Who here is a teacher?

Banzai_Joe said:
...the disrespectful generation of oiks today.
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:rolleyes:

A nice generalisation there.

As said above rather well, they have to put up with a lot of ****, for not that great a pay, and then a mountain of marking and paperwork. The kids who are wastes of air/life/space just make it worse.
 
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Ryan-3 said:
:rolleyes:

A nice generalisation there.

As said above rather well, they have to put up with a lot of ****, for not that great a pay, and then a mountain of marking and paperwork. The kids who are wastes of air/life/space just make it worse.
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./Devil's Advocate

Why should they be elevated above those I mentioned earlier - Paramedics perhaps deserve the most respect as they get embarrassingly low wages, yet are at the forefront of the blame-game. They deal with the worst that society throws at them, and are often first-responders, and get chastised or even attacked.

Lives are under their care and responsibility; they do not get to pick their office, nor do they get much praise/thanks in return for their efforts.

Police - they put themselves on the line, and often have the ethos of their life is less important than a civilian (when on duty) and would risk it during their job. The utter crap that they must endure day to day, no support, relentless pay cuts, absolutely no job perks, dismal job prospects and constantly under attack from the public, politicians, media and even colleagues.
 
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My misses works as a teacher in a secondary school and she has masses of work to do at home. Definitely not an easy job!
 
I agree that a lot of the teachers are good and the standards they set are very high, however there are always those that let the side down and the constant complaining about pay gets a bit tiresome considering the 'holiday' that they get.

One thing that does really get my goat is the attitude that some school have (the one I work at as an example) when they know that they have a difficult year group starting their GCSEs. The position they take is one of 'we know this year is a bad one so I expect the results to be lower' instead of seeing it as a challenge and try to actually put the effort in with the children.

I know I have ****ged teachers off in the past on here (if I remember correctly) but I know I certainly couldn't be a teacher as, like RedvGreen mentioned, I just don't have the patience.

I see how some children are brought up, with absolutely no respect for their elders or anyone else for that matter, with every other word being an expletive and I know that I would find it extremely hard not to lose my rag.
 
Thread is TL;DR but my experience having dated a teacher for a year is....

Some put all the extra hours in and certainly get tarred with the same brush. These are the ones we will hear about in this thread, and anyone reading it will leave thinking "by Golly, I was certainly wrong about teachers". However in my experience, this is not the case with all teachers at all, in fact I would say the majority. And of course no one is going to be very vocal in this thread in saying "oh no, my partner leaves the house at 7 and is back by 3:30.

That was certainly what I saw. She was a decent teacher apparently and well respected, but rarely put the extra in (and she certainly made out to be hard done by during parents evening time etc), and left all her holiday marking etc to the last day. I think that is the sad reality of teachers, and the few good ones out there unfortunately can't fix the reputation of the bad.
 
My wife is a treacher, second year infants.

As in the OP she gives up most evenings, a large part of her Sunday and works a good part of her holidays.

I think the profession is underpaid and under appreciated for the massively important role it plays in society. But most just see the highline of long holidays and think they have it easy.
 
Diagro said:
I for one am fed up of joe public belittling teachers.
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There are some great teachers who go above and beyond, and there are some truly awful teachers who put in as little work as they can get away with. Much like any profession. They're pretty well paid, get good holiday time, a good pension, and seem largely immune to market factors that would affect people in other professions.

I don't belittle them, but I do get a little ticked off when I hear teachers complaining about certain conditions, and indeed striking. I'm also sick to death of the way they seem to hijack social situations to talk about...teaching. I wish my wife would get new friends.
 
That's why I flat out refuse to go to any end of term drinks that are arranged by them, as that is all it turns into, them talking about their work.

I much prefer a good knees up with the other 2 guys in my team either down the local, or a curry and then a few drinks in town.
 
platypus said:
There are some great teachers who go above and beyond, and there are some truly awful teachers who put in as little work as they can get away with. Much like any profession. They're pretty well paid, get good holiday time, a good pension, and seem largely immune to market factors that would affect people in other professions.

I don't belittle them, but I do get a little ticked off when I hear teachers complaining about certain conditions, and indeed striking. I'm also sick to death of the way they seem to hijack social situations to talk about...teaching. I wish my wife would get new friends.
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We get ticked off when people who know nothing of being in a classroom with children decide how our job should be. How the way we teach is wrong and how we should pay more into a pension scheme for nothing. My OH lost £80 a month to the pension scheme coming in.

I love my job (first week as a NQT). I spent the best part of the 2 weeks prior to school starting sorting my classroom out so it could meet standards laid down on teachers.

Most other professions aren't governed by people who know nothing of the job and whose last experience was as a snotty pimple faced teen (Gove).
 
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I'll just leave this here:


Actually joking aside a good teacher is absolute gold dust... the problem the profession has is that a lot of people will have experienced some very very bad ones. With the amount they pay I'm not surprised schools especially struggle to attract people with solid maths, science backgrounds etc...
 
Now and again you see the poor teachers on the news bleating on about how overworked they are. My kids (8 and 9)don't go back until the 23rd September- 2 months off for summer! , the week after my kids are off for 2 days for teachers training, then it's 1/2 term again 4 weeks later.
 
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skylineboy said:
We get ticked off when people who know nothing of being in a classroom with children decide how our job should be. How the way we teach is wrong and how we should pay more into a pension scheme for nothing. My OH lost £80 a month to the pension scheme coming in.
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What's that to do with teaching? It's to do with the financeability of the pension scheme. Actuaries would be the best to judge how much needs to be paid. I'd put the analysis of a GAD actuary above that of your average teacher.

I love my job (first week as a NQT). I spent the best part of the 2 weeks prior to school starting sorting my classroom out so it could meet standards laid down on teachers.
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The teachers I had were able to pick up from where they left off a couple of days before the come back to school. The teachers I had used to go home on the same trains we used to take and now and again come in in the same trains we took to school (not every day of the week). I went to a very good school and was fortunate to have the teachers I did. They would have benefited from linking pay to performance of their students and would have deserved it. They are efficient at what they do and there is nothing wrong with not putting in extra time if you are good at your job.

I also know teachers personally who aren't embarrassed to admit nor feel the need to caveat the perks of their profession. They don't have to spend x hours a day planning for lessons. This doesn't make them rubbish teachers.

On the other hand a rubbish teacher can spend lots of extra hours and days planning and preparing and still be rubbish.
 
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I live next to a middle school (9-13yo) and I can say that there is never a car in the car park before 8am or after 4pm. Apart from one or two if they have an after school activity on.
 
I am a teacher, I teach Year 6 (10-11 year olds). I love my job - it is difficult but I know full well that other people have just as difficult and time-consuming jobs.
It's just a shame we come in for so much stick - I think the (pretty small) NUT/NASUWT brigade don't do anything to help the opinion that the public have of teachers. When the NUT last called for strike action, IIRC there was around a 15% response to the ballot - that suggests to me that 85% don't want to strike. Including myself. I have never been on strike. In fact, during the last two strikes called, only one of my colleagues went on strike out of 24 teachers.
I actually wouldn't be in the union at all if I dared to not be (In this respect, I guess I am having my cake and eating it, I expect them to support me if needs be, but I am not willing to support them).

I work until usually about 9:00 in a evening (but I don't start until I have had dinner at around 7, I work better in the evening so I don't pretend to have worked flat out since 3:30). Year 6 is quite marking-intensive as far as primary goes. I do as much as I can at lunchtime and after school, so that I don't have to take as much home.

Usually in the summer holidays I spend at least a week, 10 days getting sorted for the new school term. But this year has been rather different. We had a LOT of building work done, and as a result weren't allowed in until Monday 2nd September. The children were coming back on Weds 4th. We spent 2 days trying to put the school back together - and I did manage to get it done. Perhaps my displays looked a little more rushed than normal but ultimately, I realised I must 'faff about' a lot when I go in during the summer holidays.

The generous holidays are definitely a perk of a difficult profession, and I don't feel 'hard done to' like the unions would have everyone believe and I don't think a lot of my colleagues do either.
The only thing I really wish is that Michael Gove would stop finding sticks to beat us with and forging ahead with his stupid 'improvements', with sheer bloody-mindedness and anecdotal 'evidence' from his own childhood, rather than advice from experts and *shock horror* evidence from research!
 
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I’m a teacher in Higher Education (university*). I did teach in Further Education (college*) and I’m glad I’m out of that.

There can be MASSIVE pressure to perform in FE to the extent that it’s a race to the bottom for the sake of stats. 98% success rates… think about it.

I have now had 4 jobs. 2 "proper" jobs and 2 teaching. Even where i am now, teaching has been exponentially "tougher" for me.

That said get half appreciative students (and management!) and even through all the long hours, admin, stats, monitoring, political interference, management interference and constant changes (sometimes backwards and forwards!) it can be extremely fun, exhilarating and rewarding.

*loose definition
 
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digipeep said:
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Teachers are professionals, they have no such thing going on, don't be so pathetic.
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Work in a school? I have and have done so for 10yrs it does happen, seen it with my own eyes. My dad is also a teacher with 44 years of teaching (he started at 17!) under his belt, he concurs.

albert said:
Now and again you see the poor teachers on the news bleating on about how overworked they are. My kids (8 and 9)don't go back until the 23rd September- 2 months off for summer! , the week after my kids are off for 2 days for teachers training, then it's 1/2 term again 4 weeks later.
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You really haven't got a clue.
 
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