Reading all of these posts from people who say that teachers don't work too hard are obviously not teachers or never have been teachers, and are really showing their ignorance. Anyone who thinks that an office job is more difficult than teaching is out of their mind. In an office setting you can take a break whenever you feel like it, take a longer lunch if you like, surf the internet as you are doing now, come in late, leave early, etc. Teachers have a fixed schedule of classes and are lecturing all day long. If you have to even go to the restroom you can't go until break time since the students cannot be left by themselves. <BR><BR>Any decent teacher does not use the same lesson plan for their entire career. For one thing, textbooks chage every few years necessitating that a new lesson plan be made. You people make teaching sound so easy. Why don't you try grading 150 written tests or even worse, compositions and see how long that takes. Oh yes, how about dealing with parents who always defend their kid no matter what he or she does. Those of you basing the teachers are most likely those same parents who defend their kid no matter what. It is really too bad that people do not respect teachers for what they do an is the case in Asia and Europe.

Andrea if you don't understand how similar teaching is to social work you are out of the loop. Now I have the very extreme stories as I worked in the ghetto in NYC. Still teachers in more affluent areas deal with similar problems at some level. Let me see one year teaching a child was removed from my room and his home because another teacher had discovered and reported abuse (sibling)(different school). All the kids from the family including my student were pulled from the home on this report. <BR><BR>My principal thought a lot of white social workers were pulling black kids from abusive families unnecessarily. Thought the state had no rights over most abuse cases. That put me in a difficult spot as I was required by law to go over her head if she did not respond to my reports. We were threatened by Jail time as a possibility for a teacher that ignores this. This principal would tell me, “we knew how to scream really loud when our parents were hitting us. These kids have to learn that”. Well guess what That crack smoking mother was allowed in my room when I was alone to plead for her son once he was removed. I had nothing to do with the removal but the mother did not know that. I was lucky she was only pleading and not threatening me. Her 5year old son in my class had also first shown me a swollen hand, he told me that his mother hit him with a baseball bat because he was not moving quick enough in the morning. I reported it to my principal who did not act, this was only one of many incidents. <BR><BR>My second year teaching was my worst, it was a first grade class. I had a kid who was fondling boys in the bathroom (He was 6-7) his parents revealed to the school psychologist that he threatened suicide at home. I had a girl who never ever spoke, a crack offspring, a boy who stole, a girl that was just sadly crazy. Also had other kids that were emotionally suffering but this was the group that stands out in my memory. Ups I also had a kid who’s grand mother picked him up stinking drunk on a regular basis. She attacked me on Martin Luther King holiday one year or a day near it. This was a few weeks after I refused to let her grandson go home with her. Her lipstick was smeared all down her face and she looked scary, very drunk. Principal told me there are no rules against inebriation I had to let him go. Other parents told me they saw her knock the kid down in traffic crossing the street. I was thought of as a young naive that did not understand the pressures of ghetto or African American life.<BR><BR>Stealing no big problem right, not something I even reported, the very next year in the second grade he was caught on the play ground having sex with another 2nd grader. Remember this was not the bathroom fondler. Not linking the stealing with the sexual behavior. What I am trying to get across to you here is that I was thrown into a social workers job. The kid that had the drunk GrandMa was known in later years to talk to people who weren’t there. Most public schools don’t have any of the professional talent they need to understand what is happening in their student body. Our school psychologist told me he had never seen the abuse that was alleged in the suicidal kid. HE SIMPLY WAS IGNORING WHAT HE SAW. The man had worked in this school for 20 years and I had only been for one. All of the kids I mentioned were placed in special Ed for behavioral problems, at the advice of 3-4 grade teachers. And I still have more students more stories. <BR><BR>Yes it is clear I was in the Ghetto but teachers all around the country have to deal with these issues that are more of what a social worker expects. We are not trained for this but we have to rise to occasion at the moment. I am leaving out hostile threatening parents. I watch that show Boston Public and I know it is more reality than sensationalism.<BR><BR>I agree it something I should be WELL paid for. <BR><BR><BR> <BR>

Reading these posts just reinforces the fact that there is very little understanding by many of just how challenging teaching is. I laugh when I read some of these posts talking about how teaching is not as hard as working in other professions. I've had a number of colleagues who've gone into teaching over the past two years through our state's alternate route program because they couldn't find work in the technology industry following layoffs. Every one of them has developed a new appreciation of the difficulty of teaching now that they are actually doing it themselves. They readily admit that they did not realize how much work was really involved. I'm sure most of the people here who are disparaging teaching have never tried it themselves.

Teachers I know exactly what you mean when after a few years of teaching I use to dream about the quiet hum of fluorescent lights. <BR><BR>When I finally quit I felt like a ambulance siren in my head stopped. I had no idea how stressful my job was until it was over. I use to think they put poor inexperienced teachers in ghetto communities to save the good teachers for better students. What I now realize is that school districts want to suck any life energy out of you they can, UNREWARDED. This is why I no longer teach. The System does not support the learning process or the teacher. <BR>