Top 10 Reasons Teaching Sucks
Ladies and Gentlemen-
I may have just distilled the entire teaching universe down to 10 talking points. See what you think. Let me know.
TOP TEN REASONS YOU MAY NOT WANT TO BE A TEACHER
10) Become object of widespread public scorn;
9) Dignity offered as sacrifice to unholy lovechild of Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee;
8) Lazy, whiny, stupid, absent and/or unprepared students (which studies have shown to be the fault of teachers);
7) Need to use the bathroom? Great!! Your planning period is in two hours;
6) Lazy, whiny, stupid, absent and/or unprepared parents (are the responsibility of teachers);
5) 28-year old vice principals;
4) Rampant rubric fetishism and the glory of low-quality data;
3) In ironic twist, higher order thinking no longer needed;
2) Compulsory attendance at most ridiculous, unnecessary meetings on planet (no joke);
1) Work with children and be treated like one, too!
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
Hugs,
Mr. Teachbad
Frequent, unnecessary changes in logistics (such as the number of lunch sessions) announced to everyone simultaneously at the last minute over the PA during class changes.
You get announcements via PA? My students usually inform me of any changes to the schedule or rules. (And sadly, they are ALWAYS right. Apparently notifying the students is way more important!)
Are you a Teacher too???
You forgot the mandatory masturbating over data. Or is that only for administrators?
masturbate on your own time.
Be careful. I’ve copyrighted the term “Mental Masturbation” to describe “data driven dialogue”, “educational standards” and “standardized testing”.
Not really but I’ve been using that term for almost 15 years now. And yes it got me into trouble when I slipped up and let my true beliefs known at my prior school (See the connection between Mental Masturbation and prior school).
What is a planning period?
Silly…that’s when you masturbate.
I remember planning periods – I got one for two weeks every semester, which was almost always used up subbing for other teachers.
Parent – teacher conferences where administration allows a parent to verbally abuse you and insist the child that broke 7 school-based rules AND told you to shut the f*ck up is a “great student”.
Wow. I didn’t realize you worked with me. This is pretty typical.
Christ on a bicycle! This is sure cynical. I won’t be coming back to this website.
yes you will
Well, its the truth. Sounds cynical and negative, I know I felt the same way…until I graduated and started teaching. There is no fulproof data that can link teachers to the results of poor acheiving students unless you rule out their home environment, drug use, promiscuity, sleeping in class and dont even consider the chance that they should be accountable for homework. If students were held back as their ability level reflected, there would be 21 year old students in the 6th grade. The entire education system would cave-in due to the fact that some students would still show up just to get free food and socialize, not to learn. POINT: you can NOT make a student learn if they do not want to. Bells, whistles, games, music, clowns, it doesnt matter!!!! All you can do is give them a 60 and pas them on, like the admin and feds want you to. Lots of integrity in education, ooops I mean politics.
“POINT: you can NOT make a student learn if they do not want to.”
Yes, as the saying goes “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”. A good ol country (I mean that in a good sense, not derogatory) boy science teacher of ours added this corollary “And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna suck on the back end to make it”.
Teachbad, you need to come to my school and do a professional development day. So the question is, will you go back to teaching?
Or maybe go into the pseudo educational realm of teacher education.
I would urge any new teacher NOT to simply try to do their job. No, NONONONONONO NO. No. This is the easiest way to completely ruin your life. This was my mistake.
If I went back to teaching, or if a fresh-faced newbie were asking me for advice, here’s how I would do it. Seriously.
Within your first ten days, determine final grades for the entire class. This is much, much easier than it sounds.
First, give a test, or maybe a quiz and a test, within the first ten days of school. Hopefully you would have done this anyway. Make the test medium-difficult; in other words, make it cover all the material and fair by the standards of someone who attended school in the 20th century.
If your students are anything like most of mine were,you’ll get 2/3 to 3/4 D’s and
F’s. Maybe four or so C’s, a couple of B’s, maybe occasionally an A. The results of this test should give you a near-infallible idea of your student’s aptitude for the subject, and. more importantly, HOW THEY WILL DO ON ALL FUTURE TESTS.
Let me be clear about something…no matter how much our little teacher or former-teacher hearts would love to believe a student mired in failure at the beginning of the course will mount a dramatic resurgence and, Rocky- like, triumph at the end, this virtually NEVER HAPPENS. Past behavior is a dead-on predictor of future behavior, especially for adolescents.
Your F’s, and mark my words, the ONLY ones you’ll be permitted to give F’s to, will be the ones with about a 50% or less attendance rate. You’ll have the
attendance data to support this. DO NOT fail anyone whose parent emails you or calls the school for ANY Reason, EVER.
You can pretty much give
Let me be clear about something…no matter how much our little teacher or former-teacher hearts would love to believe a student mired in failure at the beginning of the course will mount a dramatic resurgence and, Rocky– like, triumph at the end, this virtually NEVER HAPPENS. Past behavior is a dead-on predictor of future behavior, especially for adolescents.
As my daughter says, True That!
(continued from previous)
..You can pretty much give D’s to anyone you would ordinarily give an F to,(per your test) AS LONG AS their parents never call the school for any reason. You can also give D’s to the students who would ordinarily receive D’s, (per your test) but you may want to boost some of the higher ones to C’s to make you grades look better. Up to you.
Definitely give C’s to: the ones who earn it on your test (and give you attitude), the D’s who try hard, and, MOST IMPORTANTLY to the train wrecks whose parents pester you. Don’t forget this. Make your life easier.
Give A’s and B’s to any students who earn them on that first test, OR ANY test you may give subsequent to that one. You want to make your grades look as good as possible without creating the appearance of gross unfairness( which students will pick up on In a heartbeat) and besides, students will just naturally assume that their highest test grade is their actual class grade I know it makes no sense, but that’s just how they are.
In short, know what your grades will be early and use your gut. Make the numbers justify the result in vase of scrutiny. Don’t give out any grades that will piss off crazy parents. Then you can do whatever you want to in class, which, if you’re smart, will be test-taking drills and answer-elimination strategies for your end-of-the-year state NCLB-mandated test.
Check your common sense and ability to reason at the schoolhouse door. For example, you need the ability to claim, with a perfectly straight face, that you can “differentiate,” which means making the material so easy that a brain-damaged guppy could pass it, and similtaneously insist that you are increasing “rigor,” or making the material harder-and not just that, but that you are increasing the difficulty constantly, known in eduspeak as “raising the bar.”
(In what parellel universe is the remedy to cure low-achieving students to make the work harder? They can’t pass at yesterday’s level, or last year’s, so we’ll give them MUCH harder work and watch as miracles unfold.)
Also you need to develop the ability to nod sagely as unproven theories are touted as if they came tucked under Moses’ other arm. When some overpaid consultant claims that kids will perform at the level that you expect them to, don’t ask how it is that year after year, different teachers, unknown to one another, have somehow “expected” that certain kids will not study, pay attention in class, do homework, or even show up. Do not point out that it is illogical to assume that teachers for some perverse reason of their own will expect kids to fail, when THEIR jobs are on the line if the KID fails.
In fact, if you truly WANT to succeed at this education game, my best advice would be to STFU at all times, don’t fall asleep in meetings, and put your own kids up for adoption.
you need the ability to claim, with a perfectly straight face, that you can “differentiate,” which means making the material so easy that a brain-damaged guppy could pass it, and similtaneously insist that you are increasing “rigor,” or making the material harder-and not just that, but that you are increasing the difficulty constantly, known in eduspeak as “raising the bar.“
(In what parellel universe is the remedy to cure low-achieving students to make the work harder? They can’t pass at yesterday’s level, or last year’s, so we’ll give them MUCH harder work and watch as miracles unfold.)
And- we hold them accountable for their behavior and grades, while at the same time either never giving zeros or allowing re-dos and do-overs after the reporting period ends.
I really like advisory, that is a great use of 45 minutes per week.
Do I know you? Because that comment makes me think I do.
You are lucky it is only 45 minutes a week. We have 30 minutes every day and we are only supposed to have 1 of those be a study hall while the others focus on community building…
“Real education must ultimately be limited to those who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.”
…point being that don’t expect to go into teaching to do a lot of, urrr, teaching.
I’ve just discovered this blog and I’m currently working my way through all the older posts. I love it. Everything you all are saying is just so dead on.
wow, this stuff could have come from my very own pen…er, keys. i started a lil’ publication and passed it around at my old school several years ago. it was very onion-esque.
these comments are all very true. plenty of non-teachers, newbs, and elementary school teachers may disagree. but i went into this field for all the right reasons. got pooped on way, way too many times. and i’m one of the lucky ones who can maneuver the many land mines and keep myself in the good graces.
this stuff is all true. i’m so warn out i can’t even capitalize.
All who visit here MUST visit the website of John Taylor Gatto, author of “The Underground History of American Education.” It simply is not about education and learing. It is all about indoctrination andd politics.
I just had an adult ESL student of mine do her best to slander me in a “I’m angry and want a replacement teacher!” email to management. It really took me off guard as I thought our lessons together were going well. I really gave to this person and tried to give her quality lessons, customized for what she wanted to work on.
And this is the thanks I get!
The fucker slanders me to management, so of course she gets a new teacher, and I have to ‘have a talk’ with management about her accusations. They of course think less of me.
Its embittering when people do this to you, and makes me mistrust my students. Why open up and give of yourself with so many asshole students? I won’t do it anymore. Fuck ‘em. Keep the wall up and give them the minimum. Fuck the system that keeps fucking me.
–I work for an ESL company and they have this big contract with this multinational
Great!
Teachers really need to raise their voices and not shut up until they’re heard. And I don’t mean with the teacher unions, who will sell out to Bill Gates.
Attendance at meetings…
I quickly learned that the only way I could survive a staff meeting without getting a crippling headache was to totally ignore the principal.
OMG! Thanks for the laughs! I know it’s sort of an hysterical high-stress laugh because these posts are all spot on! I’ve only been teaching for two terms (was a TA for two years prior) and I try to explain any of this to my husband, who’s response is patronizing platitudes corresponding with a deer-in-the-headlights “we-can’t-afford-for-you-to-quit” look.
So glad that others see this for what it is.
Yes! I’ve been in urban school districts in Massachusetts for six years. The only reason I’m still there is insurance for my family. Between new DESE evaluation protocols that translate for the principal that wants to become a superintendent to mean ‘all teachers suck at something’ and a student population that is asleep, unparented, and unconcerned we teachers are stuck between a rock and hard place.
After teaching for a quarter century, this year will be my last. The love for the profession is not diminished, but if I must suffer under the increasingly heavy yoke of mindless administrators who suck out one’s life, I’d rather at least be paid a better wage for the loss. Shalom. Auf wiedersehen. Do svidanya. Bu-bye.
Love the top ten! Laugh out loud funny, because it’s so true, and excellent responses, as well. I’m leaving teaching, for the same reasons noted by previous posters. Add “Peter-Principled”, vendetta-ridden admin who can’t or won’t stop drinking the federal Kool Aid, and reject any personal responsibility for constant teacher turnover.
I’ve found my people. How do we revolt? I am too tired to even type something somewhat intelligible. I have two periods and one full day till Spring Break, and I am not sure I can make it.
I absolutely love your posts. After nine years of classroom teaching (1st grade, fifth grade, and middle school), I finally took a year off. Now that I am outside of the classroom, I miss the predictability of my year, the set vacations, and even the routines. Sometimes I miss my students, the rare feelings of gratitude, and the connections that I made with a younger generation. But then I remember the sleepless nights, the endless grading, the mind-numbing meetings, the self-preservationist administration, and how the craziest parent always gets their way. I even debated going back to teaching next year. Thank god I read your post and zapped some sense back into my burnt-out brain. This is the truth, people. If you don’t like it, it still remains the truth.