the bleak reality of being a teacher
in the UK
Fixed that for you.
I assume you’re both using strikethrough, but it’s not visible to me. So I’ll just write:
the bleak reality of being a teacher
It really is, teachers are truly undervalued/underpaid and parents these days trust their kids are telling the truth. If a kids mouth is moving, they are almost certainly lying lol.
Pshh let’s go over what teachers do
Give homework
Assign detentions
Get summers off
We should be paying the Nabisco CEO more so he can invent more flavors of Oreos.
It’s not like that where I’m teaching, in Canada, but I understand it’s similar in large swaths of the US, particularly in “red states”.
Of course things have gotten worse since COVID, and screen addiction is a problem (I say when I’m on my phone instead of sleeping), but it’s not hard to control a class as an experienced sub, from what I’ve encountered across two provinces and over a dozen schools. I think that’s a reasonable benchmark, too, since students are usually on their worst behaviour with subs.
Not the US, but I hear similar stories from Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Covid did a lot of damage, but it’s not just that. It’s not just phones either.
It’s that teachers no longer enjoy the authority they once had(not just a teacher thing, people will happily argue with their doctor based off a 5 second google), and the relationship with parents is often poor or even combative so they don’t work with the teacher. We’re talking parents beating up teachers or thinking they know better than the professionals. Parents are also often and increasingly overstretched. I had kids whose parents I’d never see. Education is also often underfunded and underpaid, certainly if you factor in the hours you need to put in, especially as kids are more easily bored and you can’t just hold a lecture.
There are staff shortages everywhere, but because there are staff shortages, new recruits often don’t get enough support, which means they leave within the first few years, which means existing overstretched staff don’t see the point in supporting new staff, which means new staff are even less supported, etc. etc.
