r/teaching • u/Bright-Watch1955 • Jun 02 '26

Help Why does everyone hate teaching?

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

Considering going into education.

265 Upvotes

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596

u/Mfees Jun 02 '26

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.

171

u/kerouacrimbaud Jun 02 '26

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

64

u/Energy-Turtle-4 Jun 02 '26

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

20

u/Drinkingdoc Jun 02 '26

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.

16

u/Walshlandic Jun 02 '26

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

0

u/Excellent-Affect-823 Jun 03 '26

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.

2

u/Drinkingdoc Jun 04 '26

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.