Do people dislike the teaching profession because they think it's virtue signalling?

id say its more the fact, people seem to think they have a harder working life than many teachers, less pay, crappier conditions, crappier pension, less time off etc etc etc

Augeo wrote: »

That's jealousy, if folk want the pay, conditions, pensions and time off of a teacher then they need to go get them.

....once again, real life isnt this simple, sometimes its just not possible to change career, particularly when normal life responsibilities exist, i.e. partner, kids, mortgage etc etc. people are just angry, this is mainly why these feelings exist

dancinpants wrote: »

As above, people dislike teachers because they feel they have it harder than them in their own working lives. It's part of the human condition to thing you have it hardest yourself and it makes people feel better to be able to look at others, compare and say, 'sure, they have it easy'. There is also a resentment over the holidays.

This of course doesn't take into account that anyone can become a teacher and that most people are not willing to spend either 4 or six years on their education and end up in a job that is not well paid when you compare to what one can earn with a similar level of education.

And then there is the fact that people seem to believe that teachers are lazy and didn't want to work during the pandemic. The fact that teachers managed to come out of the pandemic, when they were one of a tiny minority who worked through it, is down to terrible leadership and poor representation from unions. I don't know a single teacher who wasn't very happy to be in work throughout the time.

All good points, but there's one thing that people just can't see past IMO, and that is that three months' summer holiday is crazy, when they also get at least as much leave as everyone else the rest of the year.

Most countries have between 6 and 9 weeks' summer leave, and even at that UK child specialists worry that 6 weeks is too long to be good for children, especially the most deprived.

Long summer holidays date back to when children were needed to work on the family farm. Now it's just a complication for parents and an unfair advantage for teachers compared to the rest of the working population.

Augeo wrote: »

People need to manage their emotions. There will always be people better paid than you.




The usual "can't do" attitude, springboard etc offer great courses, 90% state funded and loads of evening options.

Real life isn't simple but endeavour is usually rewarded, the ole can't do but b1tch and moan isn't a great strategy....... although it gets many the ole free house and scratch for life so it works for some.

...once again, changing careers isnt as simple as financing alone, if you have a couple of young kids, knee deep in mortgage debt, high stressed job with long working hours, etc etc, you may forget about going back to retrain....

Smee_Again wrote: »

All you're doing is explaining away the jealousy, which is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that people's dislike of teachers is driven by jealousy.

People think teachers have it easy, for some of the reasons you've listed, and they are jealous of that.

It is that simple.

And I'm not a teacher.

...yes some probably are jealous, but more than likely, people are just pi$$ed off and angry, as it seems like some professions such as teaching, are having an easier ride, which i dont believe at all

Augeo wrote: »

If you've a high stressed job you are likely paid more than teachers.
Such folk don't b1tch and moan about teachers.

Give an actual example of a job you are describing and the associated salary please.

really? which planet is this again?

I'd say most people dislike teachers because they don't know how good they have it.
Work short hours for only half the year, no manual labour, inside in the winter, well paid.
But yet they are constantly looking for reasons to threaten strike action.
Voted a decade ago for new entrants to come in on a lower salary, then when they have nothing else to moan about for a while they decide they will strike because new entrants are on a lower salary.
Their behaviour during the last year has been disgraceful, whingeing at every turn when it was obvious for children's wellbeing that they needed to be in school.
Whingeing about not being high enough up the vaccine list.
Whingeing when they weren't prioritised when the vacci e rollout was amended.
Whinge whinge whinge

shtpEdthePlum wrote: »

The ultimate virtue signal is to focus your career on helping other people's tiny drunks.

The underdeveloped frontal lobe in children is the reason they're so tricky to work with (to educate, or even raise a child) and teaching requires a lot of in-depth knowledge about neurology, psychology and socioeconomic factors which are outside the understanding of those who might be parents or others involved in a child's life.

Is this inadequacy a factor in why teacher bashing is a national pastime?

This has got to be the greatest load of ****e waffle ever produced as an OP on boards. Bravo. Talk about underdeveloped frontal lobes.

Some teachers don't deserve the title.

We were told by my eldest 3rd year science teacher in the third term P/T meeting that he hadn't one experiment written up and this was a good % of his exam result. This was the first we or him had heard about it!! She hadn't checked once over the three years she was his 'teacher'.

He also had an English teacher who not only brought his grades up, but also helped mature him for the three years he had him. One of the best influences in his life.

So when people talk about teacher bashing, I don't get it. It's the lazy, self entitled ones that people usually have issues with. The gems in the system have huge respect from the people that interact with them.

Then there's the unions........ Don't think I need to say why people have no time for them.

It's two-fold I reckon - jealousy over the amount of annual leave and perceived short working week combined with a fairly natural response to the ****e spouted by the professions union reps.

It's practically a monthly event to have the reps on the radio waves whining about "poor pay", falsely equivalating teachers to Software Engineers (while on paper they may have similar levels of education, anyone who thinks a B.A. or B.Comm is genuinely equivalent to a B.Eng is delusional imho and the difference in working hours/days would be enormous), denying that they themselves are a large part of the reason for the disparity in pay within the profession, etc. They've given the entire profession the reputation of being whingers.

Is teaching a stressful job? I'm sure it is. Is it well paid? For the hours worked and family-friendly nature of the schedule it's pretty much unbeatable. As much as they like to complain you could probably cut teachers salaries by 20% without losing too many of them to alternate careers and the difficulty young teachers face in securing permanent positions is a pretty good indicator of this: supply is higher than demand at the current level of remuneration.

I'm not teacher bashing at all here, I have many friends and family in the profession (including two that left careers that paid twice as much as they're now on for improvements to their work-life balance). I'd support an argument for an equivalent of the UK's "London bonus" for teachers working in urban schools and could certainly see the argument for some differentiation on teachers salaries based on the subjects they teach (i.e. for the payscales to recognise the higher competition in the labour market for those qualified to teach STEM subjects) but in general, I think a lot of the teacher bashing we do get is a product of their own making.