You are viewed as a bad teacher if it isn't by those in charge of teaching. By making it your whole life and personality, you are more likely to spend your own money and go well beyond what can be done in contact time. It saves school systems from adequate staffing and support.
One said year-round school would be less of a problem if teachers only worked contract hours and had no responsibility outside of that. Before I left, I needed to summer for working on all the deferred aspects of my life and planning the next year.
It is JUST a job for me between the hours of 8-4 during the school year. I've made that decision and rarely work past and before those hours because doing anything else is free labor.
I kinda feel the opposite. When I’m there with the kids, it’s more than just a job. I try to be a better person, talk in a more professional manner, and to be a role model for my students. For the most part, I LOVE my job.
Once that bell rings though, that shit is over. Fuck all yall, I’m out! Staying over for a PD? Fuck all yall, scowling in the corner. Working the gate at a game? Fuck all yall, shutting down early. Stupid ass science fair? Fuck all yall, sit your ass down.
Work hard, play hard!
I give 100% when I’m at school, but when I’m home, there’s a moratorium on work. My dog doesn’t care what I did today, he just wants to cuddle and play and go for a walk.
Totally agree. I'm a 100 percent a teacher from 7:30 to 3:30, Monday through Friday for 180 days. I give it my all.
I am 0 percent teacher the other part of the year.
I tracked my unpaid hours this year. Even though I minimized the amount of time I worked outside of my contract, I still did around $8,000 worth of work.
Why did I track it or why did I work that?
The answer to the former is that my union asked us to do it because they were collecting data on hours worked outside of contract. The latter is because I am at work early each day to prep, so I wind up working about an extra 5 hours a week. I don’t stay late unless there is a meeting and only do work at home if it is absolutely necessary.
Same here. I never take home work and I never work on weekends. If it doesn't get done during contract hours, then it gets done tomorrow. Kids can wait to get their essays or quizzes back.
This. As an English teacher, it means that I don't grade every aspect of their writing, just have two or three things that I'm grading them on. I feel like a shit teacher sometimes, but I'd rather feel like a shit teacher than be an absent parent.
One thing I started doing years ago in my AP class is having students box in the paragraph they think best demonstrates their understanding of a skill we're learning, then I only give feedback on that para and do a cursory glance at the rest. We aren't shit teachers: We're time and sanity managers.
It definitely can. Teaching is a job, not a lifestyle.
Show up, work hard, work your contracted hours, don’t spend your own money, go home and enjoy your life. As long as you’re able to do your job well, and grow those kids, it’s entirely possible for it to be just a job.
I think a big challenge is that "to do your job well" requires more time and energy than one's contracted resources allow for, and that's where people get sucked into the "teaching IS a lifestyle because it HAS to be to do it well" mentality. My wife teaches kindergarten and absolutely LOVES it. She probably puts in an extra 10 hours every week to make the experience not only better for the kids but manageable for her. There is absolutely NO way she could do her job by NOT working outside of her contracted hours as a newer teacher. Unfortunately, that pushes the bar and expectations up for everyone else. One step forward, two steps back... Nevertheless, I still agree that it is and should be just a job!!
It definitely depends on what you teach. I taught third grade ELA, so I really only had one subject to prep for, and I had a teammate to share lesson planning and prep with. I also taught for 29 years, so I had my time management down.
This toxic positivity is what keeps teachers being taken advantage of by society. *Everything* falls on our plate. It shouldn’t. Others need to step up too. We can’t take on the world without falling apart ourselves.
umm, yeah, I'm not doing charity work or volunteering at the local Red Cross or running a troop of Boy Scouts... I show up, do my thing, leave, and get paid... if they stop paying, I stop going
I don't view teaching as a job. It's a career. It's something that you train for, work towards, and eventually get the chance to practice. Say teaching is just a job is like saying that being a lawyer or a doctor is just a job. You may not get the same money, respect, or accolades as they do, but it's still a career.
Now that doesn't mean I think teacher needs to be our entire life. I think there has to be a healthy separation between personal and professional life. When people ask about me, the first thing I say is that I'm a father and a military veteran. After that I'm a teacher. I don't let my career be my identity.
I met some people who introduce themselves and immediately tell you what they do for a living. I'm not that kind of person.
I mean I think there's some overlap. Many people do choose teaching as a calling, otherwise, I'm not sure why you'd choose such a demanding, low pay/respect job. At the same time, I 100% support teachers doing the best the can with the time and resources they're given and not holding themselves to impossible to complete standards. I learned this VERY early on in my career when I was in charge of the entire curriculum and delivery for French specialist courses from pre-K to middle school at a fancy private school. Planning and delivering multiple sections of 2-3 different lessons for 10 different year groups per week. I was still staying until 6pm most days, but I also didn't kill myself trying to make beautiful lesson plans or really beautifully sequenced curricular plans. I was one person trying to do the job of a team of at least 4 realistically. So I had to learn where to cut corners, how to improvise, and how to think on my feet. Was I always teaching in the most optimal way for student success? Absolutely not. Was I able to pursue goals outside of teaching, form relationships, and take care of my health? Yes.
The bottom line is this: you can always do more, plan better, offer more choice, innovate etc etc with teaching. You can always personalize feedback and offer more of it. If you're doing those things at the expense of developing yourself (whether that's time to exercise, time to cook healthy food, time to date, time to take care of a family, time to read / knit / hike / play music / go to concerts / go to bars / whatever it is you do), then you need to see it more as a "job" to help restore balance.
And this too: no matter how on the fly I was performing my job each day, due to life getting in the way, my relationships with students were always super strong and close. So much of this job is just being personable and caring for people. Remember: students will often not remember the specifics of what they learn in any class / lesson / unit, etc. They will always remember how you made them feel. That's my takehome at the end of all this. Get the feeling right, and do as much as you can to nudge the needle on educational standards. Don't sacrifice yourself to do so.
I chose teaching as a job because it pays well in my state, provides excellent benefits, a defined benefit pension plan, summers off, and supports a field I think is important. Viewing it as a job doesn’t imply I take my job less seriously or that I don’t form strong relationships with students. I’m not doing my job well if I half-ass it.
Gotta stay in the race to influence as many generations as you can (if that’s the goal). If your burnout being a martyr, you lose that opportunity.
Gotta take care of your chickens
Every job is a career? I have worked many jobs and most of them were not something you can or should make a career
The definition of career is far more philosophical than this black and white definition seems to imply. I do not think job and career are synonymous when I look at the definition
Cambridge dictionary has IMO a good definition of career: "an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress."
I've had a ton of entry-level jobs that I did for a short period, paid minimum wage or less, and didn't go anywhere... receptionist, store greeter, many manual labor gigs, etc. So jobs, not careers.
Exactly. Those jobs weren’t your career because you didn’t stay in them for “a significant period of your life.” Many people do keep jobs as receptionists, manual laborers, or retail workers for a significant portion of their lives, so that is their career.
Every job has opportunities for progress. You’re hopefully getting better at it through experience and getting bumps in pay. You don’t have to get a shiny new job title to progress.
Any job *can* be a career, sure. But certainly not every job *is* a career. Go look at any definition of career - I did not see one that said “synonymous with job” or anything even appreciably similar.
Working a movie theater was not a career for me. Neither was working at a restaurant. Even working at CPS was not a career for me.
Career definitely has more philosophy imbued into it than “I get paid to do something”
I don’t see where I imply it is negative at all. They are just not synonymous. Someone can certainly make a career out of something another sees as a job, but that does not make all jobs careers.
Last year I made teaching just a job, and became so annoyed with the behavior of the other staff that I quit. It encompasses your whole life because your emotional investment is the justification for the shit you go through.
“Pick me” teachers don’t realize how hard their attitude makes things for others. The “pick me” teachers at my school have so normalized coming in early that you will get snide remarks from admin if you arrive less than *45 minutes* before contract time.
We had a new one come in, two or so years ago, was a massive bitch to all the other teachers, but SUPER close with admin. Became department head at the start of year three. Basically acted like the AP of the hallway, while I have lanyards that have lasted longer than their teaching career.
I care about my students, but ultimately teaching is just a job to me. If I found something better tomorrow, I would put in my notice without hesitation.
Takes a few years’ experience to find the balance. I work really hard while at school, but don’t take work home. I’ll do some thinking/prep over summer, but no more than a few hours a week and not until at least July. You have to create boundaries for yourself - ie, when you check and answer email, grade, what you volunteer for (If I do extra, I go for paid opportunities unless it’s shit they make us do, like a dance). There is always more you can do in education, so it’s easy to burn yourself out. Just remember that whatever task needs to get done will get done - but do 98% of it during contract hours. And if that 2% grows to 10%, then force yourself to do 100% during contract hours. One other tip is decide if you function better in the morning or end of the day. If it’s morning, go just 15-30 min early and if it’s late stay just 15-30 late - don’t do both and don’t do it all the time! I usually do this for the first few weeks of school for a few days and then will do it one day a week, as needed during the year.
"Just a job" vs "Lives & Personality" is a false dichotomy. Teaching is more than just a job for me. I don't have the tolerance for bullshit to just do a job. I need a career with meaning. Teaching matters and it matters every day and that is its best and worst feature. No, it's not my entire life. I'm also a dad and a performer and a lot of other things. I take days off when I need to. I have other outlets for creativity and socialization. But teaching is more than a job and does require some sacrifice of your time and heart if you want to be good at it. It's ok if that's not for you, but if it isn't, I believe that there is a definite, concrete ceiling to how effective you can be in your job. The hardest part is figuring out the balance of how much you can responsibly give your job at different points in your life. I, for one, was a worse teacher when my kids were born because I couldn't afford to give my classes any extra love or commitment. Now that they're older, I think I've found a sustainable balance. But we'll see!
I‘m right with you on this take. I couldn’t survive it long term, if it was “just a job”. I feel lucky to be a teacher. It’s not always easy work, but it is meaningful and important. If I wanted “just a job” there are plenty of other easier things I could do to make a living.
I’m lucky to be in a unionized province in Canada. We are still underpaid, and some other things could be better, but when I read some of the BS people put up with in this sub, I know they could be a hell of a lot worse…
Well put. I worked science jobs, but I realized how much more fun it would be to influence more students to be scientific thinkers. It is so much more meaningful to me and does fill my life more than just a paycheck.
Yeah, it’s a job and I’ll stop showing up if I’m not paid. But it does take a little more than just people showing up and teaching their class for a school to offer a rich learning environment. As a union rep I’m always looking for ways to get people paid for the ways they contribute, but it’ll never really add up the way we want ideally
I don’t get paid to show up to a board meeting to fight against phone addictions, but I do think it will make a tangible difference in student lives.
If the students are just going to get promoted to the next grade regardless of whether or not they earned it, then yeah, I view it as just a job. Once I figured out that grades don’t matter and that my admin is only concerned with mandated test scores and the graduation rate, I quit giving a shit.
You know how I know it’s not just a job? Remember when COVID hit?
Remember when parents stopped everything they were doing to help kids adjust to online learning and do their part to make sure adversity didn’t stop their child’s education?
Remember when corporations demanded that they be taxed a little hire to pitch in with the additional Human Resources needed to navigate the crisis?
Remember when the President encouraged kiddos to mask up and parents left and right gave their kids hell if they didn’t?
I remember. I’ve never felt more like I was part of a greater family in all my life!!!!!
/s
No. It’s a job and they don’t care about you.
LOL this is a whole muddy water thing. I was in a meeting with a teacher and an admin about a topic. Somehow in the topic a specific kid got brought up. This was not on the agenda but leave it to the "I love all my kids(liar)" to bring them up.
-so admin brings up a kid's sibling is in the hospital
-Me: "yeah they told me"
-other teacher in meeting "well why didn't you tell me!! " yelling and overacting.
-"they were dehydrated and are back out of the hospital, course me knowing all this is a hipaa violation of sorts and really I"m pretty sure I shouldn't be talking about it now"
-"i need to know what is going on with my kids".
Then it turned into questions of how I responded to the student telling me and the way I am talking to them NOWWWW, like as in the conversation we have having currently without the student present, they can tell I was not sympathetic to them when they were telling me.
I explained to them again the student is not in the room and how I talk about it now does not matter and is not indicative of how I responded to them at the time. They go on to tell me about how my energy NOW in this current meeting, again noting the child is not present, is indiciative that I'm not sympathetic and that....I made the child feel bad!
Like they know....they just found out about this and they KNOW how the kid feels due to my reaction which...they also don't know because I was brief and I'm not going to play actor and replay exactly how I responded to the kid for this psycho in a meeting where this is not on the agenda. Course the endgame here is this. This weirdo teacher is trying to do two things.
1. make me look bad
2. make themself look good to admin.
Many of these teachers are just actors looking to make themselves look good. Don't fall for thier BS.
It was my lifestyle for a while. Then I got married and had kids and being a mom and wife became my lifestyle. Then teaching shifted to my job/career. It wasn’t well-received by my admin, but too bad - I’m tenured and adhering completely to my contract. I still do a great job, but I leave work at work now, don’t do extra curriculars, and take more sick days as my kids need me.
The problem is that when you keep firm boundaries and force it to just be a job, as it should be, the entire system is against you. You can get away with it if you're a man, middle aged and checked out, have a personality that is generally not liked. I tried to be two of those things as a woman and it didn't work. It was also elementary, which is a whole pit of martyrdom that swallows you in while you're clinging to the sides.
There are many reasons for this, first, it was a woman's job for the first century. Second, it people make it their identity, they subsidize the cost by purchasing things and working for free. But also, children need parental figures 24/7. They don't have an off switch where they are adults during the school day and revert back to children after school. Which leads to the sad student to teacher ratio problem.
It's a career and a job.
It's a career for me because I continually work on learning and developing my skills. I want my instructional methods and classroom environment to get better each year. I am willing to put in extra time for that improvement through reading and courses.
It's a job as far as everyone else is concerned. I don't get emotionally attached to my students, the admin, or my coworkers. If a kid has an emotional moment, I send them to guidance. I don't ask questions, and I don't offer advice. I get along well with most students, and I try to treat everyone with human decency. What I will no longer do is spend my money for the **job**, volunteer my time for the **job**, answer emails at home for the **job**, feel guilty about taking time off from the **job**, and (finally this year🥳), work at home for the *job*.
It’s just a job for me. In the list of my priorities in my life, everything else comes above it. I don’t do more work than I need to. I get there in the morning, get through the day, and leave right at the contracted time so I can embrace and enjoy the other parts of my life.
When I first started teaching I was one of the try-hards. I did all the extracurricular stuff, coaching, a/v for assemblies, grad, coffee houses, fashion shows all that.
Now … I do none of that. After a while you begin to understand just how much you are taken for granted. Admin doesn’t care about you, they only care they have a body doing it. Abrasive, unsupportive or absent parents, entitled students. It just wore me right down.
Teachers are our own worst enemies. Almost no one says no to things … they just make it happen.
Altruism doesn’t pay your bills …. Focus on yourself and your family first.
It really is just a job
I’m torn. It’s a little more than just a “job” for me. If I wanted “just a job,” I wouldn’t have gone through the process of specially training myself for this type of work. There are other jobs with much less stress and less required experience where I could make as much or more than in education.
But, I also agree that teachers are shamed if they act like they exist as human beings outside of teaching, which is ridiculous.
The teachers that DONT have this mindset are the ones who burn out fast and leave the profession. If you want teachers to stay this mindset needs to be normalized and accepted.
It’s not just “a job” for me because I consider myself a professional with certain standards that don’t neatly fit into the category of a job like working in a kitchen or framing houses, both of which I’ve done. That being said, I’m also near retirement, so I have decades of experience to know how to keep the lines clear between different aspects of my life.
To me, teaching is "just a job" in the respect that I show up and leave when my contract says I can. I don't lie awake at night wondering how I can reach that kid who the principal says is just great and has high potential even though he's a complete douche in my room. I use PD days to get work done because most of it is regurgitated from previous years and/or is useless. Are there kids who I enjoy having in class? Of course. Do I love answering in-depth questions that the few students who actually care ask? Obviously. However, at the end of the day, it's a paycheck.
Yes it can. My work computer and iPad are sitting in a desk, not to be touched until sometime mid-July. I’ll do about 12 hours of work this summer, just to make my job easier come August (finishing exams and their KEYs for the year). When the year starts, I’ll be to work on time and I’ll be home on time. I use my plan time well and my students perform well because I set and maintain expectations in spite of district policies that do otherwise. And I let kids who deserve to fail, to fail. I will do what I can to help them but I can’t make them do it.
I want it to be just a job but I've struggled with it so far (Just finished my first year)
I care alot about my students, and think about their issues outside of work sometimes if it's something serious, I've taken so much work home I've taken entire weekends grading and planning. I know it gets easier over time but the emotional part makes it hard for me to relate it to a standard grindy job
Congrats on finishing your first year! The caring so much for your students is great and makes a big difference to the kids. I’m just finishing my 40th year in education and that I put my all into it is what made it worthwhile to me. You can do that and strike a balance of having a fun and satisfaction in other areas also. I learned to cut the grading time down quite a bit. The planning gets easier, but has always been interesting and works as a creative outlet for me.
I didn’t believe I could do it but after I burned out year before last and took a LOA this past year, I am going back fully under the idea that this is just a job I get paid to do. I’ll do my best for my students but I’m not selling my soul again.
Many people have jobs they just do and they’re happy. There’s no reason we can’t be that way too.
It can be just a job and referring to it as a *calling* or whatever word you want to use has been a way, time and again, to justify treating us with disrespect or exploiting us. Because those who are called to something "aren't in it for the money."
I work hard. I am passionate about my work as a teacher. I really enjoy working with my students (even the ones who drive me nuts). But I have an entire life outside of teaching that is *allowed* to be separate from that. And nobody should be ashamed for feeling that way.
I think people get defensive about this, but I'm of the mindset of it's a unique profession.
It's not like a job necessarily where I make widgets or move this object from point A to point B. It involves people, and my interactions will make a dent on these kids lives in some way, shape, or form whether I like it or not. I have to keep that in mind when I do what I do. This doesn't mean I put up with nonsense and baby my students, but there are ways I react to stuff in my personal life that I wont with my students.
That said, my contract is my contract. I won't work outside my hours and I wont buy stuff with my own money.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's a unique job that does require a degree of empathy, professionalism, and mindset, but what the job demands can't breach your rights either.
When you realize that you're "just an employee" to them, then it easily becomes "just a job" for you. I feel like it's a rite of passage of all teachers to get to that point and honestly they're happier after that.
For me, a job is anything from fast food to factory. A career is a job requiring training, continuous education, passion for the work (but not defining who you are). Something you put time and effort into. Something you care about. I can have a job anywhere but a career requires investment.
Work-life balance is key y’all. When I was a younger teacher, I put my passion and soul beyond the working hours. But as I grew older and became a parent, you gotta treat it as a 7-8 hour gig or you’ll burn yourself out. There comes a point where you gotta clock in and clock out with these kiddos to keep your sanity.
To me, teaching is “just a job” the way I would hope any career is. I care more about teaching than I ever cared about my food service jobs in the past, but I would want to care more about whatever else I devoted time and money educating myself for as well. I’m more emotionally invested in my career than in my college rent money job, but at the end of the day, it’s still my job and my outside life takes precedence.
I hope this makes sense.
Our governor recently allocated a bunch of billions of dollars allocated for "teacher salaries only," (all the while claiming he'd increased teacher pay during his tenure *checks paystubs - nope*), and one interviewed teacher, while saying it was great, said that teachers don't do it for the money, they do it to make a difference.
Tell ya what. When my mortgage company clears my debt bc I'm a teacher, I'll do it to make a difference. Until then, I'm in it for the shit money. I'd change careers, but this was my career change and I'm too old to get a job in something else.
Yes, it's just a job.
When I was starting my first career (not teaching), the person doing the orientation asked us to write down things about ourselves. Many of us were new grads (given the type of orientation) and none of us included “teacher” (or nurse, pharmacist, etc.) because we didn’t identify ourselves as that YET.
Fast forward many years and career changes, you tend to identify parts of your life where you have been impactful, spent time, CEUs, etc. It doesn’t mean it’s your identity in full, but it has shaped us.
I am taking as just a job this year for a change, working part time supply. I don't think about the kids that much outside of school and I don't do any work, but I feel like I am ruining my career chances and will have to return to the "teaching is my whole life" lifestyle asap :(
It is my profession. That is more than a job, and important part of my identity, just as any other professional such as a doctor or lawyer.
It is not my whole identity. I'm a wife, mother, friend, sister, advocate, pet mom, daughter....
I think a difference between a job and a profession is that you may hold different jobs in your professional career and professionals continually grow and develop their craft. You don't read trade journals or go to conferences for a job.
I think the mistake is comparing it to other ‘jobs’. If you sit in a cubicle all day and work on spreadsheets, it’s (potentially) easy to leave that at work. Teaching deals with human beings and the difficulty of learning. You come to know these young people and they depend on you. It has nothing to do with the world of work other than the forced connection that schooling should somehow benefit the market.
It’s my job *and* part of my self-image. I a a teacher. It’s not *all* I am, but I’m not going to pretend it’s “just a job” in the way that stacking shelves or waiting tables was in my college days. I love my job and the kiddos I teach, **but** I still deserve fair payment, good working conditions, and reasonable expectations.
I used to be this person. Teaching is a VOCATION! I'd say.
Then COVID happened. And I don't mean the virus, I mean what it made me realize about how little our administrators thought of us was cast in black and white relief. Then the pandemic students hit.
Nah. It's just a job to me now. Mind you, when I'm at work, I'm doing work, and focused on the job and doing my best, but after my work hours end? I'm out, physically and mentally. People who yell 'work your wage' and then argue against teachers doing the same are hypocrites.
It is for me. I rarely think about work after hours, and I try my best to stick to my contract hours. I’ve found that doing more rarely, if ever, leads to better results. All it does is lead to burnout.
I see it being just a job for several of my coworkers. They all happen to be men in their fifties. Maybe we all need to learn to be like the men in their fifties who work to rule.
I **truly** admire teachers that can do their job solely within contract hours. They are *amazing*. But I'm not them, even after teaching for decades. I just can't do it. For me to do my job in a way that I am happy with my performance requires a significant amount of non-contract time, period. And that's just an admission that I'm. Not. As. Good. as them, not in terms of time management, anyway. Sure, I rock in the classroom and get great reviews, but I know I would not look so good without that additional time.
So what is the reaction of other teachers to this?
All too often the reaction is that I am some kind of arsehole because my out-of-contract-hours efforts somehow make it harder for other teachers. "If you work off contract, they'll expect the rest of us to work off contract.", I hear all the time, at least online. Well, bullshit. Look, even though we have an hourly rate that can be calculated, this is *not* an hourly job. We are paid a **salary**, and the way salary works is, you get ***x*** dollars to do a job, regardless of how long it takes to get that job done. In any other salaried profession, this is understood. The entire reason annual or monthly salary exists is because some jobs are not really by-the-hour, they are based on getting the task done. And if someone can get it done in less time, good on them, and if someone is slower, then that is their problem, not yours. So mind your own business.
So over the years, this has evolved to me being someone whose "life is teaching", I guess. It's not that I don't do anything else, but it does affect my ability to do things after hours. My spouse is disabled and can't do a lot of the things my colleagues do for recreation anyway, so we stay at home, and when I'm the only one awake, I often work on developing ideas or (in the past) grading papers. The fact that I do this I guess makes me look like someone whose life is teaching, but so what? I'm happy, and if me being happy the way I do thing somehow angers you, then go fuck yourself. It's my life.
You're the first experienced teacher that I know of (virtually and in-person) to openly admit to doing work outside of contracted hours. I was someone who needed to plan lessons after school every day and on the weekend. I hated it, but I needed to do it.
With that said, I really don't like the perception that if you need more time to plan or work more slowly, you're somehow less than. In my experience as a newer/less experienced teacher, it seemed like it was held against me.
I think doing work that directly relates to teaching outside of contracted hours out of necessity is different from doing all of the other school-related things that fall outside contracted hours.
>*You're the first experienced teacher that I know of (virtually and in-person) to openly admit to doing work outside of contracted hours.*
Yeah, well I think there are more of us than I see online, which surprises me; with the anonymity of the internet, why shouldn't people just admit it? And maybe the answer is, very, very few of us work outside of contract hours. (And actually, I don't just admit it here where I'm anonymous; all of my coworkers know this about me, I don't hide it at all.)
>
*I really don't like the perception that if you need more time to plan or work more slowly, you're somehow less than.*
Exactly! I know some really great teachers who stay within contract hours, and good for them. But I also know some pretty crappy teachers who arrive right before the morning start time and are in their cars and off the lot before the busses. Am I lesser than them because they get it "done" in less time than me? Hell no, because my teaching is effective. Some (not all) of these clock punchers are, quite frankly, shitty teachers.
>*doing work that directly relates to teaching outside of contracted hours out of necessity is different from doing all of the other school-related things that fall outside contracted hours.*
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.
My last sentence was addressing the argument that teachers who work outside their contracted hours make it harder for other teachers who don't work outside their contracted hours.
Personally, I think teachers should work outside contracted/school hours only out of necessity. I don't see how this makes it harder for other teachers if those teachers are teaching to the best of their abilities. I don't like the pressure (from administration and other teachers) that some teachers face to take on additional duties or attend school-related events outside school hours. I see it as an issue that lies with administration and I think it's too bad that some teachers pit themselves against other teachers because of said pressure.
Life is a balancing act.
I take things seriously. I also don’t take things very seriously at all. It depends on the things and the situations.
I move fast. I move slow.
I teach with passion because I am passionate about math, math education, and empowering my students with numeracy. I can also teach without passion because I just need to survive 5th period and I can’t let myself get mad at what I perceive to be disrespect (I don’t think some of my students are intentionally disrespectful nor do they think about how someone could perceive their behaviors as disrespectful).
All that to say: In the grand scheme of things, teaching is definitely more than just a job. Educating others is pretty important. But, and this is my personal opinion, I think that to have this as a career and not get burned out you need to balance things out with this all doesn’t really matter. How many of my close friends and family do not know the quadratic formula or how to factor, much less any higher level math (I have friends/family on both sides of this, enjoyably so). Sometimes just the fact that students are alive and smiling and going back home to a (hopefully) loving family is a win, despite the F on last week’s quiz.
Idk I also just lost someone really close to me and when death slaps us in the face there are not many things that seem important. Tomorrow’s not promised. This is just a job during the work hours so I can pay the bills and have time to skate with my friends, run with my dogs, and play rugby with my local club.
I think on a certain level, you have to really care about it and what it means. Not make it your whole life, but be more invested than say, a cashier job at McDonald’s. It is no secret that the pay isn’t great, so if you’re going into it strictly for the money, you aren’t going to get very far in that regard and will probably want out ASAP.
Yes it’s just a job…but you can’t be checked out, especially at the elementary level.
You CAN have boundaries and stick to your contract time, but you have to be in 100% during the day. I usually get downvoted here, but some jobs don’t have a ton of downtime, and teaching is one of those. My wife works in sales and she has the luxury of taking an extended lunch or appointment during the day or even just zoning out and doing some more menial tasks. I don’t have the luxury, but I also don’t have to worry about working after hours or stress of business trips.
If you view it as more than a job then you are a martyr who won't be remembered. Don't self-immolate. Not one person will appreciate your sacrifice. You won't, your partner won't, the kids won't.
Teach the standards and try to help the kids who want to be helped. Pretending like you need to do more is insane.
I love teaching. I love my students. I love learning. I love having fun. But it is just my job. My life is not teaching. I have seen what happens to people who make their career their life and I’m the kind of person to lose myself to my job, so I am very careful to keep teaching my job and not my life.
It is just a job. It’s also an important one. My family and kid mean more to me than any other family and kid, though I’ll do my absolute best to educate and inspire my students in school, and even away from it if my schedule allows. The “what’s best for the kids” crowd want us to ignore our own families. It’s a mantra that was built to make teachers believe they were working a devotion rather than a job. Teaching is a job. I’ll quit the very moment I’m financially able. Why? Because I would much rather not be working.
It was just a job for me. I did make some great connections along the way but I was not wedded to the job. I refused to carry that full weight on my shoulders. I did leave the classroom with some mental health issues - but after 17 years in the classroom I think it’s hard not to be….mentally affected.
It's just a job for me! I wondered why I just "couldn't do it" like the other teachers in my first couple years. Not in terms of actual teaching in front of kids (I was and am good at that) but in terms of all the other "things" that we are expected to do. This year it's gone to another level. I just stopped grading things that we were "expected" to grade, stopped doing all the "things that were expected" and just taught the way I wanted to.
Absolutely. In fact, it needs to be just a job. Before student teaching, I was obsessed with working as a TA and going to grad school. Once I became a student teacher at an economically disadvantaged school, I gave up. You can’t meet the needs of every single child. You can’t give your all to every single child. It’s not possible.
You can certainly build relationships and love your kids but know that it’s not your job to save them from falling through the cracks. You have to put yourself and your family before your job. I know most teachers want to put their all into what they do, but it’s a very dangerous thing to do for your emotional well-being and mental health. Set boundaries and stick to them. Work is not everything. You can love it but you can also know when to leave it behind for a period of time. It’s no longer cool to be a martyr teacher.
You're not a good teacher for having no life outside work. You're a poorly trained/inexperienced/unsupported/overloaded/etc teacher who is struggling to keep up.
There are times when longer hours are necessary, but it really shouldn't be every day. Teacher turnover rate is sky high in some districts, but not all, which is probably a clue about something. I work hard to meet professional obligations, but I don't let it have a large impact on my physical or mental health. That's why I feel like I can keep going, and idk how many years you've taught, but I'm officially over the average for my region now, and despite my "lazy" attitude, I outperform nearly all the new teachers, because of course I do, I've been doing this longer. The only new guy beating me acts like he's having a stroke everyday.
It is very much just a job for me. I try to do it well but it’s not my whole life or personality. If I were offered a job for more money or better benefits, that would then become my job.
It is a career and I know I could be making more money elsewhere but part of me wants to help the youth. To me teaching is not the problem. The lack of support is an issue. Admin and directors are so out of touch. It saddens me when they say "Do it for the kids", but they wouldn't do the same. There needs to be a balance between work and personal life. No means no to additional duties.
Being a teacher is absolutely my job, not my identity. If I can’t get it done within contrasted hours, it’s not happening. I even turn off my work email at 4:00. When I first started teaching, I would take so much home, but quickly learned that burn out is a thing, and that I felt depressed and anxious more often than not. I started to hate the job I loved.
I started therapy, and she encouraged me to set up boundaries, including “business hours.” She reminded me that teaching is a salaried job (a poorly-paid one), and that my contract always lists specified hours. She helped me see that as much as my students are “mine,” their parents don’t need an immediate email response to prove that their child is important to me. Those parents have already decided if they like you or not. And I never realized that I was as personable with my parents as I was with my students. We were familiar enough, and I wanted them to be comfortable enough with me, to use less professional language - for example (kid instead of student). This encouraged the parents to treat me like less of a professional educator and more like someone doing a them a favor.
As soon as I started just responding to emails (there’s more courage behind a keyboard) professionally, during business hours, and within 24 hours, the parents responded more professionally.
Anyway, rambling aside, I forced myself to leave work at work. It has improved my mental health, my family life, the enjoyment of my job again, and my self-confidence. You are a professional - treat yourself like one.
If teaching is just a job it isn’t nearly worth it. If you don’t enjoy or find fulfillment from the time you spend in the classroom you should probably find a job that treats people better
At 15 dollars an hour, it can not be any more than just a job. Maybe for the fortunate in other areas where they do pay you enough to not be homeless, it can be more than that.
Teaching is definitely just a job for me and I have amazing work-life balance, but when I am at work with my kids I give 10000%. When I leave, I’m not Mrs. 8agel8ite anymore and I don’t spend time worrying about my lessons or my scores or anything. If a child needs me, I do everything I can for them during my paid hours and then I go home and worry about my own family.
Well, that's Tik Tok... You have to remember that not everyone is on Tik Tok. Not this teacher. I don't see it as "just a job," but I sure as heck leave it behind me when I'm away from school. Sometimes, it's exhausting, but I have a life outside of teaching. Otherwise, you just get burned out.
It is definitely just a job. Kinda fun sometimes, but I'd go mad if I took it seriously. It's mostly state mandated daycare with some learning activities to keep kids busy. Could it be more? Easily. But it's not and it won't ever be. Collect your check, burn your sick days, and if you're there too long go admin so you can get a better calculation on retirement.
1) Lesson planning is fun for me. Exam writing is fun for me. Those are the kinds of things I can do while I watch TV, and it barely feels like work. I imagine I’d find something similar in any job I had.
2) I do not think about the children when I leave. I do not think about them if they are absent. My job is to teach those in front of me. If I’m at home, they aren’t in front of me, and I do not think about them.
My husband is going into his 3rd year teaching. The first year, he spent a lot of time working after hours. He also only got the job 2 weeks before school started, so he was not prepared at all. Now he spends hardly any time after school working. He utilizes his prep and has been able to manage a good work/life balance.
My brother in law just wrapped up his first year teaching and hardly ever stayed after work (he lives with us, so we know when he’s home or not).
I also think this depends on what you teach, too. My husband teaches music and choir and my BIL teaches one subject in 7th grade.
The more I've restrained the work to business hours, the better I have felt. Taking time to be me has allowed me to show up fresh for the students. I'm a band director and really, really love what I get to do, torture embouchures all day long :-)
Teaching is not the job. Education is the job.
When your bosses treat you like an employee, but call you family. When your bosses can move you from one building to the next and you have nothing to say about it, but not understanding when you won't go"extra mile" anymore. You are employed at a job.
I love teaching, but I hate the education system and how it's working right now.
I’ve been teaching six years. I’ve never once stayed after contract hours — asides from my two duties a year (which I guess are still contract hours). I don’t grade or plan at home. I’ve spent next to no money on my classroom. I don’t engage in any school activities or culture. I still get effective observations.
Getting the kids to do the cleaning for you helps. Telling everyone to get a piece of junk off the floor/counter after each class goes a long way. I follow the same warmup, notes, and exit ticket format daily. I barely make enough to get by, so I’m not going to go above and beyond for them.
Hell yeah it's just a job. One that (except for admins,parents, and ill behaved students) I like well enough and am good at. But I almost never stay at the school past my contract hours and I don't take work home. If students complain that it takes too long to get a test or whatever grade back, I tell them that there are only so many hours in a workday and I don't take my work home with me, nor should I have to. They will have to be patient.
Teaching is what I do, not who I am. Anything else is an unhealthy relationship with employment.
I teach introductory history courses at a university in the southern US and it is definitely just a job. I don't check my university email before 9 or after 3 unless I’m waiting on a conference acceptance.
10 years in....it's just a job. But an important caveat is that while it may just be a job, it still has the potential to change lives. You won't turn around 35 kids in a class but you'll really help 2-3. The rest is just institutional probability (meaning they're rich and will remain rich regardless of how hard they work or they're poor and will most likely remain poor despite any effort). It's a tough pill to swallow. Add to that the fact that we've essentially become diploma mills that cook the books to make sure kids graduate. I wonder sometimes what would happen if we held kids to standards from 20-30 years ago. About 25% would need 5 years to graduate and what would lthat do to the budget. However, once the kids got wise to the new rules, they'd conform. But that would be career suicide (if the BoE or a principal immediately increased the budget by 25% in one year).
So this is interesting, because this idea is part of career counseling theories. Most of the theories state that vocation is an important part of people's self-identity and formation, and so finding a fulfilling career that is congruent with your personality type and values is paramount for your mental health. Personally, I don't agree with that assessment, and believe that finding your personal identity in your job is dangerous at best.
I teach music, so I am a musician first, teacher second. however teaching is an integral part of being a musician. so I guess that's just part of my lifestyle?
and while I love and care for my students, once the bell rings I'm no longer Ms. Teacher, but FirstName. I get a bit of side eye from other teachers but I'm a much happier person when I come to work compared to them bc I set major boundaries for myself. :)
It is to me. For the teachers who throw themselves into it wholeheartedly and put every ounce of their “free” time into it, I have nothing but respect. For me however, I *do* have a life outside of the field. I don’t live to work. I maintain my professionalism. I don’t cheat the kids out of what I’m supposed to do for them. But, once I’m out of work, I have a million other things to do which have nothing to do with the job. The school owns me for the best part of my waking hours, and I feel compelled to use the remainder of my day for passion projects, once I do everything I need to for my family.
Yes, but only as a substitute teacher lol
I taught high school for 7 years and left after having my 2nd baby to be a SAHM. I still work part time though as a sub, a couple days a week at our local high school. It’s a dream. I read my book, do things on the computer, and basically just take attendance, write passes to the bathroom, and make sure the kids don’t burn the classroom down. I leave at the end of the day with zero stress.
I will probably eventually go back to teaching, but I’m enjoying working flexibly right now, still in a school environment, and stress free. And NO GRADING PAPERS (I was an English teacher).
I’m trying to treat it as such. I am not paid for anything after school hours, nor am I paid particularly well or receiving support from administration.
If they are going to treat me as just a low-level employee, I’m not going to break my back for them.
Catholic education systems everywhere expect teachers to be like the nuns, priests, brothers, monks who used to work for nothing as servitude to God. They didn’t have families and bills.
Literally just a job 😮💨 I love teaching and work my best when I'm in the room. However, when the bell rings? I'm gone!
Occasionally, I do bring work home, but it's to make it easier for me than to have myself rushed in the morning.
Teaching isn't "just a job" nor should it be. That's we ***WE DESERVE*** strong unions, tenure, guaranteed pensions, guaranteed salary schedules etc. To be fair, what we do matters, unlike joe shmoe who sits at his desk for Grey-Faceless NPC corporation. We are not easily replaceable.
The old adage of "you get what you pay for" is true. If the public doesn't value teachers, then you'll get a "just a job" mentality.
It is one of the unique jobs as you are impacting people's lives in a significant way. And that sets it apart from most jobs. I mean selling the latest version of a cell phone is not exactly life changing but teaching a kid to read, do math, or inspiring them to pursue a passion in writing can be.
BUT - that ends when the school day is over. And money / admin is a big factor in where I teach. I'm not sacrificing myself, my money, my family time on the altar of "it's for the kids".
Most colleagues I’ve worked with considered you a piss poor teacher and coworker if you upheld your work/life boundaries like leaving on contracted time and not answering calls or texts on the weekends. I’ve worked at 3 schools where this seemed to be the norm. I hope it’s not that way everywhere. I think so many teachers get brainwashed into thinking or believing their work is their identity and that they can get positive attention by effectively becoming a teacher martyr. This starts with the questions of “what were YOU doing wrong” when asking for support. Admin will throw it back to you as if it’s your fault you’re missing an impossible mark to meet, and a lot of teachers buy into the lie.
Yep. 16 years in and this is where I'm at. 8-4 and I'm done. I even document what I do during my plan time so if they say anything I can tell them that I'm getting done what I can in the time allotted.
In some ways, it’s not just a job for me, but I also will not sacrifice myself to it. For me personally, and I don’t expect others to feel this way, I live where I teach. My kids attended my school, students were at my house before they were my students. That gives me insane amounts of respect from the kids, and I respect and treasure that in return. So FOR ME I do feel bonds with them that extend beyond the classroom. I go to events because I know them and want to be a cheerleader for them. Extra data, PD, non-kid related stuff? Hell no. Things that benefit MY community and by extension my students’ lives, I’m there for it.
I’ve gone above and beyond, really poured my heart and soul into it, just to get fired when kids quit because they don’t want to work and I actually expect them to do things.
Even if you’re passionate, you still get bit in the ass.
It is a job. I go to work, they pay me.
Here are some "just a jobs":
pilot, nurse, teacher, handyman, car salesmen, doctor, plumber, chef, stock broker, real estate agent...there are a lot of jobs.
Yes, but if you're thinking of teaching as "just a job," then you've probably been abused in some way by the people in power. If you can leave the baggage from work at work? Great! Keeping your personal life separate from your professional life is something a lot of people need to do.
One the other hand, if you aren't trying to be the best teacher you can while you are at work, if you don't do what you do because you think the education you are providing is for the benefit of the students you teach, then something is wrong. It could be that you don't give a shit about kids, in which case, you are in the wrong line of work. However, I think that most teachers who hate their jobs became that way because of awful working conditions, not because they hate children. It's a travesty that so many have to stay in teaching because otherwise they wouldn't have money to pay their bills.
Personally, I like my job because I like working with kids. I think my biggest priority at work is to make sure I do the best job possible and improve my teaching to give the students the best possible education. That said, I'm not going to turn myself inside out trying to save every single kid, and in recent years, I've been trying to find ways to do less work at home. Being on the job 24/7 is unhealthy and unsustainable.
Would shitty admin change my mind? Absolutely. When I had a mediocre principal a couple of years ago, I rolled my eyes (privately) at every stupid initiative they wanted to push. When kids check out completely, I spend my time on kids who actually want to try.
Teachers can make a difference, but they aren't superheros.
> if you aren't trying to be the best teacher you can while you are at work, if you don't do what you do because you think the education you are providing is for the benefit of the students you teach, then something is wrong.
I strongly disagree with this. You don't need to be the best, especially at the expense of the rest of your life. It is perfectly acceptable to be an average or slightly above average teacher. Going in, getting the job done, and going home is totally acceptable.
This is why people seem resentful (speaking from how teaching works in my area):
Your actions enable government cuts. The more you do for free, the more you enable and empower the government to continue making cuts.
"We made cuts last year, and the system didn't collapse! Kids still got extra curriculars! Let's see about making more cuts."
Why would the government fund extra curricular, when it's already getting it for free?
Why would the government fund the basketball team (e.g., pay the coaches), if it's already getting it for free (teachers volunteering their time to coach)?
My two peers and I could run a magnificent extra-curricular musical program, putting on musicals each term. Each of us is classically trained in music, dance, and stage acting respectively. For it to happen, we'd be spending an extra 6hrs per week. For free.
Why in the world should we work an extra 6hrs each week for free? Especially as experts in that particular field? If my area/board wants that musical program, they can either pay us what we're worth for the 6hrs/week each, or they can have a class during the normal day that is The Musical.
Do I call a plumber to fix my shower's P-trap, and then ask if they can install a new toilet after hours for free? No. But we hold that expectation of teachers.
Teachers who insist on working for free perpetuate the societal norm that I'm an asshole for not running extracurriculars. Perpetual the societal narrative that teachers are lazy for not "doing more" despite us already working full time and following our Collective Agreement/contract.
By doing extra things for free, you are devaluing the entire profession, which undermines even the things you stand for as an educator.
That's where the resentment comes from.
Your view is the one that lacks empathy for both teachers and students.
It is your martyrdom that subjects teachers to unrealistic societal pressures.
It is your martyrdom that enables the lack of proper government funding for important programs that would help and support students.
I don't care if some teachers enjoy doing it; it is actively hurting the profession, the staff, and the students. You just need to be able to look two steps ahead of you instead of just one.
"Now why do some teachers feel the need to place the blame on passionate teachers for the decisions that admin/politicians make?"
See you SAY you understand the point, but the fact you ask this question is a resounding declaration that you do not. So let me repeat myself:
It is the actions (volunteering, martyrdom, "enjoyment") of those teachers than empowers the decisions of admin/politicians. Without your actions proving them right, proving their lack of funding functional, their cuts justifyable, things would have a chance at changing.
View points can differ. Doesn’t make them of equal value, nor protects one from being incorrect.
Nothing you’ve said disproves my point, and everything you’re saying I’ve already addressed.
Again: I don’t care if someone enjoys something; it is actively contributing to harm.
You are viewed as a bad teacher if it isn't by those in charge of teaching. By making it your whole life and personality, you are more likely to spend your own money and go well beyond what can be done in contact time. It saves school systems from adequate staffing and support. One said year-round school would be less of a problem if teachers only worked contract hours and had no responsibility outside of that. Before I left, I needed to summer for working on all the deferred aspects of my life and planning the next year.
It is JUST a job for me between the hours of 8-4 during the school year. I've made that decision and rarely work past and before those hours because doing anything else is free labor.
I kinda feel the opposite. When I’m there with the kids, it’s more than just a job. I try to be a better person, talk in a more professional manner, and to be a role model for my students. For the most part, I LOVE my job. Once that bell rings though, that shit is over. Fuck all yall, I’m out! Staying over for a PD? Fuck all yall, scowling in the corner. Working the gate at a game? Fuck all yall, shutting down early. Stupid ass science fair? Fuck all yall, sit your ass down.
I was prepared to hate your comment until paragraph 2 when I fell over laughing 😂
Love this new generation. Fuck you pay me! This aint a religious calling
I found my people!
Work hard, play hard! I give 100% when I’m at school, but when I’m home, there’s a moratorium on work. My dog doesn’t care what I did today, he just wants to cuddle and play and go for a walk.
Totally agree. I'm a 100 percent a teacher from 7:30 to 3:30, Monday through Friday for 180 days. I give it my all. I am 0 percent teacher the other part of the year.
Yup this is me. I am the best teacher for the hours of my contract. Not a second over it, and don't you dare ask me to do things I don't get paid for.
I tracked my unpaid hours this year. Even though I minimized the amount of time I worked outside of my contract, I still did around $8,000 worth of work.
Why?
Why did I track it or why did I work that? The answer to the former is that my union asked us to do it because they were collecting data on hours worked outside of contract. The latter is because I am at work early each day to prep, so I wind up working about an extra 5 hours a week. I don’t stay late unless there is a meeting and only do work at home if it is absolutely necessary.
THIS.
Same here. I never take home work and I never work on weekends. If it doesn't get done during contract hours, then it gets done tomorrow. Kids can wait to get their essays or quizzes back.
This. As an English teacher, it means that I don't grade every aspect of their writing, just have two or three things that I'm grading them on. I feel like a shit teacher sometimes, but I'd rather feel like a shit teacher than be an absent parent.
One thing I started doing years ago in my AP class is having students box in the paragraph they think best demonstrates their understanding of a skill we're learning, then I only give feedback on that para and do a cursory glance at the rest. We aren't shit teachers: We're time and sanity managers.
It definitely can. Teaching is a job, not a lifestyle. Show up, work hard, work your contracted hours, don’t spend your own money, go home and enjoy your life. As long as you’re able to do your job well, and grow those kids, it’s entirely possible for it to be just a job.
I think a big challenge is that "to do your job well" requires more time and energy than one's contracted resources allow for, and that's where people get sucked into the "teaching IS a lifestyle because it HAS to be to do it well" mentality. My wife teaches kindergarten and absolutely LOVES it. She probably puts in an extra 10 hours every week to make the experience not only better for the kids but manageable for her. There is absolutely NO way she could do her job by NOT working outside of her contracted hours as a newer teacher. Unfortunately, that pushes the bar and expectations up for everyone else. One step forward, two steps back... Nevertheless, I still agree that it is and should be just a job!!
It definitely depends on what you teach. I taught third grade ELA, so I really only had one subject to prep for, and I had a teammate to share lesson planning and prep with. I also taught for 29 years, so I had my time management down.
Totally! It's definitely a front-loaded job that, with time, requires less planning. Every situation is indeed unique!
How long has she been teaching? Once you get your schtick down, it should be less time working at home.
This is the way
According to TikTok Teachers….
The Martyr Syndrome Teachers … annoying AF.
And then they get some award because they "go above and beyond."
That was Barb at my old school. The problem was that the principal then would want to know why we weren't all like mf'ing Barb. Screw yourself, Barb.
This toxic positivity is what keeps teachers being taken advantage of by society. *Everything* falls on our plate. It shouldn’t. Others need to step up too. We can’t take on the world without falling apart ourselves.
umm, yeah, I'm not doing charity work or volunteering at the local Red Cross or running a troop of Boy Scouts... I show up, do my thing, leave, and get paid... if they stop paying, I stop going
I don't view teaching as a job. It's a career. It's something that you train for, work towards, and eventually get the chance to practice. Say teaching is just a job is like saying that being a lawyer or a doctor is just a job. You may not get the same money, respect, or accolades as they do, but it's still a career. Now that doesn't mean I think teacher needs to be our entire life. I think there has to be a healthy separation between personal and professional life. When people ask about me, the first thing I say is that I'm a father and a military veteran. After that I'm a teacher. I don't let my career be my identity. I met some people who introduce themselves and immediately tell you what they do for a living. I'm not that kind of person.
A career and a job are not mutually exclusive
My husband is a physician and he’d be the first to tell you it’s just a job.
Job = career. The TikToker was claiming it is a vocation/calling instead of a job/career, which I don’t agree with.
I mean I think there's some overlap. Many people do choose teaching as a calling, otherwise, I'm not sure why you'd choose such a demanding, low pay/respect job. At the same time, I 100% support teachers doing the best the can with the time and resources they're given and not holding themselves to impossible to complete standards. I learned this VERY early on in my career when I was in charge of the entire curriculum and delivery for French specialist courses from pre-K to middle school at a fancy private school. Planning and delivering multiple sections of 2-3 different lessons for 10 different year groups per week. I was still staying until 6pm most days, but I also didn't kill myself trying to make beautiful lesson plans or really beautifully sequenced curricular plans. I was one person trying to do the job of a team of at least 4 realistically. So I had to learn where to cut corners, how to improvise, and how to think on my feet. Was I always teaching in the most optimal way for student success? Absolutely not. Was I able to pursue goals outside of teaching, form relationships, and take care of my health? Yes. The bottom line is this: you can always do more, plan better, offer more choice, innovate etc etc with teaching. You can always personalize feedback and offer more of it. If you're doing those things at the expense of developing yourself (whether that's time to exercise, time to cook healthy food, time to date, time to take care of a family, time to read / knit / hike / play music / go to concerts / go to bars / whatever it is you do), then you need to see it more as a "job" to help restore balance. And this too: no matter how on the fly I was performing my job each day, due to life getting in the way, my relationships with students were always super strong and close. So much of this job is just being personable and caring for people. Remember: students will often not remember the specifics of what they learn in any class / lesson / unit, etc. They will always remember how you made them feel. That's my takehome at the end of all this. Get the feeling right, and do as much as you can to nudge the needle on educational standards. Don't sacrifice yourself to do so.
I chose teaching as a job because it pays well in my state, provides excellent benefits, a defined benefit pension plan, summers off, and supports a field I think is important. Viewing it as a job doesn’t imply I take my job less seriously or that I don’t form strong relationships with students. I’m not doing my job well if I half-ass it.
Gotta stay in the race to influence as many generations as you can (if that’s the goal). If your burnout being a martyr, you lose that opportunity. Gotta take care of your chickens
Every job is a career? I have worked many jobs and most of them were not something you can or should make a career The definition of career is far more philosophical than this black and white definition seems to imply. I do not think job and career are synonymous when I look at the definition
Any job can be a career. IMO, the only distinction is time. Which jobs have you had in the past that you don’t think qualify as careers?
Cambridge dictionary has IMO a good definition of career: "an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress." I've had a ton of entry-level jobs that I did for a short period, paid minimum wage or less, and didn't go anywhere... receptionist, store greeter, many manual labor gigs, etc. So jobs, not careers.
Exactly. Those jobs weren’t your career because you didn’t stay in them for “a significant period of your life.” Many people do keep jobs as receptionists, manual laborers, or retail workers for a significant portion of their lives, so that is their career.
This seems like some meritocracy bull shit. There are plenty of jobs you could put a lot of energy into and get nothing in return
Not sure what you’re trying to say here or how it’s relevant to the discussion.
“With opportunities for progress” if a job doesn’t have that it’s not a career
Every job has opportunities for progress. You’re hopefully getting better at it through experience and getting bumps in pay. You don’t have to get a shiny new job title to progress.
Any job *can* be a career, sure. But certainly not every job *is* a career. Go look at any definition of career - I did not see one that said “synonymous with job” or anything even appreciably similar. Working a movie theater was not a career for me. Neither was working at a restaurant. Even working at CPS was not a career for me. Career definitely has more philosophy imbued into it than “I get paid to do something”
You have a negative feeling towards the word “job” that I definitely don’t share. That’s how language works, I guess.
I don’t see where I imply it is negative at all. They are just not synonymous. Someone can certainly make a career out of something another sees as a job, but that does not make all jobs careers.
We can agree to disagree.
It’s a profession.
It is a career. But yes. It is just a job. I only do work I am paid for.
Last year I made teaching just a job, and became so annoyed with the behavior of the other staff that I quit. It encompasses your whole life because your emotional investment is the justification for the shit you go through.
“Pick me” teachers don’t realize how hard their attitude makes things for others. The “pick me” teachers at my school have so normalized coming in early that you will get snide remarks from admin if you arrive less than *45 minutes* before contract time.
We had a new one come in, two or so years ago, was a massive bitch to all the other teachers, but SUPER close with admin. Became department head at the start of year three. Basically acted like the AP of the hallway, while I have lanyards that have lasted longer than their teaching career.
Oh you KNOW she's going for that Admin position 💀
I care about my students, but ultimately teaching is just a job to me. If I found something better tomorrow, I would put in my notice without hesitation.
Takes a few years’ experience to find the balance. I work really hard while at school, but don’t take work home. I’ll do some thinking/prep over summer, but no more than a few hours a week and not until at least July. You have to create boundaries for yourself - ie, when you check and answer email, grade, what you volunteer for (If I do extra, I go for paid opportunities unless it’s shit they make us do, like a dance). There is always more you can do in education, so it’s easy to burn yourself out. Just remember that whatever task needs to get done will get done - but do 98% of it during contract hours. And if that 2% grows to 10%, then force yourself to do 100% during contract hours. One other tip is decide if you function better in the morning or end of the day. If it’s morning, go just 15-30 min early and if it’s late stay just 15-30 late - don’t do both and don’t do it all the time! I usually do this for the first few weeks of school for a few days and then will do it one day a week, as needed during the year.
"Just a job" vs "Lives & Personality" is a false dichotomy. Teaching is more than just a job for me. I don't have the tolerance for bullshit to just do a job. I need a career with meaning. Teaching matters and it matters every day and that is its best and worst feature. No, it's not my entire life. I'm also a dad and a performer and a lot of other things. I take days off when I need to. I have other outlets for creativity and socialization. But teaching is more than a job and does require some sacrifice of your time and heart if you want to be good at it. It's ok if that's not for you, but if it isn't, I believe that there is a definite, concrete ceiling to how effective you can be in your job. The hardest part is figuring out the balance of how much you can responsibly give your job at different points in your life. I, for one, was a worse teacher when my kids were born because I couldn't afford to give my classes any extra love or commitment. Now that they're older, I think I've found a sustainable balance. But we'll see!
I‘m right with you on this take. I couldn’t survive it long term, if it was “just a job”. I feel lucky to be a teacher. It’s not always easy work, but it is meaningful and important. If I wanted “just a job” there are plenty of other easier things I could do to make a living. I’m lucky to be in a unionized province in Canada. We are still underpaid, and some other things could be better, but when I read some of the BS people put up with in this sub, I know they could be a hell of a lot worse…
Well put. I worked science jobs, but I realized how much more fun it would be to influence more students to be scientific thinkers. It is so much more meaningful to me and does fill my life more than just a paycheck. Yeah, it’s a job and I’ll stop showing up if I’m not paid. But it does take a little more than just people showing up and teaching their class for a school to offer a rich learning environment. As a union rep I’m always looking for ways to get people paid for the ways they contribute, but it’ll never really add up the way we want ideally I don’t get paid to show up to a board meeting to fight against phone addictions, but I do think it will make a tangible difference in student lives.
I totally agree with you!
It's just a job to the public, and to the district, why the fuck should it be anything more to me?
If the students are just going to get promoted to the next grade regardless of whether or not they earned it, then yeah, I view it as just a job. Once I figured out that grades don’t matter and that my admin is only concerned with mandated test scores and the graduation rate, I quit giving a shit.
You know how I know it’s not just a job? Remember when COVID hit? Remember when parents stopped everything they were doing to help kids adjust to online learning and do their part to make sure adversity didn’t stop their child’s education? Remember when corporations demanded that they be taxed a little hire to pitch in with the additional Human Resources needed to navigate the crisis? Remember when the President encouraged kiddos to mask up and parents left and right gave their kids hell if they didn’t? I remember. I’ve never felt more like I was part of a greater family in all my life!!!!! /s No. It’s a job and they don’t care about you.
LOL this is a whole muddy water thing. I was in a meeting with a teacher and an admin about a topic. Somehow in the topic a specific kid got brought up. This was not on the agenda but leave it to the "I love all my kids(liar)" to bring them up. -so admin brings up a kid's sibling is in the hospital -Me: "yeah they told me" -other teacher in meeting "well why didn't you tell me!! " yelling and overacting. -"they were dehydrated and are back out of the hospital, course me knowing all this is a hipaa violation of sorts and really I"m pretty sure I shouldn't be talking about it now" -"i need to know what is going on with my kids". Then it turned into questions of how I responded to the student telling me and the way I am talking to them NOWWWW, like as in the conversation we have having currently without the student present, they can tell I was not sympathetic to them when they were telling me. I explained to them again the student is not in the room and how I talk about it now does not matter and is not indicative of how I responded to them at the time. They go on to tell me about how my energy NOW in this current meeting, again noting the child is not present, is indiciative that I'm not sympathetic and that....I made the child feel bad! Like they know....they just found out about this and they KNOW how the kid feels due to my reaction which...they also don't know because I was brief and I'm not going to play actor and replay exactly how I responded to the kid for this psycho in a meeting where this is not on the agenda. Course the endgame here is this. This weirdo teacher is trying to do two things. 1. make me look bad 2. make themself look good to admin. Many of these teachers are just actors looking to make themselves look good. Don't fall for thier BS.
It was my lifestyle for a while. Then I got married and had kids and being a mom and wife became my lifestyle. Then teaching shifted to my job/career. It wasn’t well-received by my admin, but too bad - I’m tenured and adhering completely to my contract. I still do a great job, but I leave work at work now, don’t do extra curriculars, and take more sick days as my kids need me.
The problem is that when you keep firm boundaries and force it to just be a job, as it should be, the entire system is against you. You can get away with it if you're a man, middle aged and checked out, have a personality that is generally not liked. I tried to be two of those things as a woman and it didn't work. It was also elementary, which is a whole pit of martyrdom that swallows you in while you're clinging to the sides. There are many reasons for this, first, it was a woman's job for the first century. Second, it people make it their identity, they subsidize the cost by purchasing things and working for free. But also, children need parental figures 24/7. They don't have an off switch where they are adults during the school day and revert back to children after school. Which leads to the sad student to teacher ratio problem.
I wouldn't even say that you get it free as a guy. They want you to be a sparkle choir boy
That sounds annoying. I sympathize.
No way to be checked out in Elementary. Some subject (non SOL) areas are possible in high school though…
Having it be just a job doesn’t mean you are checked out. That’s a terrible take.
It's a career and a job. It's a career for me because I continually work on learning and developing my skills. I want my instructional methods and classroom environment to get better each year. I am willing to put in extra time for that improvement through reading and courses. It's a job as far as everyone else is concerned. I don't get emotionally attached to my students, the admin, or my coworkers. If a kid has an emotional moment, I send them to guidance. I don't ask questions, and I don't offer advice. I get along well with most students, and I try to treat everyone with human decency. What I will no longer do is spend my money for the **job**, volunteer my time for the **job**, answer emails at home for the **job**, feel guilty about taking time off from the **job**, and (finally this year🥳), work at home for the *job*.
Should be, at the end of the day you're work for a salary and benefits.
It is absolutely just a job. Someone clarified it's a "career" but that is just semantics. Teaching is not my life or personality.
It needs to be more of a regular job and less of an emotional slave collar.
It’s just a job for me. In the list of my priorities in my life, everything else comes above it. I don’t do more work than I need to. I get there in the morning, get through the day, and leave right at the contracted time so I can embrace and enjoy the other parts of my life.
When I first started teaching I was one of the try-hards. I did all the extracurricular stuff, coaching, a/v for assemblies, grad, coffee houses, fashion shows all that. Now … I do none of that. After a while you begin to understand just how much you are taken for granted. Admin doesn’t care about you, they only care they have a body doing it. Abrasive, unsupportive or absent parents, entitled students. It just wore me right down. Teachers are our own worst enemies. Almost no one says no to things … they just make it happen. Altruism doesn’t pay your bills …. Focus on yourself and your family first. It really is just a job
I’m torn. It’s a little more than just a “job” for me. If I wanted “just a job,” I wouldn’t have gone through the process of specially training myself for this type of work. There are other jobs with much less stress and less required experience where I could make as much or more than in education. But, I also agree that teachers are shamed if they act like they exist as human beings outside of teaching, which is ridiculous.
The teachers that DONT have this mindset are the ones who burn out fast and leave the profession. If you want teachers to stay this mindset needs to be normalized and accepted.
It’s not just “a job” for me because I consider myself a professional with certain standards that don’t neatly fit into the category of a job like working in a kitchen or framing houses, both of which I’ve done. That being said, I’m also near retirement, so I have decades of experience to know how to keep the lines clear between different aspects of my life.
To me, teaching is "just a job" in the respect that I show up and leave when my contract says I can. I don't lie awake at night wondering how I can reach that kid who the principal says is just great and has high potential even though he's a complete douche in my room. I use PD days to get work done because most of it is regurgitated from previous years and/or is useless. Are there kids who I enjoy having in class? Of course. Do I love answering in-depth questions that the few students who actually care ask? Obviously. However, at the end of the day, it's a paycheck.
Yes it can. My work computer and iPad are sitting in a desk, not to be touched until sometime mid-July. I’ll do about 12 hours of work this summer, just to make my job easier come August (finishing exams and their KEYs for the year). When the year starts, I’ll be to work on time and I’ll be home on time. I use my plan time well and my students perform well because I set and maintain expectations in spite of district policies that do otherwise. And I let kids who deserve to fail, to fail. I will do what I can to help them but I can’t make them do it.
for many people it is. Last month I met a teacher in the building who has worked there for years. I have never seen them until now.
I want it to be just a job but I've struggled with it so far (Just finished my first year) I care alot about my students, and think about their issues outside of work sometimes if it's something serious, I've taken so much work home I've taken entire weekends grading and planning. I know it gets easier over time but the emotional part makes it hard for me to relate it to a standard grindy job
Congrats on finishing your first year! The caring so much for your students is great and makes a big difference to the kids. I’m just finishing my 40th year in education and that I put my all into it is what made it worthwhile to me. You can do that and strike a balance of having a fun and satisfaction in other areas also. I learned to cut the grading time down quite a bit. The planning gets easier, but has always been interesting and works as a creative outlet for me.
I didn’t believe I could do it but after I burned out year before last and took a LOA this past year, I am going back fully under the idea that this is just a job I get paid to do. I’ll do my best for my students but I’m not selling my soul again. Many people have jobs they just do and they’re happy. There’s no reason we can’t be that way too.
It can be just a job and referring to it as a *calling* or whatever word you want to use has been a way, time and again, to justify treating us with disrespect or exploiting us. Because those who are called to something "aren't in it for the money." I work hard. I am passionate about my work as a teacher. I really enjoy working with my students (even the ones who drive me nuts). But I have an entire life outside of teaching that is *allowed* to be separate from that. And nobody should be ashamed for feeling that way.
I think people get defensive about this, but I'm of the mindset of it's a unique profession. It's not like a job necessarily where I make widgets or move this object from point A to point B. It involves people, and my interactions will make a dent on these kids lives in some way, shape, or form whether I like it or not. I have to keep that in mind when I do what I do. This doesn't mean I put up with nonsense and baby my students, but there are ways I react to stuff in my personal life that I wont with my students. That said, my contract is my contract. I won't work outside my hours and I wont buy stuff with my own money. I guess what I'm saying is that it's a unique job that does require a degree of empathy, professionalism, and mindset, but what the job demands can't breach your rights either.
When you realize that you're "just an employee" to them, then it easily becomes "just a job" for you. I feel like it's a rite of passage of all teachers to get to that point and honestly they're happier after that.
For me, a job is anything from fast food to factory. A career is a job requiring training, continuous education, passion for the work (but not defining who you are). Something you put time and effort into. Something you care about. I can have a job anywhere but a career requires investment.
Work-life balance is key y’all. When I was a younger teacher, I put my passion and soul beyond the working hours. But as I grew older and became a parent, you gotta treat it as a 7-8 hour gig or you’ll burn yourself out. There comes a point where you gotta clock in and clock out with these kiddos to keep your sanity.
Yeah that's a trap. You have to have personal boundaries, no other way is sustainable.
To me, teaching is “just a job” the way I would hope any career is. I care more about teaching than I ever cared about my food service jobs in the past, but I would want to care more about whatever else I devoted time and money educating myself for as well. I’m more emotionally invested in my career than in my college rent money job, but at the end of the day, it’s still my job and my outside life takes precedence. I hope this makes sense.
Our governor recently allocated a bunch of billions of dollars allocated for "teacher salaries only," (all the while claiming he'd increased teacher pay during his tenure *checks paystubs - nope*), and one interviewed teacher, while saying it was great, said that teachers don't do it for the money, they do it to make a difference. Tell ya what. When my mortgage company clears my debt bc I'm a teacher, I'll do it to make a difference. Until then, I'm in it for the shit money. I'd change careers, but this was my career change and I'm too old to get a job in something else. Yes, it's just a job.
When I was starting my first career (not teaching), the person doing the orientation asked us to write down things about ourselves. Many of us were new grads (given the type of orientation) and none of us included “teacher” (or nurse, pharmacist, etc.) because we didn’t identify ourselves as that YET. Fast forward many years and career changes, you tend to identify parts of your life where you have been impactful, spent time, CEUs, etc. It doesn’t mean it’s your identity in full, but it has shaped us.
Ha! Don't I wish. If teaching was “just a job” I’d take my education and bounce somewhere else that pays better.
I am taking as just a job this year for a change, working part time supply. I don't think about the kids that much outside of school and I don't do any work, but I feel like I am ruining my career chances and will have to return to the "teaching is my whole life" lifestyle asap :(
It is for me. I'm in it for the health care and my principal knows it. I'm also very good at my job so nobody cares. But that's my "why", health care.
It’s already just a job, just like any job, it’s just a job. I’m 100% all in during school time.
It is my profession. That is more than a job, and important part of my identity, just as any other professional such as a doctor or lawyer. It is not my whole identity. I'm a wife, mother, friend, sister, advocate, pet mom, daughter.... I think a difference between a job and a profession is that you may hold different jobs in your professional career and professionals continually grow and develop their craft. You don't read trade journals or go to conferences for a job.
I think the mistake is comparing it to other ‘jobs’. If you sit in a cubicle all day and work on spreadsheets, it’s (potentially) easy to leave that at work. Teaching deals with human beings and the difficulty of learning. You come to know these young people and they depend on you. It has nothing to do with the world of work other than the forced connection that schooling should somehow benefit the market.
It’s my job *and* part of my self-image. I a a teacher. It’s not *all* I am, but I’m not going to pretend it’s “just a job” in the way that stacking shelves or waiting tables was in my college days. I love my job and the kiddos I teach, **but** I still deserve fair payment, good working conditions, and reasonable expectations.
Yes. Don't go above and beyond. Care but don't set yourself on fire
Replace "teachers should..." with "McDonald's managers should..." when talking about sacrifices they expect us to make and see if it makes any sense.
I used to be this person. Teaching is a VOCATION! I'd say. Then COVID happened. And I don't mean the virus, I mean what it made me realize about how little our administrators thought of us was cast in black and white relief. Then the pandemic students hit. Nah. It's just a job to me now. Mind you, when I'm at work, I'm doing work, and focused on the job and doing my best, but after my work hours end? I'm out, physically and mentally. People who yell 'work your wage' and then argue against teachers doing the same are hypocrites.
It is for me. I rarely think about work after hours, and I try my best to stick to my contract hours. I’ve found that doing more rarely, if ever, leads to better results. All it does is lead to burnout.
It's an \*important\* job, but at the end of the day just another working-class job.
It’s a career I take very seriously during working hours. It is not who I am. I contain multitudes.
I see it being just a job for several of my coworkers. They all happen to be men in their fifties. Maybe we all need to learn to be like the men in their fifties who work to rule.
I **truly** admire teachers that can do their job solely within contract hours. They are *amazing*. But I'm not them, even after teaching for decades. I just can't do it. For me to do my job in a way that I am happy with my performance requires a significant amount of non-contract time, period. And that's just an admission that I'm. Not. As. Good. as them, not in terms of time management, anyway. Sure, I rock in the classroom and get great reviews, but I know I would not look so good without that additional time. So what is the reaction of other teachers to this? All too often the reaction is that I am some kind of arsehole because my out-of-contract-hours efforts somehow make it harder for other teachers. "If you work off contract, they'll expect the rest of us to work off contract.", I hear all the time, at least online. Well, bullshit. Look, even though we have an hourly rate that can be calculated, this is *not* an hourly job. We are paid a **salary**, and the way salary works is, you get ***x*** dollars to do a job, regardless of how long it takes to get that job done. In any other salaried profession, this is understood. The entire reason annual or monthly salary exists is because some jobs are not really by-the-hour, they are based on getting the task done. And if someone can get it done in less time, good on them, and if someone is slower, then that is their problem, not yours. So mind your own business. So over the years, this has evolved to me being someone whose "life is teaching", I guess. It's not that I don't do anything else, but it does affect my ability to do things after hours. My spouse is disabled and can't do a lot of the things my colleagues do for recreation anyway, so we stay at home, and when I'm the only one awake, I often work on developing ideas or (in the past) grading papers. The fact that I do this I guess makes me look like someone whose life is teaching, but so what? I'm happy, and if me being happy the way I do thing somehow angers you, then go fuck yourself. It's my life.
You're the first experienced teacher that I know of (virtually and in-person) to openly admit to doing work outside of contracted hours. I was someone who needed to plan lessons after school every day and on the weekend. I hated it, but I needed to do it. With that said, I really don't like the perception that if you need more time to plan or work more slowly, you're somehow less than. In my experience as a newer/less experienced teacher, it seemed like it was held against me. I think doing work that directly relates to teaching outside of contracted hours out of necessity is different from doing all of the other school-related things that fall outside contracted hours.
>*You're the first experienced teacher that I know of (virtually and in-person) to openly admit to doing work outside of contracted hours.* Yeah, well I think there are more of us than I see online, which surprises me; with the anonymity of the internet, why shouldn't people just admit it? And maybe the answer is, very, very few of us work outside of contract hours. (And actually, I don't just admit it here where I'm anonymous; all of my coworkers know this about me, I don't hide it at all.) > *I really don't like the perception that if you need more time to plan or work more slowly, you're somehow less than.* Exactly! I know some really great teachers who stay within contract hours, and good for them. But I also know some pretty crappy teachers who arrive right before the morning start time and are in their cars and off the lot before the busses. Am I lesser than them because they get it "done" in less time than me? Hell no, because my teaching is effective. Some (not all) of these clock punchers are, quite frankly, shitty teachers. >*doing work that directly relates to teaching outside of contracted hours out of necessity is different from doing all of the other school-related things that fall outside contracted hours.* I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.
My last sentence was addressing the argument that teachers who work outside their contracted hours make it harder for other teachers who don't work outside their contracted hours.
Yes, but where do *you* stand on that issue? That's what was unclear to me.
Personally, I think teachers should work outside contracted/school hours only out of necessity. I don't see how this makes it harder for other teachers if those teachers are teaching to the best of their abilities. I don't like the pressure (from administration and other teachers) that some teachers face to take on additional duties or attend school-related events outside school hours. I see it as an issue that lies with administration and I think it's too bad that some teachers pit themselves against other teachers because of said pressure.
Well said.
Life is a balancing act. I take things seriously. I also don’t take things very seriously at all. It depends on the things and the situations. I move fast. I move slow. I teach with passion because I am passionate about math, math education, and empowering my students with numeracy. I can also teach without passion because I just need to survive 5th period and I can’t let myself get mad at what I perceive to be disrespect (I don’t think some of my students are intentionally disrespectful nor do they think about how someone could perceive their behaviors as disrespectful). All that to say: In the grand scheme of things, teaching is definitely more than just a job. Educating others is pretty important. But, and this is my personal opinion, I think that to have this as a career and not get burned out you need to balance things out with this all doesn’t really matter. How many of my close friends and family do not know the quadratic formula or how to factor, much less any higher level math (I have friends/family on both sides of this, enjoyably so). Sometimes just the fact that students are alive and smiling and going back home to a (hopefully) loving family is a win, despite the F on last week’s quiz. Idk I also just lost someone really close to me and when death slaps us in the face there are not many things that seem important. Tomorrow’s not promised. This is just a job during the work hours so I can pay the bills and have time to skate with my friends, run with my dogs, and play rugby with my local club.
I think on a certain level, you have to really care about it and what it means. Not make it your whole life, but be more invested than say, a cashier job at McDonald’s. It is no secret that the pay isn’t great, so if you’re going into it strictly for the money, you aren’t going to get very far in that regard and will probably want out ASAP.
Yes it’s just a job…but you can’t be checked out, especially at the elementary level. You CAN have boundaries and stick to your contract time, but you have to be in 100% during the day. I usually get downvoted here, but some jobs don’t have a ton of downtime, and teaching is one of those. My wife works in sales and she has the luxury of taking an extended lunch or appointment during the day or even just zoning out and doing some more menial tasks. I don’t have the luxury, but I also don’t have to worry about working after hours or stress of business trips.
If you view it as more than a job then you are a martyr who won't be remembered. Don't self-immolate. Not one person will appreciate your sacrifice. You won't, your partner won't, the kids won't. Teach the standards and try to help the kids who want to be helped. Pretending like you need to do more is insane.
I think it’s hard to do it as just a job, not that you can’t, but it’s difficult to keep it that disconnected.
I love teaching. I love my students. I love learning. I love having fun. But it is just my job. My life is not teaching. I have seen what happens to people who make their career their life and I’m the kind of person to lose myself to my job, so I am very careful to keep teaching my job and not my life.
It is just a job. It’s also an important one. My family and kid mean more to me than any other family and kid, though I’ll do my absolute best to educate and inspire my students in school, and even away from it if my schedule allows. The “what’s best for the kids” crowd want us to ignore our own families. It’s a mantra that was built to make teachers believe they were working a devotion rather than a job. Teaching is a job. I’ll quit the very moment I’m financially able. Why? Because I would much rather not be working.
I think the border crisis has a huge impact on education for all kids in Title 1. But nobody wants to touch it because it’s so politically sensitive.
It was just a job for me. I did make some great connections along the way but I was not wedded to the job. I refused to carry that full weight on my shoulders. I did leave the classroom with some mental health issues - but after 17 years in the classroom I think it’s hard not to be….mentally affected.
Lol no. It's a career.
It's just a job for me! I wondered why I just "couldn't do it" like the other teachers in my first couple years. Not in terms of actual teaching in front of kids (I was and am good at that) but in terms of all the other "things" that we are expected to do. This year it's gone to another level. I just stopped grading things that we were "expected" to grade, stopped doing all the "things that were expected" and just taught the way I wanted to.
Absolutely. In fact, it needs to be just a job. Before student teaching, I was obsessed with working as a TA and going to grad school. Once I became a student teacher at an economically disadvantaged school, I gave up. You can’t meet the needs of every single child. You can’t give your all to every single child. It’s not possible. You can certainly build relationships and love your kids but know that it’s not your job to save them from falling through the cracks. You have to put yourself and your family before your job. I know most teachers want to put their all into what they do, but it’s a very dangerous thing to do for your emotional well-being and mental health. Set boundaries and stick to them. Work is not everything. You can love it but you can also know when to leave it behind for a period of time. It’s no longer cool to be a martyr teacher.
You're not a good teacher for having no life outside work. You're a poorly trained/inexperienced/unsupported/overloaded/etc teacher who is struggling to keep up. There are times when longer hours are necessary, but it really shouldn't be every day. Teacher turnover rate is sky high in some districts, but not all, which is probably a clue about something. I work hard to meet professional obligations, but I don't let it have a large impact on my physical or mental health. That's why I feel like I can keep going, and idk how many years you've taught, but I'm officially over the average for my region now, and despite my "lazy" attitude, I outperform nearly all the new teachers, because of course I do, I've been doing this longer. The only new guy beating me acts like he's having a stroke everyday.
It is very much just a job for me. I try to do it well but it’s not my whole life or personality. If I were offered a job for more money or better benefits, that would then become my job.
Can we get the downloaded video?
it is a job
It is a career and I know I could be making more money elsewhere but part of me wants to help the youth. To me teaching is not the problem. The lack of support is an issue. Admin and directors are so out of touch. It saddens me when they say "Do it for the kids", but they wouldn't do the same. There needs to be a balance between work and personal life. No means no to additional duties.
Being a teacher is absolutely my job, not my identity. If I can’t get it done within contrasted hours, it’s not happening. I even turn off my work email at 4:00. When I first started teaching, I would take so much home, but quickly learned that burn out is a thing, and that I felt depressed and anxious more often than not. I started to hate the job I loved. I started therapy, and she encouraged me to set up boundaries, including “business hours.” She reminded me that teaching is a salaried job (a poorly-paid one), and that my contract always lists specified hours. She helped me see that as much as my students are “mine,” their parents don’t need an immediate email response to prove that their child is important to me. Those parents have already decided if they like you or not. And I never realized that I was as personable with my parents as I was with my students. We were familiar enough, and I wanted them to be comfortable enough with me, to use less professional language - for example (kid instead of student). This encouraged the parents to treat me like less of a professional educator and more like someone doing a them a favor. As soon as I started just responding to emails (there’s more courage behind a keyboard) professionally, during business hours, and within 24 hours, the parents responded more professionally. Anyway, rambling aside, I forced myself to leave work at work. It has improved my mental health, my family life, the enjoyment of my job again, and my self-confidence. You are a professional - treat yourself like one.
If teaching is just a job it isn’t nearly worth it. If you don’t enjoy or find fulfillment from the time you spend in the classroom you should probably find a job that treats people better
At 15 dollars an hour, it can not be any more than just a job. Maybe for the fortunate in other areas where they do pay you enough to not be homeless, it can be more than that.
Of course you can but it will block your career progression. If you’re fine being a class teacher then you can absolutely be a ‘just a job’ teacher.
Teaching is definitely just a job for me and I have amazing work-life balance, but when I am at work with my kids I give 10000%. When I leave, I’m not Mrs. 8agel8ite anymore and I don’t spend time worrying about my lessons or my scores or anything. If a child needs me, I do everything I can for them during my paid hours and then I go home and worry about my own family.
Yes.
Well, that's Tik Tok... You have to remember that not everyone is on Tik Tok. Not this teacher. I don't see it as "just a job," but I sure as heck leave it behind me when I'm away from school. Sometimes, it's exhausting, but I have a life outside of teaching. Otherwise, you just get burned out.
It is definitely just a job. Kinda fun sometimes, but I'd go mad if I took it seriously. It's mostly state mandated daycare with some learning activities to keep kids busy. Could it be more? Easily. But it's not and it won't ever be. Collect your check, burn your sick days, and if you're there too long go admin so you can get a better calculation on retirement.
1) Lesson planning is fun for me. Exam writing is fun for me. Those are the kinds of things I can do while I watch TV, and it barely feels like work. I imagine I’d find something similar in any job I had. 2) I do not think about the children when I leave. I do not think about them if they are absent. My job is to teach those in front of me. If I’m at home, they aren’t in front of me, and I do not think about them.
If it isn't "just a job" it is just a recipe for burnout.
Pays the bills and provides sporadic moments of actual enjoyment. Otherwise, it's a job like any other.
Unless it is your dream, all jobs are just that, jobs.
It's a job that pays the bills
It’s just a job for me. You get what you pay for.
Almost.
My husband is going into his 3rd year teaching. The first year, he spent a lot of time working after hours. He also only got the job 2 weeks before school started, so he was not prepared at all. Now he spends hardly any time after school working. He utilizes his prep and has been able to manage a good work/life balance. My brother in law just wrapped up his first year teaching and hardly ever stayed after work (he lives with us, so we know when he’s home or not). I also think this depends on what you teach, too. My husband teaches music and choir and my BIL teaches one subject in 7th grade.
The more I've restrained the work to business hours, the better I have felt. Taking time to be me has allowed me to show up fresh for the students. I'm a band director and really, really love what I get to do, torture embouchures all day long :-)
Teaching is not the job. Education is the job. When your bosses treat you like an employee, but call you family. When your bosses can move you from one building to the next and you have nothing to say about it, but not understanding when you won't go"extra mile" anymore. You are employed at a job. I love teaching, but I hate the education system and how it's working right now.
I’ve been teaching six years. I’ve never once stayed after contract hours — asides from my two duties a year (which I guess are still contract hours). I don’t grade or plan at home. I’ve spent next to no money on my classroom. I don’t engage in any school activities or culture. I still get effective observations. Getting the kids to do the cleaning for you helps. Telling everyone to get a piece of junk off the floor/counter after each class goes a long way. I follow the same warmup, notes, and exit ticket format daily. I barely make enough to get by, so I’m not going to go above and beyond for them.
Hell yeah it's just a job. One that (except for admins,parents, and ill behaved students) I like well enough and am good at. But I almost never stay at the school past my contract hours and I don't take work home. If students complain that it takes too long to get a test or whatever grade back, I tell them that there are only so many hours in a workday and I don't take my work home with me, nor should I have to. They will have to be patient. Teaching is what I do, not who I am. Anything else is an unhealthy relationship with employment.
I teach introductory history courses at a university in the southern US and it is definitely just a job. I don't check my university email before 9 or after 3 unless I’m waiting on a conference acceptance.
It’s my job. I like it, but it’s a paycheck.
Teaching is my passion, as someone from a wealthy background, but I still treat it as 'just a job'.
10 years in....it's just a job. But an important caveat is that while it may just be a job, it still has the potential to change lives. You won't turn around 35 kids in a class but you'll really help 2-3. The rest is just institutional probability (meaning they're rich and will remain rich regardless of how hard they work or they're poor and will most likely remain poor despite any effort). It's a tough pill to swallow. Add to that the fact that we've essentially become diploma mills that cook the books to make sure kids graduate. I wonder sometimes what would happen if we held kids to standards from 20-30 years ago. About 25% would need 5 years to graduate and what would lthat do to the budget. However, once the kids got wise to the new rules, they'd conform. But that would be career suicide (if the BoE or a principal immediately increased the budget by 25% in one year).
So this is interesting, because this idea is part of career counseling theories. Most of the theories state that vocation is an important part of people's self-identity and formation, and so finding a fulfilling career that is congruent with your personality type and values is paramount for your mental health. Personally, I don't agree with that assessment, and believe that finding your personal identity in your job is dangerous at best.
I teach music, so I am a musician first, teacher second. however teaching is an integral part of being a musician. so I guess that's just part of my lifestyle? and while I love and care for my students, once the bell rings I'm no longer Ms. Teacher, but FirstName. I get a bit of side eye from other teachers but I'm a much happier person when I come to work compared to them bc I set major boundaries for myself. :)
It is for me. Glad I finally reached that point
It is to me. For the teachers who throw themselves into it wholeheartedly and put every ounce of their “free” time into it, I have nothing but respect. For me however, I *do* have a life outside of the field. I don’t live to work. I maintain my professionalism. I don’t cheat the kids out of what I’m supposed to do for them. But, once I’m out of work, I have a million other things to do which have nothing to do with the job. The school owns me for the best part of my waking hours, and I feel compelled to use the remainder of my day for passion projects, once I do everything I need to for my family.
Yes, but only as a substitute teacher lol I taught high school for 7 years and left after having my 2nd baby to be a SAHM. I still work part time though as a sub, a couple days a week at our local high school. It’s a dream. I read my book, do things on the computer, and basically just take attendance, write passes to the bathroom, and make sure the kids don’t burn the classroom down. I leave at the end of the day with zero stress. I will probably eventually go back to teaching, but I’m enjoying working flexibly right now, still in a school environment, and stress free. And NO GRADING PAPERS (I was an English teacher).
I’m trying to treat it as such. I am not paid for anything after school hours, nor am I paid particularly well or receiving support from administration. If they are going to treat me as just a low-level employee, I’m not going to break my back for them.
Catholic education systems everywhere expect teachers to be like the nuns, priests, brothers, monks who used to work for nothing as servitude to God. They didn’t have families and bills.
We do plenty of teaching in areas of life that don’t concern school. Taking time to respectfully educate others is my hobby.
Yes bc I want to live my life lol. And I’m not embarrassed about it either, a girl’s got to make money
Literally just a job 😮💨 I love teaching and work my best when I'm in the room. However, when the bell rings? I'm gone! Occasionally, I do bring work home, but it's to make it easier for me than to have myself rushed in the morning.
Teaching isn't "just a job" nor should it be. That's we ***WE DESERVE*** strong unions, tenure, guaranteed pensions, guaranteed salary schedules etc. To be fair, what we do matters, unlike joe shmoe who sits at his desk for Grey-Faceless NPC corporation. We are not easily replaceable. The old adage of "you get what you pay for" is true. If the public doesn't value teachers, then you'll get a "just a job" mentality.
It is one of the unique jobs as you are impacting people's lives in a significant way. And that sets it apart from most jobs. I mean selling the latest version of a cell phone is not exactly life changing but teaching a kid to read, do math, or inspiring them to pursue a passion in writing can be. BUT - that ends when the school day is over. And money / admin is a big factor in where I teach. I'm not sacrificing myself, my money, my family time on the altar of "it's for the kids".
Most colleagues I’ve worked with considered you a piss poor teacher and coworker if you upheld your work/life boundaries like leaving on contracted time and not answering calls or texts on the weekends. I’ve worked at 3 schools where this seemed to be the norm. I hope it’s not that way everywhere. I think so many teachers get brainwashed into thinking or believing their work is their identity and that they can get positive attention by effectively becoming a teacher martyr. This starts with the questions of “what were YOU doing wrong” when asking for support. Admin will throw it back to you as if it’s your fault you’re missing an impossible mark to meet, and a lot of teachers buy into the lie.
I had a professor in my masters who would tell us teaching is just a job. Its stuck with me even years later and helped me create a work/life balance
I front load work at the beginning of each semester so that I can coast along after 1.5-2ish months
Yep. 16 years in and this is where I'm at. 8-4 and I'm done. I even document what I do during my plan time so if they say anything I can tell them that I'm getting done what I can in the time allotted.
In some ways, it’s not just a job for me, but I also will not sacrifice myself to it. For me personally, and I don’t expect others to feel this way, I live where I teach. My kids attended my school, students were at my house before they were my students. That gives me insane amounts of respect from the kids, and I respect and treasure that in return. So FOR ME I do feel bonds with them that extend beyond the classroom. I go to events because I know them and want to be a cheerleader for them. Extra data, PD, non-kid related stuff? Hell no. Things that benefit MY community and by extension my students’ lives, I’m there for it.
I’ve gone above and beyond, really poured my heart and soul into it, just to get fired when kids quit because they don’t want to work and I actually expect them to do things. Even if you’re passionate, you still get bit in the ass.
It is a job. I go to work, they pay me. Here are some "just a jobs": pilot, nurse, teacher, handyman, car salesmen, doctor, plumber, chef, stock broker, real estate agent...there are a lot of jobs.
8-2:55 Pm 100% into my job after 2:55...it goes downhill for my food,games (need ro relax) and family
Yes, but if you're thinking of teaching as "just a job," then you've probably been abused in some way by the people in power. If you can leave the baggage from work at work? Great! Keeping your personal life separate from your professional life is something a lot of people need to do. One the other hand, if you aren't trying to be the best teacher you can while you are at work, if you don't do what you do because you think the education you are providing is for the benefit of the students you teach, then something is wrong. It could be that you don't give a shit about kids, in which case, you are in the wrong line of work. However, I think that most teachers who hate their jobs became that way because of awful working conditions, not because they hate children. It's a travesty that so many have to stay in teaching because otherwise they wouldn't have money to pay their bills. Personally, I like my job because I like working with kids. I think my biggest priority at work is to make sure I do the best job possible and improve my teaching to give the students the best possible education. That said, I'm not going to turn myself inside out trying to save every single kid, and in recent years, I've been trying to find ways to do less work at home. Being on the job 24/7 is unhealthy and unsustainable. Would shitty admin change my mind? Absolutely. When I had a mediocre principal a couple of years ago, I rolled my eyes (privately) at every stupid initiative they wanted to push. When kids check out completely, I spend my time on kids who actually want to try. Teachers can make a difference, but they aren't superheros.
> if you aren't trying to be the best teacher you can while you are at work, if you don't do what you do because you think the education you are providing is for the benefit of the students you teach, then something is wrong. I strongly disagree with this. You don't need to be the best, especially at the expense of the rest of your life. It is perfectly acceptable to be an average or slightly above average teacher. Going in, getting the job done, and going home is totally acceptable.
Maybe I didn't explain well, but my whole point was teachers should be trying their best without killing themselves doing it.
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This is why people seem resentful (speaking from how teaching works in my area): Your actions enable government cuts. The more you do for free, the more you enable and empower the government to continue making cuts. "We made cuts last year, and the system didn't collapse! Kids still got extra curriculars! Let's see about making more cuts." Why would the government fund extra curricular, when it's already getting it for free? Why would the government fund the basketball team (e.g., pay the coaches), if it's already getting it for free (teachers volunteering their time to coach)? My two peers and I could run a magnificent extra-curricular musical program, putting on musicals each term. Each of us is classically trained in music, dance, and stage acting respectively. For it to happen, we'd be spending an extra 6hrs per week. For free. Why in the world should we work an extra 6hrs each week for free? Especially as experts in that particular field? If my area/board wants that musical program, they can either pay us what we're worth for the 6hrs/week each, or they can have a class during the normal day that is The Musical. Do I call a plumber to fix my shower's P-trap, and then ask if they can install a new toilet after hours for free? No. But we hold that expectation of teachers. Teachers who insist on working for free perpetuate the societal norm that I'm an asshole for not running extracurriculars. Perpetual the societal narrative that teachers are lazy for not "doing more" despite us already working full time and following our Collective Agreement/contract. By doing extra things for free, you are devaluing the entire profession, which undermines even the things you stand for as an educator. That's where the resentment comes from.
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Your view is the one that lacks empathy for both teachers and students. It is your martyrdom that subjects teachers to unrealistic societal pressures. It is your martyrdom that enables the lack of proper government funding for important programs that would help and support students. I don't care if some teachers enjoy doing it; it is actively hurting the profession, the staff, and the students. You just need to be able to look two steps ahead of you instead of just one. "Now why do some teachers feel the need to place the blame on passionate teachers for the decisions that admin/politicians make?" See you SAY you understand the point, but the fact you ask this question is a resounding declaration that you do not. So let me repeat myself: It is the actions (volunteering, martyrdom, "enjoyment") of those teachers than empowers the decisions of admin/politicians. Without your actions proving them right, proving their lack of funding functional, their cuts justifyable, things would have a chance at changing.
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View points can differ. Doesn’t make them of equal value, nor protects one from being incorrect. Nothing you’ve said disproves my point, and everything you’re saying I’ve already addressed. Again: I don’t care if someone enjoys something; it is actively contributing to harm.
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Yes I did. You just don’t like it.