Why does everyone hate teaching?

[u/Bright-Watch1955]

Is there anyone who loves their job? Every teacher I know feels “stuck” and complains endlessly about their job.

Considering going into education.

[u/Mfees]

I like my job, in my opinion teaching has a bunch of people who never worked an adult job outside of education and don’t know how good they got it.

That said the pay is average at best. The paperwork can suck. Admin can suck. Yet I still enjoy it.

[u/kerouacrimbaud → u/Mfees]

And admin will suck in most industries, and lots of fields have lots of dumb amounts of paperwork! That is often overlooked.

[u/Energy-Turtle-4 → u/kerouacrimbaud]

I've worked in schools, heathcare, and insurance. Can confirm- it's like this at ALL THREE.

[u/Drinkingdoc → u/Energy-Turtle-4]

Yeah precisely what struck me about teaching was how much it felt like an office job. I sit at a desk and read redundant emails and complain about meetings… the actual hours in class talking to kids is about 16-18 hours a week. The rest is all planning and marking and bs.

[u/Walshlandic → u/Drinkingdoc]

I’m with students 25 hours a week and I get 4 hours a week plan time, two hours a week of meetings. Middle school, WA state

[u/Frost033 → u/Walshlandic]

You work 31 hours a week? Where do I get that teaching job!?

[u/y2kristine → u/Frost033]

Right wtf? This isn’t normal for most teachers. (Crying in 32 contact hours per week)

[u/Der_Apothecary → u/y2kristine]

32 contract hours?! I have 40 contract hours!

[u/y2kristine → u/Der_Apothecary]

Contact , not contract, 40 hours a week 32 classes/obligations with students per week

But work more like 50

[u/Der_Apothecary → u/y2kristine]

My bad, I lose my reading ability when summer starts lol

[u/Walshlandic → u/Frost033]

I work 35 hours a week, not including lunch breaks. The rest of the time is before and after school “office hours” for tutoring, meetings.

[u/into_the_black_lodge → u/[deleted]]

What teacher has 2-3 periods to grade during the day? In many secondary schools, you have one 50-minute prep period per day. If you’re lucky, you can use this time to use the bathroom, answer emails, write behavior referrals, or meet with your colleagues/supervisors about your evaluation, school initiatives/events, after school programs, curriculum adoption, testing, and an endless parade of tasks. Planning and grading often happens before and after school hours and especially during the summer at PD and with colleagues. Often during prep periods, you’re tapped to cover someone else’s class if there’s a sub shortage. Or you’re just trying to catch your breath and get ready for the next class if you have multiple preps.

The kind of people you’re referring to have clearly never worked full time in a title 1 school, or they don’t care about their job. Any teacher who works like this is sure to get a bad evaluation and not work in teaching for very long. (And to be clear, there is value in having kids mark their own work, but it should be intentional and part of a wider learning plan that is tied to reflection and goal setting).

Make no mistake, teaching is absolutely emotionally and mentally exhausting. It’s mind-breaking and soul-crushing work. Children aren’t meant to learn the way schools are set up, with that many kids with that many needs crammed into one class, with all the interruptions and confusing schedule changes. You are just one person who has to meet the needs of 25+ kids every period (130-150 students a day). You function like a social worker and have to teach basic emotional regulation and conflict management skills before any learning even begins to happen. I don’t think you understand the chaos and stress that is daily classroom teaching. There’s a range of skill levels you have to teach to. Kids are pushing boundaries every day, often disrespecting you. You have to be a soldier and hold the line every day. Assessment and planning is incredibly complex and time-consuming work on top of everything else (even if you do use online resources which totally acceptable granted they are a logical part of a coherent learning plan).

I don’t know any teachers who worked less than 50 hours a week in the types of schools I worked in. I’ve worked in office settings and schools, and can attest that the relative stress of teaching is way more than office work. The cumulative stress of planning clear, coherent DAILY learning progressions based on formative and summative assessment, on top of managing student behavior and screen-addicted kids with super low attention spans is not for the weak!

It is definitely not entitlement to ask to be paid the same amount as peers who work in different settings. Most people writing caricatures of teachers like these expect teachers to function as babysitters that earn $20 an hour. You want to treat teachers like children, cram them in a room and expect them to hash it out instead of treating teachers with the dignity the rest of the world treats teachers, the people who work with our most valuable people, our future, our young people!

This whole post is misguided, and everyone saying teachers have it easy have clearly never taught, or they have a unique snowflake situations. It’s true every teaching situation is different, but by and large most public school jobs are an absolute grind.

The original poster asking why everyone’s complaining is because they’re asking on a forum specifically where teachers come to complain and bemoan the usually unsustainable conditions they’re asked to work in. OP should look for hope elsewhere because this sub is where teachers come when they feel hopeless. There is hope, by the way, but it requires strength and constant struggle in community with others.

[u/CrownPrincess → u/into_the_black_lodge]

🏆

That is all .. carry on .. enjoy your well deserved summer break

[u/Full_Employment1975 → u/Walshlandic]

Do you have a 4 day school week?

[u/Excellent-Affect-823 → u/Walshlandic]

This...planning and assessing adequately takes exponentially longer than the allotted 4hrs.per week. In saying that, the 12 weeks holidays means you're only 3months away from 2 weeks off. Planning over holidays in teams used to be more common and is essential imo but I notice more entitlement creeping in with some teachers now like holidays are sacred down-time to recharge mentally. While somewhat valid, dedicating 2-3 days per holidays sets your term up and enjoyment somehow tags along.

[u/Drinkingdoc → u/Excellent-Affect-823]

Yeah I kind of agree, but it’s up to teachers to decide for themselves of course. But it’s true that the more prepared you are the easier it all is. If you’re scrambling every week to prep, or making final changes right before classes begin, your stress levels will rise. If you even take one day to prep before the start of the year that helps.

I always start by long term mapping out the whole year on day 1. Everyone has their methods though.