Teachers are great. I’m not just saying that because it’s my chosen profession, I’m saying that because I can’t think of a profession that works harder or has to cope with as much crap as teachers do.
Kids can be complete bastards. Admit it, you know it’s true. There are some kids you just wish you could smack across the back of the head until they simply shut up and gained some semblence of common sense. You want to see your kid as his or her worst? Covertly watch his school classroom, where they’ll constantly try to test the limits of the teaching professional at hand. You think you, as a parent, can have it bad at home? Try being a teacher where you have 25-30 of the little sods trying it all at once.
Teachers, despite popular perceptions, do a lot of work. Massive amounts of it. The teachers I know are at their schools preparing by 8am and have an early day if they’re leaving at 4:30. That doesn’t include the work they take home with them, such as work corrections, let alone out of school hours affairs such as the various school commitees. It is certainly not a job which goes from 9am to 3:30pm, nor one where the teacher can simply hand out photocopied worksheets - Teachers are so accountable these days it’s surprising they have any time to get any actual teaching done. Performance reviews. Planning justifications. Endless paperwork. None of which parents or the general public ever seem to hear about.
So next time you’re thinking about barging into a classroom and confronting a teacher about why your little darling isn’t getting good marks … well, don’t. Talk politely and take into serious consideration the possibility that your child could actually be a little bastard and it’s all his fault. Teachers are bloody marvelous people but even they can’t teach a child who simply doesn’t want to learn.
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