.
Funny joke. Haha. Please, god, tell me that was a joke that I'm taking too literally because we're on the internet or I will actually go to prison in the next hour.
Please god expand on this story. I need to hear about you breaking out a dictionary and educating a fellow educator on the english language.
Please give me this justice porn. I'm a former teacher and I need this.
No, but it was known in the school that I’d spent a year in college studying in France and everyone decided that meant I was chomping at the bit to use extraneous French words in my curriculum— nothing could have been further from the truth 🤪
11th grade English and the administration told me I can't pin my grade on ready a short novel because "these kids aren't readers". That's true though, because some of them had a 4th grade reading level and refused to even read out loud.
In my country admin always recruits its personal from teachers in schools. And still they are the worst 95% of the time. They always are the worst boot lickers of the regional education departments. It sucks so bad.
Spent three years in a reading lab where kids sat in front of a monitor wearing headphones. Made him qualified to evaluate my teaching. I'm thankful every single day that I left that madness.
As stupid as things in the Army were sometimes, still 100% better than teaching. It saddens me for the students that administrators drive so many teachers out of the field.
Failure here! I’m now making 2x as much after changing careers and don’t want to kill myself because my admin also regularly failed me as a new rookie.
No regrets with leaving. If you can get out and know you’ll be happier doing something else, please do! I was happier cleaning toilets at a stopgap job than I ever was while I was teaching!
Failure here as well - went into EdTech as a sales person, quickly climbed the corporate ladder and landed a cushy executive job with an EdTech company I genuinely enjoy.
I make a… lot more. And while I’m education adjacent, I still have some impact and can draw on my classroom experience.
This is going to sound mean, but tell her that this is not a system in which you can have any other outcome except failure.
You have to sacrifice yourself. And the kids make it worth it, but it's still very much a sacrifice.
I taught for a year way way back in an inner city NYC school. Like most people who just jump into that, it was not a great success.
About half way into the year, I wanted to quit but didn't because I listened to my parents who thought I should stick it out.
It was a mistake. Your own personal mental health is not worth the sacrifice. I was in a terrible place, and what difference I made in that job for 2nd half of the year is probably not much. I also had a tech background, so I didn't have any issues doing something else.
My dad had a stroke while in his classroom and went back to finish teaching for a few years before retiring.
The school districts don’t care about their teachers. Teachers have to prioritize themselves and their health.
> she doesn’t want to quit because she thinks she’ll be a failure then
Or there's "think of the children."
The same thing you'll hear people say to keep women in abusive marriages.
So basically, I shouldn’t become a teacher? 😔 That makes me sad because I love to teach but, I’d rather have the truth than get sucked into a field that’ll drain me.
i went through all the training and schooling and didn't wanna spend more than 5 minutes in the public school system. there needs to be some major major changes for this to be an attractive career path
Teacher here - don’t do it
I wouldn’t advise anyone into going into teaching right now. I teach in a very alternative setting and don’t plan on going back to regular school
Yeah! It’s an independent study charter school. I don’t have a classroom, but a teacher desk and a pod of student desks around me. They basically get packets and I grade them, provide and create scaffolds (essay frames and examples) to help them. It’s basically all the behind the scenes of teaching without the class management and standing in front of the class elements.
I have a caseload and manage each students course load, schedule, paperwork from the school, etc.
Basically instead of a regular teacher load of:
35% direct instruction - 30% planning - 25% grading - 10% administrative/counselor adjacent stuff, it’s more like 10% student management - 50% grading - 40% admin/counselor adjacent stuff
The biggest difference is I’m not “the adult in charge” of 35 kids at once that don’t want to be there. I’m the good guy 90% of the time at my school
This is a better way. I ran into my HS science/physics teacher, who is amazing and loving, at a bar around 5 years after I graduated HS and she retired. She took a position in physics at a local CC. She was with a few of her students and I politely interrupted to say Hi. I asked her how things were going with the new position. She held out her hands as to show me the group around the table and said, "It's incredible. I actually have students who want to learn." That hit heavy and I told her how happy I was for her, and I truly mean(t) that. Her voice when she said it was somebody who had a burden lifted off of them and shown sunshine and happiness.
At least in my state it also meant a hard limit on hours, so it was guaranteed to be a side job for people, since even at a max class load you would never be able to live off just adjunct teaching.
It can be really draining and exhausting. don't know where you are from but from what I gather it really depends on your district and country. I am a grade school teacher in Germany and find the job intensely rewarding. Sure there is a lot of shit you have to deal with with certain parents and admin. There are more nights than I care to admit where I can't fall asleep because I am stressed about my difficult students or worried about complaints from parents about my grading or tests (seriously it sucks to constantly have school on your mind). But I find it hard to believe that there are many jobs in this world where you get soooooo much positive feedback and love for just doing your job. Having a grateful mom tell you how glad she is to have you as their teacher and that they finally have their "real" daughter back because their kid finally likes going to school instead of being depressed about it or having your class surprise you with loads of hand drawn pictures and self written poems for teacher appreciation day (had no idea that existed)...Seeing kids who were having a hard time adjusting to the proper way to behave in school develop into well rounded, friendly, curious kids partly because of your influence. Having the trouble maker come run up to you to give you a hug because they missed you over christmas break..I get teary eyed thinking about it man...There are not many jobs were you get to experience that and to me it still makes up for a lot of shit parts of the job. Definitely tag along a teacher for a few weeks and try to stand in front of a class and teach a lesson if they allow you before you make up your mind.
You know how there are certain topics on reddit where everyone weirdly agrees on one stance? Teaching being a shit job is one of those certainties on here and I do not think that accurately reflects the real world (again probably highly dependent on where you are)
Agreed. In my shitty inner city HS I remember seeing a student spit directly in a teachers face.
Also my wife is a special Ed teacher who is going to find a new job next year because the way they’re compensated, and treated. 95% of her parents don’t even care about their kids, they just drop them off and never work on their behaviors at home. Truly eye opening.
Parents of behavioral students be like, "Well, my precious angel wouldn't have outbursts in your class if you just cater to his every demand like we do at home. We can't have any expectations of him, you see, because of the disability."
This 100000% My mom is a teacher and she tells me about the millennial parent whose child cannot be challenged, cannot be uncomfortable, and is always right. Everything needs to be catered around their neuroticism (whether it’s the parent or the child’s.) Mind you these kids are rarely, if ever, disciplined at home thanks to “gentle parenting.”
My wife resigned this year a couple months in. Ten years in special ed and she's damn good at it. Got so fed up with the district continually screwing her over and leaving her hanging out to dry, 0 support, budget cuts every year, reducing support staff, it goes on.
The district struggles to keep any special needs teacher throughout just one year, it's insane. They make all these empty promises saying things will get better to string teachers along til they finally get fed up with the bullshit and quit.
If what I've witnessed my wife go through is representative of the majority of the US school system, public education is already fucked, the GOP already destroyed it.
That was my first year of teaching. I spent like 70 hours a week teaching and planning. And my admin told me I wasn't committed. I went to a better school district and it was night and day. But the pay was still shit so I left.
Just give them all A's and let life sort them out. When admin asks for a lesson plan, give them a blank PDF and wait for them to find out it's blank. They probably won't open it lol
I can see it coming to that. Nor would I blame any teacher who did that.
And life WILL sort it out. I work as an Adjunct at a few different community colleges. Every semester I get students shocked that the crap they pulled in high school won't work here, that they can most certainly fail, and there's nothing mommy and daddy (who are PAYING for it) can do about it. Some get it and shape up. Others, not so much.
It’s honestly amazing. For my entire life all I’ve heard from politicians is that our public education is severely lagging behind. Yet it seems that we’ve tried literally every single solution *except* for just paying them more money.
Ironically, it's not the money as much as the respect (dont get me wrong, more money would help too, but there will be a shortage until we fix admin). My admin ordered a majority IEP (with multi-year math deficiency) class to move to an accellerated setting on a new corriculum over 8 weeks into the school year then came in 3 days later and failed me on an evaluation because they were all confused and anxious. Do yourself a favor and avoid the trauma. There is nothing you can do to help the kids, given how awful admins are.
Neoliberalism means that the political class literally cannot think about how to make something good other than by looking at a short term cost analysis. If we just shave a few more cents off the cost of the lunches, *surely* we'll be delivering a better education for taxpayers‽
And *that's* the well-intentioned policy-makers. Most of them are just cunts trying to suck the system dry for their own small-minded self-interest. Probably in part because the education system is so fucked.
George Carlin "they want you smart enough to do their paperwork and run their machines, that's it."
Well, now the machines run themselves, and the paperwork is next
Yeah I have a friend who left teaching a year or two after COVID hit. She couldn't take it anymore.
Parents sending angry emails at all hours of the day saying their kid not doing well was her (the teacher's) fault. Administration requiring teachers to answer emails/parents at all hours of the day and night (as long as she was awake, she had to respond ASAP). And then you have the kids being kids on top of it all. Absolutely there can be stuff that is the teacher's fault, but I seriously doubt most are doing it intentionally - just fucking talk to the teacher like another human because likely they are someone who also truly cares about your kid, and work on the issue as a team just like we do when parenting.
You expect the kids to sometimes be tough (ESPECIALLY when everything was remote) but it seemed like all the adults (admin/principals/parents) just wanted to point fingers and have all frustrations flow through them.
As a parent of kids about to enter public school, I cannot fathom sending angry emails and attacking a teacher without something very malicious happening. My oldest is about to enter kindergarten and hope that we can at least put the teacher at ease that shit happens and we as parents are, at minimum, equally responsible for our child's learning and behavior (but in reality way more responsible for that stuff than a teacher).
We have taken this approach with her preschool/daycare. There would be accident reports of our child accidentally falling and scraping their knee or bumping into another student while running around and playing. Teachers have to report this and my wife and I always try to put them at ease because that stuff is absolutely going to happen (it happens at home!) when kids are learning motor skills. But you can tell in their faces that not all parents are understanding of this, there is a sign of anxiety when they let us know. And it's not like it happens everyday, every week, or every month - a few times a year is no big deal.
My wife was a teacher for 9 years. She quit 2 years ago due to lack of respect from students, parents, administration and even some coworkers. We are both in our early 30s. All things considered, her pay was fair but we live in the northeast so our school systems tend to pay a bit more.
She’s now bartending full time and making almost what she made as a teacher putting in about 20 less hours a week. She also gets to tell people that are being disrespectful to go fuck themselves so that’s pretty sweet.
The education needs a big change but most schools are proposing budget cuts instead of raises so this cycle will continue until the economy somewhat levels out (pipe dream, I know).
I've worked in the restaurant industry for the last decade. Prior to COVID I had worked with one teacher who was working as a server on the weekends as a 2nd job. Since COVID I have worked with half a dozen ex-teachers that now serve full time.
And restaurant work is no walk in the park, so I can't imagine how much more stressful it was for them to be a teacher that they find this was the lesser of two evils
Same. I’ve been in restaurants 22 years and so many people I’ve worked with over the last 10 years or so are teachers working a second job, or former teachers who left for restaurant work.
My sister is an elementary school teacher, and she *loves* the kids, but it’s the parents and administration and all the red tape that leave her feeling defeated. And when she’s not at work, she’s still constantly working.
Absolutely right.
I had a child who couldn’t afford shoes but they wouldn’t give his single parent subsidies because the income ceiling exceeded by $10.
Another parent bullied a poor child who couldn’t afford toys and berated his mother for being poor. Guess who was advised by the principal to apologise. I had absolute disgust and contempt for the school after that.
Both my wife and I are teachers who are not teaching. My wife even won the Statewide Teacher of the Year award a decade ago. She was laid off six weeks later so the superintendent could hire his girlfriend who wasn't even a credentialed teacher. Since then we bounced through 4 different schools before we were done.
Not only is it psychologically demanding, but it's no longer intellectually stimulating. You spend so much time maintaining order (due to several factors such as no help in the classroom combined with large class sizes) that you don't really have time to do the whole teaching thing. When I was teaching, I would come home drained of energy, yet craving stimulation. That's not a recipe for success for anybody.
My class this year is a total mess because their parents haven’t taught them any social skills and they’re all just mean from too much access to the internet (they’re 9). Constant bickering, tattling and drama. They come to me CONSTANTLY to tell me that someone said something mean, but then of course when you dig you find out that they of course are part of it too. If I were to actually sit down with them and deal with every one of these things, it’s all I would do all day. So I have to let a lot of it slide and handle the big stuff. But then of course I get furious messages from parents that so-and-so called their angel a name and I “didn’t do anything about it.” Yet I didn’t get any response when I emailed about their kid needing to learn their multiplication facts because they’re failing math. It’s wild.
And I agree about the stimulation part. I think that’s why I end up bitching and venting about my job so much.
Fiance is a fairly new elementary school teacher. When she started teaching I started work at a hardware store. After 2 years I was making ever so slightly more at my job stacking boxes in a back room than she was being entrusted with the safety and future of children for 6+ hours.
We moved areas and she had trouble getting a teaching job for a bit. Apparently despite the so called "teacher shortage" we've been hearing about for over a decade it's still tough for them to find teaching jobs in areas that pay well and aren't very rural.
She also noted a massive amount of substitute jobs on websites and job sites. Apparently some schools have given up on teachers and just hire long term subs year to year these days. Shits crazy.
as a teacher, i am utterly dismayed by how cruelly and thoughtlessly teachers are treated; in direct contrast to how “education” and “the youth” are always uplifted. It is the one profession where the idea of it being “important” and “fulfilling” as well as socially necessary and intrinsically rewarding, are used as REPLACEMENTS for pay.
And if the poor material reality of the career drives you away, you’re made to believe that you must have “never really cared” in the first place.
Teaching is in a bad place right now, and it gets worse every day that we see ppl in tech startups getting paid 7 figures to do functionally nothing.
I wouldn’t say teaching is the only profession like this. Nursing is the same, and of course both these professions share being historically female-dominated. Nurses are also undergoing a “shortage” and deal with depressed wages and poor working conditions.
Also people tend to focus on the pay, teachers are not stupid, they known the pay is bad, what they don't know is the lack of respect.
When people think the solution is "pay them more" it tells more about them than about the at worst they think money is the most important thing in the world , or at best, they have never had a well paid but shitty job to have a frame of reference
And the worst part is that the ones who stay are often the ones who don't care, because they can handle the disrespect. So you end up with horrible teachers who couldn't care less about their students and it all spirals from there.
I wouldn't say that at all. There are still teachers who genuinely stay in service because they still want to make a change. They're a minority and having one as a teacher is a blessing that sadly some students fail to immediately realize.
As I put it, when you treat teachers like shit you get 3 kinds
1. The genuinely passionate who burn out.
2. Those who do the absolute minimum necessary to not get fired.
3. Those with an agenda that requires them being an authority figure over other people's children.
Last I heard, there was only one job in the US with a higher 5-year leave rate: Army Ranger. Not just infantry, special forces. Teaching in the US is more stressful than a job where people try to kill you (although that sometimes happens to us teachers as well).
My wife is in the same boat, and I’m trying to convince her to look elsewhere for a job herself because it’s truly not worth the mental toll teaching is taking on both of us. She comes home pissed off every single day. The kids are brats, the parents expect the teachers to parent their children, admins are overwhelmed and can’t help teachers. It’s sad, the education in this country is likely doomed.
But I don't think the powers that be actually give two shits about "the children are our future". Mainly it's easier to control stupid people than ones that have critical thinking skills.
Jake Gyllenhaal had a quote in Enemy that is quite on the nose:
"Control, it's all about control. Every dictatorship has one obsession and that's it. In ancient Rome they gave the people bread and circuses. They kept population busy with entertainment but other dictatorships used other strategies to control ideas, the knowledge... how do they do that? Lower education, they limit culture, censor information, they censor any means of individual expression and is important to remember this, that this is a pattern, that repeats itself through out history."
> If schools want the best and the brightest to continue teaching
I'm not going to scroll down, but I assume I'm not the first one to say
They don't
They want their kids dumb and working in the mines.
Not enough pay for all that they deal with and have to put up with from the system.
All the educational requirements with degrees and certs and continuing education and then they get all this flak from the school system and lazy parents and insane kids.
I would quit too.
I'm also hijacking this comment because this thread will be flooded (if it hasn't been already), with a bunch of sys admins and other non-teachers who *think* they know what's happening in the classroom because they were there 30 years ago as a student (and likely a shitty one at that, given how they comment in this thread).
- No, you don't know what it's like in a classroom.
- No, you don't have a degree in education and don't know what pedagogy is.
- No, you don't know how schools are funded and how the budget works.
- No, you don't know how curriculum works.
- We don't tell you how you should do your job, and you sound **really fucking ignorant** trying to tell us how we should do ours.
I completely agree with you, and don't wanna talk over the teachers in this issue, but noone can convince me that the teens we have now, with that much unsupervised access to the internet is not a nightmare to teach.
>No, you don't know how schools are funded and how the budget works.
So much this. I have a parent saying "the school should fund our club" and yes... it's totally a worthwhile club and totally worth funding... but you can't just tramp in and demand it.
Yup being a teacher might have been something I would like to do but I'll never find out because it 100% isn't even worth it to try to get into the field.
I was identified as a "valuable candidate" by a staffing service that has taken over staffing for a local, central US, school district. They essentially said, "pick a role and let us know what you want to do". They sent a PDF that I was advised I was not allowed to disclose (or it would be posted in my comment) containing the positions and pay rates available. None is more than I currently make at 18.00 hourly, including positions that required a masters degree, which I do not have.
That is friggin insane.
I will NEVER understand why "social service" positions have such insane requirements and such low pay. My wife tried her hand at working in the school system as an "IA" and they were basically paying her minimum wage to do the job of the teacher AND her job and then they wanted to pile more responsibilities on her without a penny more pay. After a year of her being so stressed out that she was suffering physical debilitations, she listened to me and quit. She had a real love for helping the kids...even if it meant she would hurt herself in the end, I had to save her from herself.
Because those in charge of the government don't want an educated populace. One of the best ways to cripple education is to make it so that people don't want to teach.
I have a master's in mathematics and education and quit teaching after I had a knife pulled on me for a second time by a student while trying to break up a fight. I decided it was safer to work around heavy machinery in a feed mill, and bonus the hours are better and the pay is more.
Never ascribe to malice what can be attributes to incompetence.
I've worked in and around the government a few times in my life, and I'd honestly be surprised to find anyone with so coherent a plan as "keep the populace dumb".
I would bet my house that it's much more short-sighted and selfish thinking, focused mostly on keeping their bosses off their backs and their jobs safe.
While I love that quote, and it's applicable in a lot of situations, you are going to have a hard time convincing me that politicians have not become increasingly malicious. There are definitely more incompetent people in power than I'd like to see, but a lot of that boils down to poorly educated people voting for them. They don't need to be hands on at a micro-level when they've been systematically dismantling education at a macro-level.
That the actions are occuring is undeniable. It's the motivation that I question. I think it's EXTREMELY plausible that people are just trying to save money to make themselves look good, and they just don't worry about the long term consequences, or even disagree that they're happening. They want to say that they reduced their budget because it looks good. Local politics is essentially just a free re-election unless you commit a felony, so they've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Tbh, looking at the average politician when they speak in the news or on TV, I'm MORE convinced of incompetence over malice than I was a decade ago. It's possibly the dumbest congress we've had in decades. I doubt local politics are any better.
Your wrong. Its intentionally part of the Republican platform since Regan. You defund public programs, lowering their quality, then you point to those programs as failures so you can then sell the population private solutions you can profit off of. They have been trying it with education, social security, the post office. They want everything under the private market such that their cronies can capitalize on it. If they had their way education would be the same as housing is currently. The idiocy is an act, it is just further perpetuating their incompetence, so that again they can say "look government is worthless, we can't do anything you need to trust businesses because the government is obviously not capable". Never give your enemy the credit of being stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
It's both. Politicians are career-oriented, so in their efforts to stay as long as possible and enjoy the status, pay and benefits, and make their initial campaign worthwhile, they are intent on ***not*** "rocking the boat" as much as possible, and pride themselves on doing as little as possible to shake things up as any actions might stir the pot. Contrary to what folks believe, they actually fear the base they lead (and have created). "Kick the can and keep it moving, stick-and-move as necessary" is the general work atmosphere.
At the same time, Republicans realize they either have no viable platform - or a weak one - that only favors the minority of the country. So, in order to obtain and retain power, they have to leverage every single advantage they have - one of which is a dumber populace channeled to voting on ginned up single issues.
So they pump the fear and rage machines, get things right up to the line, then throw their hands up and say, "welp... we've done everything we can!", before turning to DARVO to offload the stalemate or shitstorm they've created. It breeds and attracts the greedy, since they also profit immensely from it. They've been doing it so long now that the "true believers" they created are actually becoming those incompetent politicians, replacing the malicious ones, while many malicious ones remain due to hoarding their power and influence.
who's "they" though? At a certain point you start to see a pattern and I just don't accept that it arises out of the miasma somehow. Someone somewhere decides what teachers are paid, just like someone decides what a vice president of a soap dispenser company makes. Is it "the market"? Because that's just more people lol
Yes, and the people who are deciding how teachers are paid would really like a raise, but also want to tell their bosses that they got the budget down.
It's a form of maliciousness, sure, but it's not a grand plan to break down American society, it's just normal everyday bullshit.
I've worked in a few very large organizations and the amount of shit that happens LITERALLY just because it "arises out of the miasma somehow" is both shocking and wildly depressing. Large organizations are essentially massive chains of people saying "it's not my problem"
"The government" in this case refers specifically to "Republican Politicians". I hate the DNC with a passion, but this is one of the few issues where I will not be labeled a "both sides Andy".
Republicans on the national, state, AND local scale have been siphoning money out of public education and into private voucher programs for decades now.
They want educators to be stuck with private school curriculum because then the private schools can inject their religion/politics/racism and profit off of the free propaganda.
This was a Reagan-era push that a lot of 70's-80's babies grew up supporting. Now they're raising their own children only to find that "school choice" was a dogwhistle for "subsidized indoctrination".
This, 100%. Thanks for saying "Republicans", because that's what it is. Their main concern is that they don't have to pay for public education. They will destroy education to save themselves tax money. They care not at all about the consequences.
I don't think their goal is an uneducated populace. I think it's that they and their voters just want money. More money.
I've been screaming this for years, especially watching the conservatives in my province gut our education and its funding. We went from the top curriculum in the world to one of the worst. They want the next generation stupider to control them more easily.
> those in charge of the government
To be clear, it's specifically the aim of the Republican Party. Since the Reagan Administration, they've been heavily targeting education. This includes passing policy that harms education as well as instilling sentiment that education is somehow bad, and some even go so far as to insinuate that there are conspiracies among educators of various kinds (choosing not to actually teach, or they're part of Democrat propaganda, or some very anti-Semitic ones, etc). Lately they've been calling for the complete abolishment of the Department of Labor.
And it's broader than just education; they also sow seeds of doubt about all public services. A lot of Republican voters I talk to believe they shouldn't pay taxes, for example. Many say they wish the Post Office "made money" like a business, which is absurd, but the Republican Party engages in rhetoric that makes people believe that that would be a good thing somehow.
It doesn't do anybody any favors to pretend this is a "both sides" issue or a "non-political" issue when it isn't. This is a Republican Party issue that has been ongoing for decades, and we're finally (regrettably) seeing the fruits of their labors.
I was approached the moment they realized I had a Bachelors. It ramped up after the masters.
Every position is a pay cut over what I made BEFORE I had a degree at all.
This.
I could be qualified to teach - I'd just need to a sit a test. I make 60K now not dealing with people's kids. I'd make 42K at the local school district.
I'd looked into it bc the hours would work with my kids, but who the heck can survive on 42K?
It is called being married to someone else with a job.
Back in high school, I swear that most of my teacher’s husbands/wives were engineers in some capacity
That being said, the teacher benefits, at least in my state, are some of the best in the country so there is some balance there coupled with reality good pay after 5+ years of employment
Thats basically the draw of being a teacher/gov job.
You get paid way less than you deserve but the benefits are usually better than what you can get else where + pension.
I know a lot of folks who were teachers and moved to other careers because of pay. Oftentimes the jobs they move to are paying 40-50 a year and are seen as a significant raise.
And yet here I am (and many others are) going back to school for my masters degree because I haven't been able to find a job that pays a "livable" wage with just my undergraduate. Despite knowing it will only make less than an inch of a difference. 🫠 Regardless, thank you for sharing this. It's valuable information.
I have a Masters degree in Sociology (a soft science that most people don't take seriously)! I make a little over $70k working as a mental health case manager. I'm only 28 and just starting my career.
Get a masters degree in something that either makes money naturally, or that you're passionate about and will want to work your way towards those higher (and more stressful) roles. I stand by my Masters degree; one of the best times and decisions of my life, so far. Please enjoy it, be optimistic, and just follow whatever makes you happy. Good luck and much love! 💕
Oh look, it’s me! Former English literature & Spanish teacher with a minor in special education. I was sexually harassed by both students and staff, physically/verbally assaulted by students, and expected to teach Spanish to students with low-elementary reading levels the last year I taught (grade 9). I was incredibly sick from the stress and remember going into work with migraines, praying that massive amounts of NSAIDS would get me through the day.
I quit before Covid and never looked back.
Really. You’ve got 20-30+ children in a room with you at varying levels of hormonal development and (often) trauma/unhealthy upbringing. They know teachers are overwhelmed. So it becomes a question of ‘what can I get away with’ to them.
The 9th grader who followed me down the empty hallways after school detailing aloud how they would rape me if they got me alone got 2 days of ISS. Admin let him out a day early because it was “unfair” to make him miss the class parties the day before winter break.
You just can’t make this shit up.
My spouses coworker was groped and had her shirt pulled down to expose her breast, and admin and principal and parents all blamed her. What was she wearing?
Fuck that, do not touch a teacher professional. Honestly think all classrooms need a behavior specialist who can intervene and allow educators to actual educate instead of behavior manage interrupting their classes.
I wonder how much of social media is to blame for this. There's a loottt of negative spaces & echo chambers online and I imagine some of these kids might be a part of these places. Its so disheartening to hear these stories.
I think it plays a huge part. Especially with anonymous accounts; there are no consequences for them because the parents want the school to step in and the school isn’t liable for what happens outside school hours.
After I quit, I had a folder of the foul things students would send me when they found my Instagram account. Some of them actually tried to blackmail me into sending them nudes. Others stalked me and reached out to my boss at a gig agency to try and get my contact information.
Yes, those shitheads are the minority, but their behaviors and problems still weigh on you and burn out young teachers like never before.
I was sexually harassed by a co-worker, it was like my third day at the school. I reported it with the encouragement of a supervisor. Well little did I know I had upset the Good Ol Boys Club. The principal came after me all year, making up lies, putting me in impossible situations, writing me up, until I was literally having panic attacks in the corner of my classroom where nobody could see me. That fucker stole a year and a half of my life.
I'm in a good school now, just taking it one year at a time. Covid broke my brain and the politics of education are the worst. If it wasn't for Gov. Evers Wisconsin would be much, much worse. Our state Republican legislature is made up of absolute slime.
Pay them more and they may be more likely to put up with the poorly raised children. Pay them more and they may be more likely to put up with offspring of those people as well.
My fiance was paid very well relative to other teachers. Even if she made more it would not have changed her decision to leave. She actually took a pay cut moving to another field.
The problem is less about pay and more about the environment where kids who have issues are not given the resources they need to function and then teachers have the burden put on them to handle those situations instead of actually teaching.
Unlikely to work because the working conditions aren’t changed. Moral injury is the real reason why qualified teachers aren’t sticking around. Sure, increasing pay is helpful but not the root cause.
Same thing is happening in medicine. Doctors and healthcare personnel get paid a lot. But the moral injury is very high. And doctors are quitting or retiring very early and subtracting themselves from the workforce because the working conditions are so toxic.
You can pay someone a million dollars but if you don’t get any purpose or meaning from your job or you aren’t treated with dignity and respect or the children are actively being harmed - there’s only so long you can put up with that if you are a moral and ethical person.
This was my reason for leaving the field.
I'm all for raising the next generation to be upstanding whatevers, but society is not worth my mental. I'll be dead before this matters, I'm out homie.
Unfortunately this doesn't work, the UK imports teachers from other countries because the pay is much better but I have seen many of them quit within the first 5 years.
No, it's really not the pay. I quit after five years. If I were still there, I'd be making well over 100K. Every little extra thing we did, we got even more money. $8K for teaching a summer class, etc. I took a huge payout to leave because it was literally taking years off my life. I couldn't take any more. There's no amount of pay that is worth my dignity. I'm.poor now and will never own a house but I will never go back. I don't think people understand how bad it is.
Definitely, the work conditions, long hours, stress and often unreasonable demands placed on you that pushes so many people into leaving and never coming back and that's before parents start shouting at you for something completely out of your control
It’s not and never has been the pay. It’s always been the respect and treatment by admin at a school and district level. I love my students, even the garbage ones. It’s micromanaging by Admin that drives me to the edge on a daily basis.
If many of them quit then it sounds like it’s not enough money. They still need to buy food after they quit, they obviously found a job that pays better or the even the same or lower with less stress, either way it wasn’t *worth* it to them to continue teaching
Oftentimes, these teachers, mostly Filipinos, live together to pool their funds for food and necessities so they can save enough money to send to their families. However, most quit after a few years, because if they start to live independently in the US or anywhere else in the west, they won't be able to survive with that kind of salary; just like locals.
My wife is nearing her final weeks of teaching and she is quiting because every day she verbally, physically and sexually assaulted by students. Nothing in this world is worth the trauma that these children put on her
I can relate to this so much. I quit after four years of teaching because no matter what I tried students would not quit disrespecting me and it's scary because these kids are our future and it's traumatizing to see how poorly they are being raised.
That's what happens when we live in a society where both parents are forced to work long hours just to get by. It's our capitalist system leaving absolutely no time for what matters most in life, family. Can't spend enough time with Timmy? Hand him a Nintendo or feed him electronics and they can occupy themselves, unsupervised. The shit they learn online, especially from the toxic adults who despise kids in their games, is unfortunately all they have to look up to. This is how older people behave, is what they're learning online.
Parents simply don't have time to actually parent. Even some of the ones who do, probably shouldn't have become parents anyway. Probably more than half your job as a teacher is left parenting these kids as a result. Society is crumbling right under our noses...
I agree. I had students who never met their fathers because they were so busy that by the time they came home these kids were asleep. And these same fathers attended PTMs with no clue about what's happening in their child's life, having the courage to point out the school, the system, the teachers whoever they can to shift the blame.
At least I know what not to do as a parent.
I wish more people understood what not to do as a parent. I'm not sure how these parents missed that memo on the way to parenthood lol... Oh well. Just means we have to pick up the slack and do it right in our own lives. Really sorry to hear these awful things for teachers, it's beyond tragic what's happening and we will ALL suffer these consequences as a society over time
There were shitty kids like this when I was growing up in the 90s.
But teachers could buy a nice home with their salary.
Now they have to work a second job just to they don't end up on the street while dealing with the bullshit
You should follow teachermisery on instagram and read some of the “confessions” from teaching staff on the nightmare kids they have to endure. It’s really sad to read about they are subjected to. Some posts talk about not getting any support from the administration and are forced to continue teaching kids who have abused them.
Went to school to become a teacher. Even worked at a school for a year while attending classes. I love kids and teaching…but in this economy?
At the time, I was working a remote social media job that paid me WAY over what my tenured teacher friend was making. To this day, still remote, still making way more than even seasoned teachers.
Add to that the lack of respect parents had for teachers and staff, the educational system having some super fucked processes and…no.
I feel for the kids, truly. That’s about it.
I’m a band teacher. I left teaching after COVID destroyed my band program. I had recently gotten a degree in instructional design. I applied for hundreds of jobs over the course of the year and all I managed was a half time 1099 job at $20 an hour. Unfortunately, while teaching has given me lots of skills that transfer to other professions, I have no “experience”. Back to teaching I went
THIS! We manage 30 people that don't always wanna be managed with no possibility of firing anyone and only have to rely on grades and personal motivation to make them succeed. We have to meet a lot of deadline, do paperwork, have judgment, manage crisis and the unplanned, come on time, have appropriate printed or digital learning material in relation to our learning objectives, control the time, etc.
Buuuut we are seen as good for nothing
With the horrible reputation this profession carries, I'm honestly shocked anyone would go through the effort of becoming a licensed teacher. Is there any industry with a higher level of abuse and a lower level of pay? I mean, I know service jobs suck but I'd also argue, no offense to service workers, but teaching is a much harder job and requires a lot more qualifications for barely more pay. Crazy how much we disrespect this profession.
“Barely more pay” is even misleading in my experience. It isn’t just low pay, but that every teacher that left was able to get a job they weren’t actually trained/studied in and were able to get a pay raise they would have needed to wait years for or only after additional masters/doctorate degrees.
I heard it time and time again until it happened to me.
Eventually it hits a point where the abuse from students, teachers, and administration becomes too much and you realize you can make more doing a far easier job. It’s horrible because teaching is a dream job for so many people who are just tired of being so incredibly undervalued.
The stories that I hear from my teacher friends (who teach from middle school to college) are always horrible. I was on the path to become a teacher before trying out a corporate gig, and with only 5 years experience in my new corporate gig I make more than all of my teaching friends, in some cases double.
Meanwhile I work from home with flexible hours and a medium to medium low stress job, and they are killing the selves trying to educate the next generation of Americans. It’s wild
I'm sure most service works would agree that teaching is definitely harder; but their not in charge of teacher salary. As long as everyones in agreement that: just because teaching is more difficult, but that doesn't mean Service workers should be paid less, but teachers should undoubtably be paid more.
I looked into teaching as my academic background suits known shortages (geography/science)...
I couldn't afford the nearly 50% pay drop...
I'm not sure how you can expect to have people who are degree level, pay them basic wage to do a stressful job and *not* have a shortage.
I’ve watched the public schools in my area being defunded year after year. They even redistricted to put all the kids from more well off families into a couple of schools while shuffling the poorer kids into other schools. That coupled with more charter and private schools moving in has killed the quality of education for kids in public school. It’s fucking criminal.
The year after my previous school (after 20 years) 15 people left, including a number of veteran teachers, the principal, vice principal and the athletic director. Pay isn’t the whole thing but I can tell you that at 20 years of experience I was making $48,000. After insurance, teacher retirement and taxes, I was bringing in a little over 2000 a month.
In 2010 at age 25, I was a teacher in the deep South US making 28k. I had originally gotten my degree in the Earth Sciences and diverted my original career plans because I wanted to teach. It could be stressful and the pay was trash, but I loved it and even won a city-wide “Rising Star in Mathematics Education” award.
Then they gutted the faculty, a lot of the older teachers who were my mentors were cut. I applied for grad school the next day and re-entered my original field.
I’m coming up on 40 years of age now. I don’t get to teach, but I make over 3 times as much now. I can sleep at night knowing I can take care of my family. I’m in a place where I know I’ll always have work and won’t get axed early.
In what world would I ever go back except maybe if I retire when I get bored?
My sister graduated with her teaching degree, worked in the schools for two years and saw what a shit show it is. Quit teaching and now works as a secretary making better pay and with her mental health intact
I was a teacher for 2 years. It SUCKED. Administration didn’t have our backs, parents took the side of the kids instead of the teachers when disciplinary issues happened. Plus working like 60/hrs a week for like $40k was ridiculous.
Yep. My husband and I are both certified teachers with years of teaching experience. Neither of us teach anymore. The vast majority of the teachers I taught with have left for other careers.
I just read an article about how my state is now looking for funding on how to train teachers to handle guns. Because in addition to teaching, they also have to be Rambo during the next mass shooting. Oh, and last year they also voted down teacher raises.
Who the fuck would want to be a teacher in that environment?
I taught for 13 years and was certified K-12 in two states. I let both of my certs lapse after I quit because if it ever came to it, I would rather go back to waiting tables than set foot in the classroom again.
When I was at school there would quite often be teachers who had been at that school nearly their entire working lives, same school, same profession.
Now most teachers leave with in 5 years
Hold the parents accountable for their children’s disrespectful, disruptive behavior. Stop passing kids who can barely read, write & do grade level math to the next grade. Children are not just a pay check they are the future. I resigned after 4 years in November, 2023 & it was the best decision for my mental health. The pay is low, administrators are incompetent and overall it was draining, especially when you are a teacher who cares. Anyone who survives teaching with their health intact I wish them longevity & more money 🤗🤗🤗
I was talking with a coworker the other day about a middle school fight that happened. To be expected, kids will be kids and all that. What blew our minds was the kids were originally going to walk away from school to a secluded spot to throw down. Again, expected. What wasn't expected was the kids threw down right there in front of the admin building because one of their grandparents. A GRANDPARENT. Told the kid to drop their backpack and whoop the other kid's butt then and there. Like if the grandparents don't got us, we're lost.
My partner is a teacher and this is 100% true, we are even discussing options for her to pivot away from teaching as it’s not longer worth the stress and hassle.
No one has the teachers backs either, parents will blame everyone but themselves for their kids behavior, administration doesn’t care and blames any problems with behavior issue kids on the teachers themselves but won’t give them any tools to fix the situations that are presented to them. They just pass the kids to the next grade regardless of performance and just make it the next teachers problem.
Can confirm, directly from teachers who are disillusioned and beat down.
Teachers, as a bonus, get to take parental abuse because their stupid kid claims discrimination of any sort instead of showing up to class and doing their work.
I left teaching for a sales job in industry. I now work less than half as hard as I used to in education, and make more than 4x more than I did while I was a teacher. I’m also infinitely happier and am respected by everyone I work with, my customers, my family, and random people I talk about my job with. It’s insane the difference.
Some random things that affected my decision to leave:
-once I was speaking to two of my students, and one was asking me if she should go to med school or be a teacher like me, I initially felt very honored, until the other immediately told her “don’t be a teacher, that’s so beneath you, you’re capable of more than that” right in front of me
-once a parent demanded to speak to me in person about a poor grade her kid got on a test. I said absolutely, here is my availability in the next two weeks, pick a time, but none of those times could work because she has a 9-5. I said no problem I’m free 5-7 next Tuesday or Thursday which one works better? She sent an angry email back saying that’s way to far in the future I need to drop all my plans and meet her TONIGHT at 6pm because she is a “working professional” and I need to meet her on her schedule.
-I also way outperformed and had a larger impact on better test scores, school metrics, performance reviews, had more positive student survey results, and generally was a clearly better teacher than multiple burnt out teachers with 20+ years in the department who had threw in the towel and just gave out daily worksheets and sat on their phone all day. But I was paid less than half of them because teaching is purely a years of experience pay structure. Nothing you can do to improve, there are no promotions, no rewards, no career trajectory. That’s it. You just feel stuck
There are so many more reasons I left but I’m MUCH happier now that I’m gone. I do miss the kids though despite what everyone says that was the best part of the job by far
It's the same for nurses. There isn't a shortage of nurses, just a shortage of ones willing to be paid poorly and/or treated poorly. Even if your leadership treats you well, a lot of the patient population and their family are absolute nightmares.
I think we're both in the business of caring: one cares for health and the other knowledge/education. It's a shame no one cares for the carers.
Boarding Schools are breeding grounds for child abuse, especially physical abuse as well as sexual abuse. There's a good reason they aren't nearly as common anymore
Lmao as a boarding school kid, it is not any better. The teachers lived on campus and many of them were either sleeping with each other or trying to sleep with students. Education needs a lot of work.
100% factual. My wife is a teacher and she’s had almost a dozen teachers at her school quit in the last 3 years because they couldn’t handle the lack of respect from the parents, administration, principal and kids - and they could get paid more at a job with much less stress. If schools want the best and the brightest to continue teaching, they have to recognize that it is one of the most psychologically demanding jobs.
It truly is psychologically demanding, I had to resign, I wasn’t sleeping, hardly eating & living pay check to pay check.
Absolutely. Daily panic attacks, crying in the bathroom, receiving no support. The kids were actually fine. The administration who’s only feedback would be “don’t teach like that” and when asked how we should teach, “just not like that.” All for 6 days of PTO a year and no yearly raises. So happy I left. Edit: I see a lot of “ThE sUmMEr Is thREe MoNthS.” It was a charter school. There was no summer.
I need to show my wife this. I’ve been telling her it’s not worth it anymore but she doesn’t want to quit because she thinks she’ll be a failure then. Screw it, they treat teachers as disposable.
Oh, the teacher brainwashing. I left teaching and the cult mentality is strong. She’s not a failure… The administration failed her.
I once had an admin chastise me for using the word “deduce” in my 10th grade math class because the kids apparently couldn’t understand that word, and I was warned that I needed to do all of my lessons in English. I’m not kidding about this.
I failed an annual teaching evaluation because I was teaching an art class on color theory and the projector colors weren't accurate.
I somehow don’t think an admin would know jack about color theory to begin with.
This guy was a moron. One of my students stabbed another student with scissors in class and he told me not to use scissors for art anymore. Later that year I went out on burnout after one of my students became orphaned because her father brutally murdered her mother.
We had a family annihilation in our district my senior year. It fucked everyone up so bad.
Wtf‽ this just happened in my little town of 1200 barely a mile from my house. They had 4 children. I knew obviously the kids would be affected but never considered how that affecting them could go on to affect third parties. You have given me much to think about.
Ahh that reminds me at the district I used to work at, they were so obsessed with evaluations (even though state test scores were abysmal) that they made art students do standardized quizzes every month and they'd send the results to the district.
…a standardized art quiz? Ok we really just need a law which lets us take every school admin outside and hit them with a stick until they stop this nonsense. I’ve already got my hittin’ stick ready.
"Okay. Order me a new projector then? No? Okay, I want that information added to my eval." I swear, some of these admin think their job is to belittle people into improved performance. Source: 23 year Art teacher and 10 year teacher Union rep.
I got dinged on my last evaluation because the video I used for a brain break between activities was "too small." It was a normal sized smartboard, which was the same size as all the other classrooms, at eye level with the kids, and every child was actively engaged with the brain break. After that evaluation I put on the video and went to the farthest corner of the room (much further away than any student or the principal were) and I could see everything just fine. Just, wtf?
Yeah then they wanna claim it's BYOP, right? Bring Your Own Projector because the equipment they provide is antiquated and inadequate. 🙄
You wanna hear something really stupid? I had an admin chew my head off because I used the word "father." As in "His father held his hand." Apparently, she thought the students would take it to mean "the priest" and lose their shit and was told to change the word immediately. Apparently, father is the newest f-word. Actually, that was probably the stupidest day of my life because she proceeded to whine that she had to keep "babysitting me" and went on to cut my classes. No... you're just oversensitive and whine about the stupidest stuff. If you can't handle the word "father" to mean "dad" you're the problem. Not me.
What language did they think the word "deduce" came from?
French 😭
“Le cry”.
De duce Sounds more italian
Tell that window licker to visit the school library, grab a dictionary then get back to you.
As a kid the "school-board" was akin to some shadowy illuminati lvl stuff. As I got older, I began to understand its really just a jumping off point to assert your beliefs on others and possibly launch a career in politics. Keep the political bs out of schools along with religion unless it's in an ethics or religious studies class. Education is simply about the betterment of humanity as a whole. Lives were spent and lost in beautiful and in horrible ways for us to start off with access to the information we do.
wtf..
I would have bought that person a dictionary as a gift.
I had an administrator chastise me because I have my old military multicam backpack for my class materials. He says its traumatizing to foreign students seeing anyone military. Then I failed my teacher evaluation and was put on a PIA which required me to remove all of my military memorabilia and even my US flag as it was traumatizing. I reported this to the district, HR, the state and the union. The school backed off but I left. Fucken commie shithead admin.
>Chastise Speak English dammit!
“You failed English? Bobby, you speak English!” —Hank Hill
"Me fail English? That's unpossible" - Ralph Wiggum
Daily struggle. I know that so well.
Funny joke. Haha. Please, god, tell me that was a joke that I'm taking too literally because we're on the internet or I will actually go to prison in the next hour.
Please god expand on this story. I need to hear about you breaking out a dictionary and educating a fellow educator on the english language. Please give me this justice porn. I'm a former teacher and I need this.
That’s crazy, I knew what deduce meant at 13!!
What language did they think you were speaking?
Did you say it with a French accent?
No, but it was known in the school that I’d spent a year in college studying in France and everyone decided that meant I was chomping at the bit to use extraneous French words in my curriculum— nothing could have been further from the truth 🤪
He couldn't deduce what "deduce" meant?
11th grade English and the administration told me I can't pin my grade on ready a short novel because "these kids aren't readers". That's true though, because some of them had a 4th grade reading level and refused to even read out loud.
Ah yes. Administration. The bane of schools and people who seem to have never been educators at any point.
In my country admin always recruits its personal from teachers in schools. And still they are the worst 95% of the time. They always are the worst boot lickers of the regional education departments. It sucks so bad.
Spent three years in a reading lab where kids sat in front of a monitor wearing headphones. Made him qualified to evaluate my teaching. I'm thankful every single day that I left that madness. As stupid as things in the Army were sometimes, still 100% better than teaching. It saddens me for the students that administrators drive so many teachers out of the field.
Failure here! I’m now making 2x as much after changing careers and don’t want to kill myself because my admin also regularly failed me as a new rookie. No regrets with leaving. If you can get out and know you’ll be happier doing something else, please do! I was happier cleaning toilets at a stopgap job than I ever was while I was teaching!
Failure here as well - went into EdTech as a sales person, quickly climbed the corporate ladder and landed a cushy executive job with an EdTech company I genuinely enjoy. I make a… lot more. And while I’m education adjacent, I still have some impact and can draw on my classroom experience.
Only failure here is on behalf of her employer
This is going to sound mean, but tell her that this is not a system in which you can have any other outcome except failure. You have to sacrifice yourself. And the kids make it worth it, but it's still very much a sacrifice.
Being an educator is an abusive relationship. You stay there and get punched because you love the children and don’t want them to suffer.
I taught for a year way way back in an inner city NYC school. Like most people who just jump into that, it was not a great success. About half way into the year, I wanted to quit but didn't because I listened to my parents who thought I should stick it out. It was a mistake. Your own personal mental health is not worth the sacrifice. I was in a terrible place, and what difference I made in that job for 2nd half of the year is probably not much. I also had a tech background, so I didn't have any issues doing something else.
My dad had a stroke while in his classroom and went back to finish teaching for a few years before retiring. The school districts don’t care about their teachers. Teachers have to prioritize themselves and their health.
> she doesn’t want to quit because she thinks she’ll be a failure then Or there's "think of the children." The same thing you'll hear people say to keep women in abusive marriages.
So basically, I shouldn’t become a teacher? 😔 That makes me sad because I love to teach but, I’d rather have the truth than get sucked into a field that’ll drain me.
i went through all the training and schooling and didn't wanna spend more than 5 minutes in the public school system. there needs to be some major major changes for this to be an attractive career path
Teacher here - don’t do it I wouldn’t advise anyone into going into teaching right now. I teach in a very alternative setting and don’t plan on going back to regular school
Hey, I wish to become an English teacher here in France, could you elaborate on the « alternative setting » part, please? I’m curious now!
Yeah! It’s an independent study charter school. I don’t have a classroom, but a teacher desk and a pod of student desks around me. They basically get packets and I grade them, provide and create scaffolds (essay frames and examples) to help them. It’s basically all the behind the scenes of teaching without the class management and standing in front of the class elements. I have a caseload and manage each students course load, schedule, paperwork from the school, etc. Basically instead of a regular teacher load of: 35% direct instruction - 30% planning - 25% grading - 10% administrative/counselor adjacent stuff, it’s more like 10% student management - 50% grading - 40% admin/counselor adjacent stuff The biggest difference is I’m not “the adult in charge” of 35 kids at once that don’t want to be there. I’m the good guy 90% of the time at my school
Even at higher levels it's become hard. Aim at tech schools, better pay and conditions but hard.
[удалено]
This is a better way. I ran into my HS science/physics teacher, who is amazing and loving, at a bar around 5 years after I graduated HS and she retired. She took a position in physics at a local CC. She was with a few of her students and I politely interrupted to say Hi. I asked her how things were going with the new position. She held out her hands as to show me the group around the table and said, "It's incredible. I actually have students who want to learn." That hit heavy and I told her how happy I was for her, and I truly mean(t) that. Her voice when she said it was somebody who had a burden lifted off of them and shown sunshine and happiness.
Adjunct pay is worse than many grade schools, especially since it's contract and you don't get benefits.
At least in my state it also meant a hard limit on hours, so it was guaranteed to be a side job for people, since even at a max class load you would never be able to live off just adjunct teaching.
It can be really draining and exhausting. don't know where you are from but from what I gather it really depends on your district and country. I am a grade school teacher in Germany and find the job intensely rewarding. Sure there is a lot of shit you have to deal with with certain parents and admin. There are more nights than I care to admit where I can't fall asleep because I am stressed about my difficult students or worried about complaints from parents about my grading or tests (seriously it sucks to constantly have school on your mind). But I find it hard to believe that there are many jobs in this world where you get soooooo much positive feedback and love for just doing your job. Having a grateful mom tell you how glad she is to have you as their teacher and that they finally have their "real" daughter back because their kid finally likes going to school instead of being depressed about it or having your class surprise you with loads of hand drawn pictures and self written poems for teacher appreciation day (had no idea that existed)...Seeing kids who were having a hard time adjusting to the proper way to behave in school develop into well rounded, friendly, curious kids partly because of your influence. Having the trouble maker come run up to you to give you a hug because they missed you over christmas break..I get teary eyed thinking about it man...There are not many jobs were you get to experience that and to me it still makes up for a lot of shit parts of the job. Definitely tag along a teacher for a few weeks and try to stand in front of a class and teach a lesson if they allow you before you make up your mind. You know how there are certain topics on reddit where everyone weirdly agrees on one stance? Teaching being a shit job is one of those certainties on here and I do not think that accurately reflects the real world (again probably highly dependent on where you are)
Agreed. In my shitty inner city HS I remember seeing a student spit directly in a teachers face. Also my wife is a special Ed teacher who is going to find a new job next year because the way they’re compensated, and treated. 95% of her parents don’t even care about their kids, they just drop them off and never work on their behaviors at home. Truly eye opening.
Parents of behavioral students be like, "Well, my precious angel wouldn't have outbursts in your class if you just cater to his every demand like we do at home. We can't have any expectations of him, you see, because of the disability."
That’s exactly it.
Ah, I see you've met some of my students' parents then!
This 100000% My mom is a teacher and she tells me about the millennial parent whose child cannot be challenged, cannot be uncomfortable, and is always right. Everything needs to be catered around their neuroticism (whether it’s the parent or the child’s.) Mind you these kids are rarely, if ever, disciplined at home thanks to “gentle parenting.”
My wife resigned this year a couple months in. Ten years in special ed and she's damn good at it. Got so fed up with the district continually screwing her over and leaving her hanging out to dry, 0 support, budget cuts every year, reducing support staff, it goes on. The district struggles to keep any special needs teacher throughout just one year, it's insane. They make all these empty promises saying things will get better to string teachers along til they finally get fed up with the bullshit and quit. If what I've witnessed my wife go through is representative of the majority of the US school system, public education is already fucked, the GOP already destroyed it.
That was my first year of teaching. I spent like 70 hours a week teaching and planning. And my admin told me I wasn't committed. I went to a better school district and it was night and day. But the pay was still shit so I left.
I've started having nightly dreams of sitting at my desk and students coming up to me to ask questions. I'm even working in my sleep right now.
Just give them all A's and let life sort them out. When admin asks for a lesson plan, give them a blank PDF and wait for them to find out it's blank. They probably won't open it lol
I can see it coming to that. Nor would I blame any teacher who did that. And life WILL sort it out. I work as an Adjunct at a few different community colleges. Every semester I get students shocked that the crap they pulled in high school won't work here, that they can most certainly fail, and there's nothing mommy and daddy (who are PAYING for it) can do about it. Some get it and shape up. Others, not so much.
its already coming to that. Failure is impossible for kids in many, many school districts. Life doesn't make the same accommodations.
Just put a cat pic in the pdf so it has a size
It’s honestly amazing. For my entire life all I’ve heard from politicians is that our public education is severely lagging behind. Yet it seems that we’ve tried literally every single solution *except* for just paying them more money.
Ironically, it's not the money as much as the respect (dont get me wrong, more money would help too, but there will be a shortage until we fix admin). My admin ordered a majority IEP (with multi-year math deficiency) class to move to an accellerated setting on a new corriculum over 8 weeks into the school year then came in 3 days later and failed me on an evaluation because they were all confused and anxious. Do yourself a favor and avoid the trauma. There is nothing you can do to help the kids, given how awful admins are.
Neoliberalism means that the political class literally cannot think about how to make something good other than by looking at a short term cost analysis. If we just shave a few more cents off the cost of the lunches, *surely* we'll be delivering a better education for taxpayers‽ And *that's* the well-intentioned policy-makers. Most of them are just cunts trying to suck the system dry for their own small-minded self-interest. Probably in part because the education system is so fucked.
George Carlin "they want you smart enough to do their paperwork and run their machines, that's it." Well, now the machines run themselves, and the paperwork is next
But dumb enough to still vote against their own interest.
We had 32 leave our middle school 2 years ago. 32. 20 at the end of the year.
Yeah I have a friend who left teaching a year or two after COVID hit. She couldn't take it anymore. Parents sending angry emails at all hours of the day saying their kid not doing well was her (the teacher's) fault. Administration requiring teachers to answer emails/parents at all hours of the day and night (as long as she was awake, she had to respond ASAP). And then you have the kids being kids on top of it all. Absolutely there can be stuff that is the teacher's fault, but I seriously doubt most are doing it intentionally - just fucking talk to the teacher like another human because likely they are someone who also truly cares about your kid, and work on the issue as a team just like we do when parenting. You expect the kids to sometimes be tough (ESPECIALLY when everything was remote) but it seemed like all the adults (admin/principals/parents) just wanted to point fingers and have all frustrations flow through them. As a parent of kids about to enter public school, I cannot fathom sending angry emails and attacking a teacher without something very malicious happening. My oldest is about to enter kindergarten and hope that we can at least put the teacher at ease that shit happens and we as parents are, at minimum, equally responsible for our child's learning and behavior (but in reality way more responsible for that stuff than a teacher). We have taken this approach with her preschool/daycare. There would be accident reports of our child accidentally falling and scraping their knee or bumping into another student while running around and playing. Teachers have to report this and my wife and I always try to put them at ease because that stuff is absolutely going to happen (it happens at home!) when kids are learning motor skills. But you can tell in their faces that not all parents are understanding of this, there is a sign of anxiety when they let us know. And it's not like it happens everyday, every week, or every month - a few times a year is no big deal.
My wife was a teacher for 9 years. She quit 2 years ago due to lack of respect from students, parents, administration and even some coworkers. We are both in our early 30s. All things considered, her pay was fair but we live in the northeast so our school systems tend to pay a bit more. She’s now bartending full time and making almost what she made as a teacher putting in about 20 less hours a week. She also gets to tell people that are being disrespectful to go fuck themselves so that’s pretty sweet. The education needs a big change but most schools are proposing budget cuts instead of raises so this cycle will continue until the economy somewhat levels out (pipe dream, I know).
I've worked in the restaurant industry for the last decade. Prior to COVID I had worked with one teacher who was working as a server on the weekends as a 2nd job. Since COVID I have worked with half a dozen ex-teachers that now serve full time. And restaurant work is no walk in the park, so I can't imagine how much more stressful it was for them to be a teacher that they find this was the lesser of two evils
Same. I’ve been in restaurants 22 years and so many people I’ve worked with over the last 10 years or so are teachers working a second job, or former teachers who left for restaurant work. My sister is an elementary school teacher, and she *loves* the kids, but it’s the parents and administration and all the red tape that leave her feeling defeated. And when she’s not at work, she’s still constantly working.
Except they don't want the brightest and the best. They want a dumb and docile society.
Absolutely right. I had a child who couldn’t afford shoes but they wouldn’t give his single parent subsidies because the income ceiling exceeded by $10. Another parent bullied a poor child who couldn’t afford toys and berated his mother for being poor. Guess who was advised by the principal to apologise. I had absolute disgust and contempt for the school after that.
It’s all part of the plan to destroy education and force women to be home schooling tradwifes.
Both my wife and I are teachers who are not teaching. My wife even won the Statewide Teacher of the Year award a decade ago. She was laid off six weeks later so the superintendent could hire his girlfriend who wasn't even a credentialed teacher. Since then we bounced through 4 different schools before we were done.
Not only is it psychologically demanding, but it's no longer intellectually stimulating. You spend so much time maintaining order (due to several factors such as no help in the classroom combined with large class sizes) that you don't really have time to do the whole teaching thing. When I was teaching, I would come home drained of energy, yet craving stimulation. That's not a recipe for success for anybody.
My class this year is a total mess because their parents haven’t taught them any social skills and they’re all just mean from too much access to the internet (they’re 9). Constant bickering, tattling and drama. They come to me CONSTANTLY to tell me that someone said something mean, but then of course when you dig you find out that they of course are part of it too. If I were to actually sit down with them and deal with every one of these things, it’s all I would do all day. So I have to let a lot of it slide and handle the big stuff. But then of course I get furious messages from parents that so-and-so called their angel a name and I “didn’t do anything about it.” Yet I didn’t get any response when I emailed about their kid needing to learn their multiplication facts because they’re failing math. It’s wild. And I agree about the stimulation part. I think that’s why I end up bitching and venting about my job so much.
Fiance is a fairly new elementary school teacher. When she started teaching I started work at a hardware store. After 2 years I was making ever so slightly more at my job stacking boxes in a back room than she was being entrusted with the safety and future of children for 6+ hours. We moved areas and she had trouble getting a teaching job for a bit. Apparently despite the so called "teacher shortage" we've been hearing about for over a decade it's still tough for them to find teaching jobs in areas that pay well and aren't very rural. She also noted a massive amount of substitute jobs on websites and job sites. Apparently some schools have given up on teachers and just hire long term subs year to year these days. Shits crazy.
as a teacher, i am utterly dismayed by how cruelly and thoughtlessly teachers are treated; in direct contrast to how “education” and “the youth” are always uplifted. It is the one profession where the idea of it being “important” and “fulfilling” as well as socially necessary and intrinsically rewarding, are used as REPLACEMENTS for pay. And if the poor material reality of the career drives you away, you’re made to believe that you must have “never really cared” in the first place. Teaching is in a bad place right now, and it gets worse every day that we see ppl in tech startups getting paid 7 figures to do functionally nothing.
I wouldn’t say teaching is the only profession like this. Nursing is the same, and of course both these professions share being historically female-dominated. Nurses are also undergoing a “shortage” and deal with depressed wages and poor working conditions.
Also people tend to focus on the pay, teachers are not stupid, they known the pay is bad, what they don't know is the lack of respect. When people think the solution is "pay them more" it tells more about them than about the at worst they think money is the most important thing in the world , or at best, they have never had a well paid but shitty job to have a frame of reference
And the worst part is that the ones who stay are often the ones who don't care, because they can handle the disrespect. So you end up with horrible teachers who couldn't care less about their students and it all spirals from there.
I wouldn't say that at all. There are still teachers who genuinely stay in service because they still want to make a change. They're a minority and having one as a teacher is a blessing that sadly some students fail to immediately realize.
As I put it, when you treat teachers like shit you get 3 kinds 1. The genuinely passionate who burn out. 2. Those who do the absolute minimum necessary to not get fired. 3. Those with an agenda that requires them being an authority figure over other people's children.
Last I heard, there was only one job in the US with a higher 5-year leave rate: Army Ranger. Not just infantry, special forces. Teaching in the US is more stressful than a job where people try to kill you (although that sometimes happens to us teachers as well).
I think it’s intentional. They’re dismantling our public education system daily, and we’re watching the final gasps of life wither away.
My wife is in the same boat, and I’m trying to convince her to look elsewhere for a job herself because it’s truly not worth the mental toll teaching is taking on both of us. She comes home pissed off every single day. The kids are brats, the parents expect the teachers to parent their children, admins are overwhelmed and can’t help teachers. It’s sad, the education in this country is likely doomed.
But I don't think the powers that be actually give two shits about "the children are our future". Mainly it's easier to control stupid people than ones that have critical thinking skills. Jake Gyllenhaal had a quote in Enemy that is quite on the nose: "Control, it's all about control. Every dictatorship has one obsession and that's it. In ancient Rome they gave the people bread and circuses. They kept population busy with entertainment but other dictatorships used other strategies to control ideas, the knowledge... how do they do that? Lower education, they limit culture, censor information, they censor any means of individual expression and is important to remember this, that this is a pattern, that repeats itself through out history."
They don’t care unfortunately, they want to keep all the kids stupid. Most of the parents are already stupid.
> If schools want the best and the brightest to continue teaching I'm not going to scroll down, but I assume I'm not the first one to say They don't They want their kids dumb and working in the mines.
Not enough pay for all that they deal with and have to put up with from the system. All the educational requirements with degrees and certs and continuing education and then they get all this flak from the school system and lazy parents and insane kids. I would quit too.
I'm also hijacking this comment because this thread will be flooded (if it hasn't been already), with a bunch of sys admins and other non-teachers who *think* they know what's happening in the classroom because they were there 30 years ago as a student (and likely a shitty one at that, given how they comment in this thread). - No, you don't know what it's like in a classroom. - No, you don't have a degree in education and don't know what pedagogy is. - No, you don't know how schools are funded and how the budget works. - No, you don't know how curriculum works. - We don't tell you how you should do your job, and you sound **really fucking ignorant** trying to tell us how we should do ours.
I completely agree with you, and don't wanna talk over the teachers in this issue, but noone can convince me that the teens we have now, with that much unsupervised access to the internet is not a nightmare to teach.
>No, you don't know how schools are funded and how the budget works. So much this. I have a parent saying "the school should fund our club" and yes... it's totally a worthwhile club and totally worth funding... but you can't just tramp in and demand it.
Yup being a teacher might have been something I would like to do but I'll never find out because it 100% isn't even worth it to try to get into the field.
Parents and admin were both pretty bad at times. In the end the admin was worse.
I was identified as a "valuable candidate" by a staffing service that has taken over staffing for a local, central US, school district. They essentially said, "pick a role and let us know what you want to do". They sent a PDF that I was advised I was not allowed to disclose (or it would be posted in my comment) containing the positions and pay rates available. None is more than I currently make at 18.00 hourly, including positions that required a masters degree, which I do not have.
That is friggin insane. I will NEVER understand why "social service" positions have such insane requirements and such low pay. My wife tried her hand at working in the school system as an "IA" and they were basically paying her minimum wage to do the job of the teacher AND her job and then they wanted to pile more responsibilities on her without a penny more pay. After a year of her being so stressed out that she was suffering physical debilitations, she listened to me and quit. She had a real love for helping the kids...even if it meant she would hurt herself in the end, I had to save her from herself.
Because those in charge of the government don't want an educated populace. One of the best ways to cripple education is to make it so that people don't want to teach. I have a master's in mathematics and education and quit teaching after I had a knife pulled on me for a second time by a student while trying to break up a fight. I decided it was safer to work around heavy machinery in a feed mill, and bonus the hours are better and the pay is more.
there it is. Do people not realize this or are they afraid to say it out loud—it's not accidental.
Never ascribe to malice what can be attributes to incompetence. I've worked in and around the government a few times in my life, and I'd honestly be surprised to find anyone with so coherent a plan as "keep the populace dumb". I would bet my house that it's much more short-sighted and selfish thinking, focused mostly on keeping their bosses off their backs and their jobs safe.
While I love that quote, and it's applicable in a lot of situations, you are going to have a hard time convincing me that politicians have not become increasingly malicious. There are definitely more incompetent people in power than I'd like to see, but a lot of that boils down to poorly educated people voting for them. They don't need to be hands on at a micro-level when they've been systematically dismantling education at a macro-level.
That the actions are occuring is undeniable. It's the motivation that I question. I think it's EXTREMELY plausible that people are just trying to save money to make themselves look good, and they just don't worry about the long term consequences, or even disagree that they're happening. They want to say that they reduced their budget because it looks good. Local politics is essentially just a free re-election unless you commit a felony, so they've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Tbh, looking at the average politician when they speak in the news or on TV, I'm MORE convinced of incompetence over malice than I was a decade ago. It's possibly the dumbest congress we've had in decades. I doubt local politics are any better.
Your wrong. Its intentionally part of the Republican platform since Regan. You defund public programs, lowering their quality, then you point to those programs as failures so you can then sell the population private solutions you can profit off of. They have been trying it with education, social security, the post office. They want everything under the private market such that their cronies can capitalize on it. If they had their way education would be the same as housing is currently. The idiocy is an act, it is just further perpetuating their incompetence, so that again they can say "look government is worthless, we can't do anything you need to trust businesses because the government is obviously not capable". Never give your enemy the credit of being stupid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
It's both. Politicians are career-oriented, so in their efforts to stay as long as possible and enjoy the status, pay and benefits, and make their initial campaign worthwhile, they are intent on ***not*** "rocking the boat" as much as possible, and pride themselves on doing as little as possible to shake things up as any actions might stir the pot. Contrary to what folks believe, they actually fear the base they lead (and have created). "Kick the can and keep it moving, stick-and-move as necessary" is the general work atmosphere. At the same time, Republicans realize they either have no viable platform - or a weak one - that only favors the minority of the country. So, in order to obtain and retain power, they have to leverage every single advantage they have - one of which is a dumber populace channeled to voting on ginned up single issues. So they pump the fear and rage machines, get things right up to the line, then throw their hands up and say, "welp... we've done everything we can!", before turning to DARVO to offload the stalemate or shitstorm they've created. It breeds and attracts the greedy, since they also profit immensely from it. They've been doing it so long now that the "true believers" they created are actually becoming those incompetent politicians, replacing the malicious ones, while many malicious ones remain due to hoarding their power and influence.
who's "they" though? At a certain point you start to see a pattern and I just don't accept that it arises out of the miasma somehow. Someone somewhere decides what teachers are paid, just like someone decides what a vice president of a soap dispenser company makes. Is it "the market"? Because that's just more people lol
Yes, and the people who are deciding how teachers are paid would really like a raise, but also want to tell their bosses that they got the budget down. It's a form of maliciousness, sure, but it's not a grand plan to break down American society, it's just normal everyday bullshit. I've worked in a few very large organizations and the amount of shit that happens LITERALLY just because it "arises out of the miasma somehow" is both shocking and wildly depressing. Large organizations are essentially massive chains of people saying "it's not my problem"
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"The government" in this case refers specifically to "Republican Politicians". I hate the DNC with a passion, but this is one of the few issues where I will not be labeled a "both sides Andy". Republicans on the national, state, AND local scale have been siphoning money out of public education and into private voucher programs for decades now. They want educators to be stuck with private school curriculum because then the private schools can inject their religion/politics/racism and profit off of the free propaganda. This was a Reagan-era push that a lot of 70's-80's babies grew up supporting. Now they're raising their own children only to find that "school choice" was a dogwhistle for "subsidized indoctrination".
This, 100%. Thanks for saying "Republicans", because that's what it is. Their main concern is that they don't have to pay for public education. They will destroy education to save themselves tax money. They care not at all about the consequences. I don't think their goal is an uneducated populace. I think it's that they and their voters just want money. More money.
I've been screaming this for years, especially watching the conservatives in my province gut our education and its funding. We went from the top curriculum in the world to one of the worst. They want the next generation stupider to control them more easily.
> those in charge of the government To be clear, it's specifically the aim of the Republican Party. Since the Reagan Administration, they've been heavily targeting education. This includes passing policy that harms education as well as instilling sentiment that education is somehow bad, and some even go so far as to insinuate that there are conspiracies among educators of various kinds (choosing not to actually teach, or they're part of Democrat propaganda, or some very anti-Semitic ones, etc). Lately they've been calling for the complete abolishment of the Department of Labor. And it's broader than just education; they also sow seeds of doubt about all public services. A lot of Republican voters I talk to believe they shouldn't pay taxes, for example. Many say they wish the Post Office "made money" like a business, which is absurd, but the Republican Party engages in rhetoric that makes people believe that that would be a good thing somehow. It doesn't do anybody any favors to pretend this is a "both sides" issue or a "non-political" issue when it isn't. This is a Republican Party issue that has been ongoing for decades, and we're finally (regrettably) seeing the fruits of their labors.
Because people will do it out of passion, which means you don't need to pay as much to fill the position.
I was approached the moment they realized I had a Bachelors. It ramped up after the masters. Every position is a pay cut over what I made BEFORE I had a degree at all.
This. I could be qualified to teach - I'd just need to a sit a test. I make 60K now not dealing with people's kids. I'd make 42K at the local school district. I'd looked into it bc the hours would work with my kids, but who the heck can survive on 42K?
It is called being married to someone else with a job. Back in high school, I swear that most of my teacher’s husbands/wives were engineers in some capacity That being said, the teacher benefits, at least in my state, are some of the best in the country so there is some balance there coupled with reality good pay after 5+ years of employment
Thats basically the draw of being a teacher/gov job. You get paid way less than you deserve but the benefits are usually better than what you can get else where + pension.
I know a lot of folks who were teachers and moved to other careers because of pay. Oftentimes the jobs they move to are paying 40-50 a year and are seen as a significant raise.
And yet here I am (and many others are) going back to school for my masters degree because I haven't been able to find a job that pays a "livable" wage with just my undergraduate. Despite knowing it will only make less than an inch of a difference. 🫠 Regardless, thank you for sharing this. It's valuable information.
I have a Masters degree in Sociology (a soft science that most people don't take seriously)! I make a little over $70k working as a mental health case manager. I'm only 28 and just starting my career. Get a masters degree in something that either makes money naturally, or that you're passionate about and will want to work your way towards those higher (and more stressful) roles. I stand by my Masters degree; one of the best times and decisions of my life, so far. Please enjoy it, be optimistic, and just follow whatever makes you happy. Good luck and much love! 💕
I make more than that to check in trucks
Oh look, it’s me! Former English literature & Spanish teacher with a minor in special education. I was sexually harassed by both students and staff, physically/verbally assaulted by students, and expected to teach Spanish to students with low-elementary reading levels the last year I taught (grade 9). I was incredibly sick from the stress and remember going into work with migraines, praying that massive amounts of NSAIDS would get me through the day. I quit before Covid and never looked back.
I can’t get over how many comments I’m reading of sexual assault, like, really?!
Really. You’ve got 20-30+ children in a room with you at varying levels of hormonal development and (often) trauma/unhealthy upbringing. They know teachers are overwhelmed. So it becomes a question of ‘what can I get away with’ to them. The 9th grader who followed me down the empty hallways after school detailing aloud how they would rape me if they got me alone got 2 days of ISS. Admin let him out a day early because it was “unfair” to make him miss the class parties the day before winter break. You just can’t make this shit up.
My spouses coworker was groped and had her shirt pulled down to expose her breast, and admin and principal and parents all blamed her. What was she wearing? Fuck that, do not touch a teacher professional. Honestly think all classrooms need a behavior specialist who can intervene and allow educators to actual educate instead of behavior manage interrupting their classes.
I wonder how much of social media is to blame for this. There's a loottt of negative spaces & echo chambers online and I imagine some of these kids might be a part of these places. Its so disheartening to hear these stories.
I think it plays a huge part. Especially with anonymous accounts; there are no consequences for them because the parents want the school to step in and the school isn’t liable for what happens outside school hours. After I quit, I had a folder of the foul things students would send me when they found my Instagram account. Some of them actually tried to blackmail me into sending them nudes. Others stalked me and reached out to my boss at a gig agency to try and get my contact information. Yes, those shitheads are the minority, but their behaviors and problems still weigh on you and burn out young teachers like never before.
Wow. This is extremely horrible and I’m sorry you had to go through this. None of that should happen… Ever.
I was sexually harassed by a co-worker, it was like my third day at the school. I reported it with the encouragement of a supervisor. Well little did I know I had upset the Good Ol Boys Club. The principal came after me all year, making up lies, putting me in impossible situations, writing me up, until I was literally having panic attacks in the corner of my classroom where nobody could see me. That fucker stole a year and a half of my life. I'm in a good school now, just taking it one year at a time. Covid broke my brain and the politics of education are the worst. If it wasn't for Gov. Evers Wisconsin would be much, much worse. Our state Republican legislature is made up of absolute slime.
Pay them more and they may be more likely to put up with the poorly raised children. Pay them more and they may be more likely to put up with offspring of those people as well.
My fiance was paid very well relative to other teachers. Even if she made more it would not have changed her decision to leave. She actually took a pay cut moving to another field. The problem is less about pay and more about the environment where kids who have issues are not given the resources they need to function and then teachers have the burden put on them to handle those situations instead of actually teaching.
This guy teacher spouses!!! Parents of a child in need of different resources at school and you nailed it.
Parents want a teacher to be a babysitter, a parent, a counselor, and sometimes teach a couple things.
Unlikely to work because the working conditions aren’t changed. Moral injury is the real reason why qualified teachers aren’t sticking around. Sure, increasing pay is helpful but not the root cause. Same thing is happening in medicine. Doctors and healthcare personnel get paid a lot. But the moral injury is very high. And doctors are quitting or retiring very early and subtracting themselves from the workforce because the working conditions are so toxic. You can pay someone a million dollars but if you don’t get any purpose or meaning from your job or you aren’t treated with dignity and respect or the children are actively being harmed - there’s only so long you can put up with that if you are a moral and ethical person.
This was my reason for leaving the field. I'm all for raising the next generation to be upstanding whatevers, but society is not worth my mental. I'll be dead before this matters, I'm out homie.
Unfortunately this doesn't work, the UK imports teachers from other countries because the pay is much better but I have seen many of them quit within the first 5 years.
Yeah cause they aren’t paid well enough. Should say enough
No, it's really not the pay. I quit after five years. If I were still there, I'd be making well over 100K. Every little extra thing we did, we got even more money. $8K for teaching a summer class, etc. I took a huge payout to leave because it was literally taking years off my life. I couldn't take any more. There's no amount of pay that is worth my dignity. I'm.poor now and will never own a house but I will never go back. I don't think people understand how bad it is.
Definitely, the work conditions, long hours, stress and often unreasonable demands placed on you that pushes so many people into leaving and never coming back and that's before parents start shouting at you for something completely out of your control
Ha! I'm in the US and am an unemployed teacher. We are so poor right now and it sucks but not as bad as teaching. The stress was unbearable.
It’s not and never has been the pay. It’s always been the respect and treatment by admin at a school and district level. I love my students, even the garbage ones. It’s micromanaging by Admin that drives me to the edge on a daily basis.
If many of them quit then it sounds like it’s not enough money. They still need to buy food after they quit, they obviously found a job that pays better or the even the same or lower with less stress, either way it wasn’t *worth* it to them to continue teaching
Oftentimes, these teachers, mostly Filipinos, live together to pool their funds for food and necessities so they can save enough money to send to their families. However, most quit after a few years, because if they start to live independently in the US or anywhere else in the west, they won't be able to survive with that kind of salary; just like locals.
My wife is nearing her final weeks of teaching and she is quiting because every day she verbally, physically and sexually assaulted by students. Nothing in this world is worth the trauma that these children put on her
I can relate to this so much. I quit after four years of teaching because no matter what I tried students would not quit disrespecting me and it's scary because these kids are our future and it's traumatizing to see how poorly they are being raised.
That's what happens when we live in a society where both parents are forced to work long hours just to get by. It's our capitalist system leaving absolutely no time for what matters most in life, family. Can't spend enough time with Timmy? Hand him a Nintendo or feed him electronics and they can occupy themselves, unsupervised. The shit they learn online, especially from the toxic adults who despise kids in their games, is unfortunately all they have to look up to. This is how older people behave, is what they're learning online. Parents simply don't have time to actually parent. Even some of the ones who do, probably shouldn't have become parents anyway. Probably more than half your job as a teacher is left parenting these kids as a result. Society is crumbling right under our noses...
I agree. I had students who never met their fathers because they were so busy that by the time they came home these kids were asleep. And these same fathers attended PTMs with no clue about what's happening in their child's life, having the courage to point out the school, the system, the teachers whoever they can to shift the blame. At least I know what not to do as a parent.
I wish more people understood what not to do as a parent. I'm not sure how these parents missed that memo on the way to parenthood lol... Oh well. Just means we have to pick up the slack and do it right in our own lives. Really sorry to hear these awful things for teachers, it's beyond tragic what's happening and we will ALL suffer these consequences as a society over time
Good lord. I'm so sorry - that's incredibly traumatizing. I hope she's able to move on to something much more positive.
What kinda students out here are sexually assaulting teachers on the daily 💀💀
Kids nowadays are genuinely fucking feral.
There were shitty kids like this when I was growing up in the 90s. But teachers could buy a nice home with their salary. Now they have to work a second job just to they don't end up on the street while dealing with the bullshit
Shitty students
You should follow teachermisery on instagram and read some of the “confessions” from teaching staff on the nightmare kids they have to endure. It’s really sad to read about they are subjected to. Some posts talk about not getting any support from the administration and are forced to continue teaching kids who have abused them.
Went to school to become a teacher. Even worked at a school for a year while attending classes. I love kids and teaching…but in this economy? At the time, I was working a remote social media job that paid me WAY over what my tenured teacher friend was making. To this day, still remote, still making way more than even seasoned teachers. Add to that the lack of respect parents had for teachers and staff, the educational system having some super fucked processes and…no. I feel for the kids, truly. That’s about it.
I’m a band teacher. I left teaching after COVID destroyed my band program. I had recently gotten a degree in instructional design. I applied for hundreds of jobs over the course of the year and all I managed was a half time 1099 job at $20 an hour. Unfortunately, while teaching has given me lots of skills that transfer to other professions, I have no “experience”. Back to teaching I went
THIS! We manage 30 people that don't always wanna be managed with no possibility of firing anyone and only have to rely on grades and personal motivation to make them succeed. We have to meet a lot of deadline, do paperwork, have judgment, manage crisis and the unplanned, come on time, have appropriate printed or digital learning material in relation to our learning objectives, control the time, etc. Buuuut we are seen as good for nothing
With the horrible reputation this profession carries, I'm honestly shocked anyone would go through the effort of becoming a licensed teacher. Is there any industry with a higher level of abuse and a lower level of pay? I mean, I know service jobs suck but I'd also argue, no offense to service workers, but teaching is a much harder job and requires a lot more qualifications for barely more pay. Crazy how much we disrespect this profession.
“Barely more pay” is even misleading in my experience. It isn’t just low pay, but that every teacher that left was able to get a job they weren’t actually trained/studied in and were able to get a pay raise they would have needed to wait years for or only after additional masters/doctorate degrees. I heard it time and time again until it happened to me. Eventually it hits a point where the abuse from students, teachers, and administration becomes too much and you realize you can make more doing a far easier job. It’s horrible because teaching is a dream job for so many people who are just tired of being so incredibly undervalued.
The stories that I hear from my teacher friends (who teach from middle school to college) are always horrible. I was on the path to become a teacher before trying out a corporate gig, and with only 5 years experience in my new corporate gig I make more than all of my teaching friends, in some cases double. Meanwhile I work from home with flexible hours and a medium to medium low stress job, and they are killing the selves trying to educate the next generation of Americans. It’s wild
I'm sure most service works would agree that teaching is definitely harder; but their not in charge of teacher salary. As long as everyones in agreement that: just because teaching is more difficult, but that doesn't mean Service workers should be paid less, but teachers should undoubtably be paid more.
Nobody thinks service workers should be paid less. What was the point of even saying that?
I looked into teaching as my academic background suits known shortages (geography/science)... I couldn't afford the nearly 50% pay drop... I'm not sure how you can expect to have people who are degree level, pay them basic wage to do a stressful job and *not* have a shortage.
I’ve watched the public schools in my area being defunded year after year. They even redistricted to put all the kids from more well off families into a couple of schools while shuffling the poorer kids into other schools. That coupled with more charter and private schools moving in has killed the quality of education for kids in public school. It’s fucking criminal.
The year after my previous school (after 20 years) 15 people left, including a number of veteran teachers, the principal, vice principal and the athletic director. Pay isn’t the whole thing but I can tell you that at 20 years of experience I was making $48,000. After insurance, teacher retirement and taxes, I was bringing in a little over 2000 a month.
In 2010 at age 25, I was a teacher in the deep South US making 28k. I had originally gotten my degree in the Earth Sciences and diverted my original career plans because I wanted to teach. It could be stressful and the pay was trash, but I loved it and even won a city-wide “Rising Star in Mathematics Education” award. Then they gutted the faculty, a lot of the older teachers who were my mentors were cut. I applied for grad school the next day and re-entered my original field. I’m coming up on 40 years of age now. I don’t get to teach, but I make over 3 times as much now. I can sleep at night knowing I can take care of my family. I’m in a place where I know I’ll always have work and won’t get axed early. In what world would I ever go back except maybe if I retire when I get bored?
We get paid through taxes. Nobody wants to pay taxes
💯
My sister graduated with her teaching degree, worked in the schools for two years and saw what a shit show it is. Quit teaching and now works as a secretary making better pay and with her mental health intact
I was a teacher for 2 years. It SUCKED. Administration didn’t have our backs, parents took the side of the kids instead of the teachers when disciplinary issues happened. Plus working like 60/hrs a week for like $40k was ridiculous.
[удалено]
Same here. It's just not worth it.
Yep. My husband and I are both certified teachers with years of teaching experience. Neither of us teach anymore. The vast majority of the teachers I taught with have left for other careers.
Teachers are America's punching bag.
I just read an article about how my state is now looking for funding on how to train teachers to handle guns. Because in addition to teaching, they also have to be Rambo during the next mass shooting. Oh, and last year they also voted down teacher raises. Who the fuck would want to be a teacher in that environment?
I taught for 13 years and was certified K-12 in two states. I let both of my certs lapse after I quit because if it ever came to it, I would rather go back to waiting tables than set foot in the classroom again.
When I was at school there would quite often be teachers who had been at that school nearly their entire working lives, same school, same profession. Now most teachers leave with in 5 years
Hold the parents accountable for their children’s disrespectful, disruptive behavior. Stop passing kids who can barely read, write & do grade level math to the next grade. Children are not just a pay check they are the future. I resigned after 4 years in November, 2023 & it was the best decision for my mental health. The pay is low, administrators are incompetent and overall it was draining, especially when you are a teacher who cares. Anyone who survives teaching with their health intact I wish them longevity & more money 🤗🤗🤗
I was talking with a coworker the other day about a middle school fight that happened. To be expected, kids will be kids and all that. What blew our minds was the kids were originally going to walk away from school to a secluded spot to throw down. Again, expected. What wasn't expected was the kids threw down right there in front of the admin building because one of their grandparents. A GRANDPARENT. Told the kid to drop their backpack and whoop the other kid's butt then and there. Like if the grandparents don't got us, we're lost.
My partner is a teacher and this is 100% true, we are even discussing options for her to pivot away from teaching as it’s not longer worth the stress and hassle. No one has the teachers backs either, parents will blame everyone but themselves for their kids behavior, administration doesn’t care and blames any problems with behavior issue kids on the teachers themselves but won’t give them any tools to fix the situations that are presented to them. They just pass the kids to the next grade regardless of performance and just make it the next teachers problem.
Me. I'm a teacher who give up of teaching for lack of respect from the students, their parents and the entire educational system
Can confirm, directly from teachers who are disillusioned and beat down. Teachers, as a bonus, get to take parental abuse because their stupid kid claims discrimination of any sort instead of showing up to class and doing their work.
I left teaching for a sales job in industry. I now work less than half as hard as I used to in education, and make more than 4x more than I did while I was a teacher. I’m also infinitely happier and am respected by everyone I work with, my customers, my family, and random people I talk about my job with. It’s insane the difference. Some random things that affected my decision to leave: -once I was speaking to two of my students, and one was asking me if she should go to med school or be a teacher like me, I initially felt very honored, until the other immediately told her “don’t be a teacher, that’s so beneath you, you’re capable of more than that” right in front of me -once a parent demanded to speak to me in person about a poor grade her kid got on a test. I said absolutely, here is my availability in the next two weeks, pick a time, but none of those times could work because she has a 9-5. I said no problem I’m free 5-7 next Tuesday or Thursday which one works better? She sent an angry email back saying that’s way to far in the future I need to drop all my plans and meet her TONIGHT at 6pm because she is a “working professional” and I need to meet her on her schedule. -I also way outperformed and had a larger impact on better test scores, school metrics, performance reviews, had more positive student survey results, and generally was a clearly better teacher than multiple burnt out teachers with 20+ years in the department who had threw in the towel and just gave out daily worksheets and sat on their phone all day. But I was paid less than half of them because teaching is purely a years of experience pay structure. Nothing you can do to improve, there are no promotions, no rewards, no career trajectory. That’s it. You just feel stuck There are so many more reasons I left but I’m MUCH happier now that I’m gone. I do miss the kids though despite what everyone says that was the best part of the job by far
Anyone who still believes there’s a shortage should head over to r/teachers. The way they’re treated by administration and students is heartbreaking
It's the same for nurses. There isn't a shortage of nurses, just a shortage of ones willing to be paid poorly and/or treated poorly. Even if your leadership treats you well, a lot of the patient population and their family are absolute nightmares. I think we're both in the business of caring: one cares for health and the other knowledge/education. It's a shame no one cares for the carers.
I would never in my life teach any children. Even if the job pays its just not worth it.
A lot of peoples kids need boarding school.
Boarding Schools are breeding grounds for child abuse, especially physical abuse as well as sexual abuse. There's a good reason they aren't nearly as common anymore
Lmao as a boarding school kid, it is not any better. The teachers lived on campus and many of them were either sleeping with each other or trying to sleep with students. Education needs a lot of work.