We recently wrote a post where employees shared shocking "secrets" about their jobs that the public doesn't really know. In the comments, several educators chimed in and revealed the misconceptions and surprising realities about teaching today, and they range from wild to heartbreaking. Here's what they had to say:
Note: Some responses were pulled from this Reddit thread by u/EF_5ever.
1."A huge problem is students thinking that teachers are their equals. Just today I witnessed two separate incidents where the entitlement was ghastly. A boy was arguing that since teachers are allowed to have a cellphone on their desk, he should be allowed to access his and text his mom during class. He went on and on about his 'rights.'"
"A girl refused to go to class because the teacher reprimanded her yesterday. They don't get that some things are not optional."
2."Teachers have extensive education, training, and knowledge in their content areas. We have to be experts, and we have to stay students ourselves to be effective educators. But we are treated largely as if we are little more than babysitters. Teaching is the only job where people constantly say they could never do it, but also like to complain that we have too many breaks or that we don't do enough."
"Keep cutting public school funding and see what the workforce looks like in the US in 15 years when most of the 20-year-olds can't write complete sentences or read beyond a 5th-grade level."
3."I work with special-ed preschoolers, and when someone is out, we are often understaffed illegally if we can't get subs. We are often running around like chickens with no heads."
—Anonymous, 34, Connecticut
4."People think teachers work 9–3:30 a.m. and get a ton of vacation time. I have never worked those hours in my teaching career! At a minimum, I work 8 a.m.–5 p.m. in school and then around two hours a night. Plus, we don't get paid for the weekend work. A teacher's paid working day only allows for the actual teaching. It doesn't give us time to plan, mark, make resources, phone home, plan events, organize trips, or create bespoke learning for many kids. And the vacations?! Remember, we can't ever be off work unless it's outside of term time; we miss our own kids' sports day, never get cheap vacations, and can't ever go anywhere when it's 'quiet.'"
"Don't get me wrong — we're not in the emergency room saving lives, but teaching is damn hard, but everyone always seems to think we're just on a lovely little jolly...It's infuriating."
—Anonymous, 38, England
5."I'm an elementary school reading interventionist. I pull low-readers into small groups to support them so they can improve their reading comprehension and writing abilities. Ableism is a HUGE problem for me. Parents often don't want their kids receiving support from me because they don't want to admit that their student needs extra help or that they have a learning disability that we need to address — like they think we're blaming them as parents for having a child with a disability. Other kids will call my kids 'dumb' and put them down for getting support."
"Some kids flip out when they get added to my groups because they think it means they're unintelligent or that their classroom teacher has it out for them. And honestly, I probably wouldn't have as many students in my groups if more parents prioritized reading practice at home!"
—Anonymous, 25, Virginia
6."I'm a school teacher, and I don't believe all high school diplomas are equal. Truthfully, we have some students who are a royal pain and also have an IEP, and it's much easier just to give them a passing grade and push them along than to deal with the repercussions of giving them the grade they have earned."
"I know I'm not solving any problems by doing this, but I'm also sick and tired of the mountains of paperwork."
—Anonymous, 57, Arizona
7."Teachers do NOT have easy access to their phones during the day. We are constantly 'on' and must be aware of other human beings at all times and/or preparing for the next part of the day. We do not have our phone in our pockets pretty much all day, and even the ones that do, can maybe check it only once a day when at work."
"If there is an emergency, I tell my friends and family to call the front office to relay the message."
8."Teaching children with high-support needs is not babysitting any more than teaching neurotypical children is. Not only do we work on academics (and rewrite curricula that are far beyond our students' abilities because those in power don't understand our population), we also work on life and vocational skills, all while running the risk of being hit, bitten, kicked, spit on, or assaulted in other ways. It's incredibly rewarding, and I wouldn't want to do anything else, but it's so frustrating when people think my job doesn't matter."
—Anonymous, 40, New York
9."Teachers aren't being valued. If people valued us, we'd have better wages. They would listen to our needs, and classroom sizes and number of aides would be adjusted. Parents would support us, and kids would treat us with more respect. Legislators would consult classroom teachers before making policies that affect us."
"The culture of the USA. Education isn't valued; students feel entitled, and don't feel the need to extend respect to their educators. Many parents don't respect teachers, either."
10."I was a daycare 'teacher' for a big, well-known chain. When you drop your infant or child off at a chain-owned daycare center, those workers are not paid a living wage, they probably do not get the breaks the law requires, they may be severely victimized by the corporation running the chain (time sheets altered by the director at orders from higher up, given more children than the law states they should be watching), and they are not allowed to call in sick."
"So, your kid is being cared for by abused people who are probably contagious and exhausted. Your little one may be there for more hours than you are at work — if you work eight hours, your kiddo is stuck at daycare for even longer, right? With no choice about it. Please consider NOT using a nationwide chain. Your kid is not safer there."
—Anonymous
11."Teacher here: We are NOT done at 3 p.m. We never leave before 4–4:30 p.m. and often work late or take work home on weekends. And we do not just teach, we manage a classroom full of very different personalities and dynamics — and that's just working with the parents… :) But seriously, we are with your kids six hours a day, 190 days of the year, wanting only the best for your kid as well and working our hardest to get them ahead. ... it would be nice to get acknowledged for the (really) hard work that we do and not, say, yell at us and take up our very limited time with little problems that your child should be learning to solve themselves (with coaching from you), etc."
"Just support us and be a team with us: Help them do their homework, keep them off anything digital as much as possible (seriously), have them play with other kids to practice and develop social skills, talk with them at the dinner table to practice and develop communication skills and learn what is going on in their lives, get them to school on time and prepared for the day, and take our comments and suggestions to help your child as coming from someone who knows what they’re talking about. Because we do."
—Anonymous, 45, Canada
12."Cellphones have created an on-demand society where content is readily available at our fingertips. Because of this, we no longer have to work for our content knowledge or to find expertise in a thing. It's just there and we accept it. And because of all this on-demand content (games, movies, music, TV, media), we no longer read. Basic literacy is now eroded. Critical thinking has eroded. With the explosion of on-demand everything, there has been an overexposure of awful behavior (because that drives clicks), so the kids think that behavior is normalized."
"So really, because the kids are on their cellphones so much (I actually polled my kids today, and they all have between 50–75 hours a week; a few have 80+ hours): they aren’t reading, are being gifted answers, so cheating is on the rise, and behavior is worse."
13."From my school's experience, the biggest issue in education is the lack of admin support. We literally had a teacher quit mid-class today because she was tired of the behavioral problems with her students. If an admin would have had her back, things might have been different."
14."I'll sum it up as the customer service mentality. Parents, extra responsibilities, data collection, etc., I don't think any of them would be so terribly bad if teachers weren't expected to automatically know how to do all of it to keep up a good appearance."
And finally...
15."Parental apathy has done far more damage than politicians have. Funding doesn't fix a lazy parent teaching kids to be lazy and never pick up a pencil or do any work. I hope that if we've learned anything the past decade, 'throwing money at it' achieved nothing. Lazy parents tend to raise lazy kids; the sooner school leaders understand that and try to work the problem from that angle instead of just beating up the teachers every year and blaming them for it, maybe there'll be some progress."
"But right now? Not even close. 2020 was the nail in the coffin for student/parental apathy. Now, you're lucky if you can get them to write down two lines without whining."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Fellow teachers, what are some surprising secrets or realities about your job that more people should know? Tell us in the comments. Or, if you prefer to remain anonymous, you can use the form below.
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