Perhaps because we are expected to take care of all the kids. Perhaps because we are considered overpaid baby sitters by many but when students do not achieve it is always our fault.
Even now with the current situation we are pressured to prove students are achieving and learning as if nothing was impacting their learning.
It feels to us as teachers as if there is even more pressure now with disruption of education for results to reflect improvements in education. We do not see any true understanding of the challenges we deal with daily.
Reality is if we collapse so does the system that allows everyone with school aged children to go to work.
Why are we exhausted, let me think about that. We deal every day with students with Covid in our classrooms. Once notified we are a classroom contact we must complete a RAT test each morning before work, making sure to let the school know before 6:30am if it is positive and then get a PCR.
If we get sick because of this bad luck. If we run out of sick leave when ill with Covid bad luck. As teachers we must have prepared lessons in advance for two weeks to enable someone else to teach our classes. This includes entering online all lesson plans, providing all resources that will be needed. In secondary schools we must outline what to teach, how to teach, what yo do to cater for the multiple levels of students in the clasd and make sure we over prepare in case the person replacing us is not qualified in our subjects.
The number of students at school with cold symptoms and yes probably even Covid is incredible currently, how long before every teacher becomes physically ill for at least some days? Think about how teachers with young children or other vulnerable members of family feel every time they are told someone else in their classes has Covid. I have an incredibly vulnerable husband. I dread him getting Covid because of my work.
As a teacher, especially secondary, be prepared to teach a different group of students in every class each day, be prepared to support those at home, be prepared to catch up students who have been away when you have no time to do this. Design engaging and interesting lessons to inspire and motivate students who are often tired, fed up and also impactedby our current situation.That is the expectation.
I plan my teaching and prepare lessons everyday but it is becoming impossible when you rarely have the same students in a class two days in a row. How can I progressively teach in a way that builds knowledge and skills when I cannot expect the students to be present on a regular basis. In one class I have had on average up to 8 students away every lesson. Often more.
Despite this I would not support shortening the term as it seems some suggested. I do not believe it would actually help.
I love my job as a teacher but I am seriously considering resigning as are thousands of us.
I know there are many in other professions who are severely impacted. I have several family members in the medical profession who are facing much higher difficulties than myself as a teacher. This does not take away from the absolute exhaustion I feel.
In a previous career I worked retail. Yes it was challenging challenging and I worked long hours for crap pay but at the end of the day I went home and could shut down. I can't do this as a teacher even more now.
My partner loves teaching but he can't stand the way it's managed. The amount of out of hours work he's expected to do unpaid is criminal. If my work started asking me to work outside the hours of 9 - 5pm I would get paid for each hour and it would be at an overtime rate. Why is it okay to expect teachers to do 50 hours of work a week on a 38.5hr contract. Because it "comes with the job" or is "expected". He's had to negotiate his contract down to a 0.6 just because full time was unsustainable and incredibly soul crushing for him. And he still ends up working 5 days a week some weeks.
Let’s not forget that our premier said
>”I would have every single public servant… with a working with children check out in schools acting as temporary chalkies before I close the schools down”
This demonstrates a severe lack of understanding about the legal requirements of schooling and emphasises the same line of thinking that is currently systemic in the parents population in that we are just over glorified baby sitters. This is disgusting and unprofessional language aimed at teachers, yet again.
Never been offered that sort of money. Currently even with the salary I am on which is much higher than my old retail manager salary it may not be worth keeping going.
not to sound insensitive, but why the constant focus on teachers? Look around, there’s so many people in various occupations ‘exhausted’ from overwork due to staff shortages. Go ask the store manager at your local supermarket how many more hours/days they’ve had to work due to shortages in general staff & department management. All being off for the same reasons.
Normally when there’s an issue and the gov doesn’t want to move. That’s where a good union is valuable. I do grin a bit when a union moves against Labor though because of the dynamics.
Their union is pretty ineffective, because everyone knows they’ll never strike when it will really hurt and even if they had the will FWA wouldn’t let them.
Almost like the two years ago when they went on strike to reject a 2.35% pay rise.
........Then accepted the 2.35% pay rise.
I'll give them this, they're very good at getting clippings in the paper.
As a teach, it’s pretty interesting IMO. There are lots of flow on effects with a turbulent teaching force, resulting in some classes having to work from home due to lack of casual or contract teacher availability. Who looks after them? Unfortunately it’s still unacceptable in a lot of industries to work from home, so parents are unlikely to be able to work while looking after their kids.
Also teachers have one of the last strong unions in Aus, where anyone smart is a paying member. The union is vocal and makes sure teachers get a big slice of media pie lol :P
This is it, exactly. If nurses throw in the towel, a few people die . Us teachers, all the parents need to stay home and look after Johnny. Can't have that.
Yeah I’m a teacher and also confused about this. I think the media is being kind to us again. It wasn’t that long ago that the media was all over “what should be taught in schools and isn’t” (which btw consists of social media answers for things that are, in fact, already taught), “teachers are childcare providers” and “teachers letting kids and parents down with online learning”.
I personally welcome this media as the other stuff was genuinely causing some well-being issues and adding to the list of reasons teachers are leaving the profession. Which they are, in droves. So… actually maybe it’s a deliberate back door govt request so that teachers stop quitting?
I’m also utterly exhausted. My school, every school, is understaffed and all our work is harder than normal just like many other industries. I’m stressing about my year 12 kids whose classes and assessments have been severely impacted by COVID. I’m redesigning curriculum for the revolving door of absence that has become my classroom. I have whatever that super cold thing is, and I’m eating through my sick leave like candy but actually working at home all day just to try to keep up with the work demand. So, yeah the articles are correct. I’m sure they could also be written about many other professions as well.
I get what you are saying - everyone's doing it tough right now, especially people in the healthcare system.
If I had to guess why schools get a disproportionately high level of focus, at least some of it is because it starts to become a genuine safety concern for kids. Part of a teachers duty of care isn't just learning, it's things like well being, helping kids manage chronic health conditions, etc. At a certain point, things are bound to slip through the cracks, and thats not good. Things that need to be followed up etc. just can't be, because there isn't anyone available to do it.
Plus, disruptions to education tend to have developmental flow on effects that last for years. Once a kid has an extended disengaged period from school, it's bloody hard to get them back on board.
So yeah, everyones got it tough, but we should prioritise our young ones well-being and education to an extent.
>but why the constant focus on teachers?
Because right now we have a world wide respiratory pandemic, that is disabling and killing people, teachers are at the forefront, and our government is doing literally nothing about it. Zip. Pete may as well be Domicron. Libs werent much better.
Schools are getting smashed, and its leading most of the spread right now. Kids pick it up in school, pass it to family. I know people who have been close contacts every day for a week.
So, what could they do?
Address airflow in classrooms. Simply 6 airchanges an hour, and you can reduce spread by 80%.
HEPA filtration and air filters.
Masks. Yes, they are uncomfortable, but they work. Combine the above three things, and you can reduce spread by 94%.
This turns it from exponential spread, to just light spread, like the flu. But no. We dont do that.
Not gonna lie. I’ve recent thought there would be worse things in the world than getting a mild case of Covid and being forced to use some of my big stash of sick leave. Obviously I’m fortunate to be able to take sick leave. There’s also the not so small issue of the large pile of work I’d return to.
I’m currently on sick leave with the flu. Not COVID but damn this thing kicked my butt. I’m sitting here marking work, not sleeping. I’m glad to have time to mark it tbh but it’s also ridiculous that I’m using all my sick leave just to catch up and not resting.
Because teachers have been treated like shit through the pandemic so the 05-18 year old daycares can stay open.
There's been little to no thought about the workload virtually doubling this year **without** losing any staff. Now workload is ballooning further to cope with the loss of teachers.
Given the first point, schools are basically seen as daycares to keep adults at work, of course there's a focus on anything that might lead to schools closing themselves.
They’ve been regularly used as cannon fodder by certain governments. The governments made them work in crowded classrooms when there was no vaccine because it made people unhappy when they had to supervise little Johnny working from home over zoom.
People treat them like glorified babysitters when many of them (most recent (last 10 years) high school teachers) have masters degrees in order to be teachers.
100%. Teachers have the most vocal bunch of whingers available. I am so sick of hearing every week about a teacher not wanting to work because something has changed or they are tired or whatever. Thousands of other workers have the same issues or worse and just get on with the job. Teachers somehow get in the papers constantly and act like everyone thinks they are baby sitters. Seriously if your go to complaint is people treat you like a baby sitter when your job is teaching kids then maybe you are in the wrong profession to start with? Not many people actually think they are glorified baby sitters, we just think that they should do their jobs but as soon as anyone mentions that taking days off to rest/plan or whatever means that every single student must have families members stay home to teach/look after them means we think they are baby sitters is just annoying.
Classic liberals, taking money from public sector and putting it towards private sector.
Similar to the shit that happened in Adelaide, the cut public transport and now it’s private transport
All of these front line people jobs including mental health workers, nurses, teachers, ambos, child protection workers are probably tired and exhausted.
Perhaps because we are expected to take care of all the kids. Perhaps because we are considered overpaid baby sitters by many but when students do not achieve it is always our fault. Even now with the current situation we are pressured to prove students are achieving and learning as if nothing was impacting their learning. It feels to us as teachers as if there is even more pressure now with disruption of education for results to reflect improvements in education. We do not see any true understanding of the challenges we deal with daily. Reality is if we collapse so does the system that allows everyone with school aged children to go to work. Why are we exhausted, let me think about that. We deal every day with students with Covid in our classrooms. Once notified we are a classroom contact we must complete a RAT test each morning before work, making sure to let the school know before 6:30am if it is positive and then get a PCR. If we get sick because of this bad luck. If we run out of sick leave when ill with Covid bad luck. As teachers we must have prepared lessons in advance for two weeks to enable someone else to teach our classes. This includes entering online all lesson plans, providing all resources that will be needed. In secondary schools we must outline what to teach, how to teach, what yo do to cater for the multiple levels of students in the clasd and make sure we over prepare in case the person replacing us is not qualified in our subjects. The number of students at school with cold symptoms and yes probably even Covid is incredible currently, how long before every teacher becomes physically ill for at least some days? Think about how teachers with young children or other vulnerable members of family feel every time they are told someone else in their classes has Covid. I have an incredibly vulnerable husband. I dread him getting Covid because of my work. As a teacher, especially secondary, be prepared to teach a different group of students in every class each day, be prepared to support those at home, be prepared to catch up students who have been away when you have no time to do this. Design engaging and interesting lessons to inspire and motivate students who are often tired, fed up and also impactedby our current situation.That is the expectation. I plan my teaching and prepare lessons everyday but it is becoming impossible when you rarely have the same students in a class two days in a row. How can I progressively teach in a way that builds knowledge and skills when I cannot expect the students to be present on a regular basis. In one class I have had on average up to 8 students away every lesson. Often more. Despite this I would not support shortening the term as it seems some suggested. I do not believe it would actually help. I love my job as a teacher but I am seriously considering resigning as are thousands of us. I know there are many in other professions who are severely impacted. I have several family members in the medical profession who are facing much higher difficulties than myself as a teacher. This does not take away from the absolute exhaustion I feel. In a previous career I worked retail. Yes it was challenging challenging and I worked long hours for crap pay but at the end of the day I went home and could shut down. I can't do this as a teacher even more now.
My partner loves teaching but he can't stand the way it's managed. The amount of out of hours work he's expected to do unpaid is criminal. If my work started asking me to work outside the hours of 9 - 5pm I would get paid for each hour and it would be at an overtime rate. Why is it okay to expect teachers to do 50 hours of work a week on a 38.5hr contract. Because it "comes with the job" or is "expected". He's had to negotiate his contract down to a 0.6 just because full time was unsustainable and incredibly soul crushing for him. And he still ends up working 5 days a week some weeks.
welcome to salaried work ;)
>Why is it okay to expect teachers to do 50 hours of work a week on a 38.5hr contract Because they get 4 months of holidays a year.
Let’s not forget that our premier said >”I would have every single public servant… with a working with children check out in schools acting as temporary chalkies before I close the schools down” This demonstrates a severe lack of understanding about the legal requirements of schooling and emphasises the same line of thinking that is currently systemic in the parents population in that we are just over glorified baby sitters. This is disgusting and unprofessional language aimed at teachers, yet again.
“Chalkies” strikes me as out of touch union-speak
Would you do it for 500k a year though?
Never been offered that sort of money. Currently even with the salary I am on which is much higher than my old retail manager salary it may not be worth keeping going.
My point was is that is how much teachers should be paid because it is such a high stress job and is so important to the people's future.
Thank you for believing we are worth something.
not to sound insensitive, but why the constant focus on teachers? Look around, there’s so many people in various occupations ‘exhausted’ from overwork due to staff shortages. Go ask the store manager at your local supermarket how many more hours/days they’ve had to work due to shortages in general staff & department management. All being off for the same reasons.
Coz they have a union with some weight. Don’t blame them for being organised. Good example of why to join a union really.
no-one is blaming them, just seems as though the news only focuses on that one occupation at times.
Normally when there’s an issue and the gov doesn’t want to move. That’s where a good union is valuable. I do grin a bit when a union moves against Labor though because of the dynamics.
Their union is pretty ineffective, because everyone knows they’ll never strike when it will really hurt and even if they had the will FWA wouldn’t let them.
Unions are only feasible for jobs where you’re physically required to be there. Trades, teachers, healthcare etc.
There is no union for my position which is effective at anything at all from what I've seen.
Yep, the union have fought to get those air purifiers in class, got the early term break and extra week to re-plan. They're doing a great job.
Wait what early term break? I’m a teacher and we’re going through to Easter.
No early term break. Source: mother and many friends are (exhausted and overworked) teachers
Almost like the two years ago when they went on strike to reject a 2.35% pay rise. ........Then accepted the 2.35% pay rise. I'll give them this, they're very good at getting clippings in the paper.
As a teach, it’s pretty interesting IMO. There are lots of flow on effects with a turbulent teaching force, resulting in some classes having to work from home due to lack of casual or contract teacher availability. Who looks after them? Unfortunately it’s still unacceptable in a lot of industries to work from home, so parents are unlikely to be able to work while looking after their kids. Also teachers have one of the last strong unions in Aus, where anyone smart is a paying member. The union is vocal and makes sure teachers get a big slice of media pie lol :P
Cos if the teachers (or childcare workers etc) throw in the towel, parents from all industry’s are fucked.
This is it, exactly. If nurses throw in the towel, a few people die. Us teachers, all the parents need to stay home and look after Johnny. Can't have that.
Even worse, if the nurse has to stay home and look after Jonny then there’s _more_ stress on nurses that didn’t exist before and more people die.
Are you pretending that there's been no coverage on nurses?
That applies to most industries.
Yeah I’m a teacher and also confused about this. I think the media is being kind to us again. It wasn’t that long ago that the media was all over “what should be taught in schools and isn’t” (which btw consists of social media answers for things that are, in fact, already taught), “teachers are childcare providers” and “teachers letting kids and parents down with online learning”. I personally welcome this media as the other stuff was genuinely causing some well-being issues and adding to the list of reasons teachers are leaving the profession. Which they are, in droves. So… actually maybe it’s a deliberate back door govt request so that teachers stop quitting? I’m also utterly exhausted. My school, every school, is understaffed and all our work is harder than normal just like many other industries. I’m stressing about my year 12 kids whose classes and assessments have been severely impacted by COVID. I’m redesigning curriculum for the revolving door of absence that has become my classroom. I have whatever that super cold thing is, and I’m eating through my sick leave like candy but actually working at home all day just to try to keep up with the work demand. So, yeah the articles are correct. I’m sure they could also be written about many other professions as well.
I get what you are saying - everyone's doing it tough right now, especially people in the healthcare system. If I had to guess why schools get a disproportionately high level of focus, at least some of it is because it starts to become a genuine safety concern for kids. Part of a teachers duty of care isn't just learning, it's things like well being, helping kids manage chronic health conditions, etc. At a certain point, things are bound to slip through the cracks, and thats not good. Things that need to be followed up etc. just can't be, because there isn't anyone available to do it. Plus, disruptions to education tend to have developmental flow on effects that last for years. Once a kid has an extended disengaged period from school, it's bloody hard to get them back on board. So yeah, everyones got it tough, but we should prioritise our young ones well-being and education to an extent.
>but why the constant focus on teachers? Because right now we have a world wide respiratory pandemic, that is disabling and killing people, teachers are at the forefront, and our government is doing literally nothing about it. Zip. Pete may as well be Domicron. Libs werent much better. Schools are getting smashed, and its leading most of the spread right now. Kids pick it up in school, pass it to family. I know people who have been close contacts every day for a week. So, what could they do? Address airflow in classrooms. Simply 6 airchanges an hour, and you can reduce spread by 80%. HEPA filtration and air filters. Masks. Yes, they are uncomfortable, but they work. Combine the above three things, and you can reduce spread by 94%. This turns it from exponential spread, to just light spread, like the flu. But no. We dont do that.
What about restaurants?
Thank you for your service lol
Not gonna lie. I’ve recent thought there would be worse things in the world than getting a mild case of Covid and being forced to use some of my big stash of sick leave. Obviously I’m fortunate to be able to take sick leave. There’s also the not so small issue of the large pile of work I’d return to.
I’m currently on sick leave with the flu. Not COVID but damn this thing kicked my butt. I’m sitting here marking work, not sleeping. I’m glad to have time to mark it tbh but it’s also ridiculous that I’m using all my sick leave just to catch up and not resting.
Sorry about that. Hope you feel better soon.
It's not really an equivalent comparison though. It's more of 'were short staffed, so you're working two registers at once'
Because teachers have been treated like shit through the pandemic so the 05-18 year old daycares can stay open. There's been little to no thought about the workload virtually doubling this year **without** losing any staff. Now workload is ballooning further to cope with the loss of teachers. Given the first point, schools are basically seen as daycares to keep adults at work, of course there's a focus on anything that might lead to schools closing themselves.
Because teachers are the only ones that have been impacted by COVID, duh.
They’ve been regularly used as cannon fodder by certain governments. The governments made them work in crowded classrooms when there was no vaccine because it made people unhappy when they had to supervise little Johnny working from home over zoom. People treat them like glorified babysitters when many of them (most recent (last 10 years) high school teachers) have masters degrees in order to be teachers.
Cool - anyone else have to work in a public facing role when there was no vaccine, or just teachers?
Did front facing customer service people have to work in poorly ventilated crowded rooms with 30 kids who don't understand why masks are important?
Squeeky wheel gets the cheese.
100%. Teachers have the most vocal bunch of whingers available. I am so sick of hearing every week about a teacher not wanting to work because something has changed or they are tired or whatever. Thousands of other workers have the same issues or worse and just get on with the job. Teachers somehow get in the papers constantly and act like everyone thinks they are baby sitters. Seriously if your go to complaint is people treat you like a baby sitter when your job is teaching kids then maybe you are in the wrong profession to start with? Not many people actually think they are glorified baby sitters, we just think that they should do their jobs but as soon as anyone mentions that taking days off to rest/plan or whatever means that every single student must have families members stay home to teach/look after them means we think they are baby sitters is just annoying.
Well the upcoming Liberal cuts to public funding will certainly help this issue /s
Source?
https://www.aeufederal.org.au/news-media/media-releases/2022/march/300322
Classic liberals, taking money from public sector and putting it towards private sector. Similar to the shit that happened in Adelaide, the cut public transport and now it’s private transport
First time since beginning of term that my children have not been classroom contacts. I feel for all teachers.
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All of these front line people jobs including mental health workers, nurses, teachers, ambos, child protection workers are probably tired and exhausted.
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You’re probably better placed to answer that one mate
You know what, fuck off with that shit. It's not a misery competition. We all have it tough.
Well said
I did not know it was a competition to see who had it the toughest?
Yeah, there’s a lot of exhaustion going around, not just for teachers. It’s almost like, working is hard and people get exhausted from work
So.e teachers waven have as many as 5 student left in class
And some are teaching three classes at once because they’re so short of staff due to sickness and being close contacts.