Teachers are going to describe your kid in the confidence of another teacher as a “horrible little shit” if you’ve raised a horrible little shit.
More often they’ll complain about the parents. Because some can make your life miserable.
Probably best keep it off messages though.
Yes, the teachers were in the wrong. You’re taught about social media and professional conduct when you’re learning to be a teacher. They clearly violated those expectations and standards, it was unprofessional. If you’re going to vent, you don’t put it in writing and you do it as privately and quietly as you are able specifically to avoid situations like this.
But, at the same time, I agree with the call to not share the messages. It would only have caused more harm on what is already a difficult situation.
The situation with teaching really has become a cheap form of day care. What has happened is not excusable, but teachers are really struggling and they’re people we should be supporting. Anybody who’s not married to a teacher or isn’t a teacher themselves in modernity, doesn’t understand the pressures and the atmosphere of the job. You just don’t understand, and it’s no reason why we have a teaching crisis that’s is soon to be boiling over. Speaking as an ex-teacher, it’s a ridiculously hard job with not enough in the way or rewards and society not willing to meet their end of the bargain. No one thanks you except the nice children who value education, and they are few and far between.
Firstly, the Pareto principle applies in that you spend 80% of your time on the kids who don’t need your attention, and 20% of your time on the kids who do. I used to wake up at 6am already nervous about my day ahead, riddled with stress pains and anxiety. The shower would be brief and breakfast, driving into work as soon as so I can go over my lesson plans, print anything I need and feel prepared for the day. The day would be waves of adrenaline dealing with naughty children in classrooms, naughty children in corridors, some really spiteful children doing spiteful things. It was only the top sets that would come in, sit down and pay attention or even engage with me as a human most days, and not some verbal punching bag. I’m not alone here.
Parents can be appalling: You ring them up to inform them of how you’ve disciplined their child relative to their actions and they don’t treat you like the professional you are dealing with not just their children. Teachers do deal with hundreds of other children week in, week out, and their job is to educate. Parents think they know their children, but we have an insight into what they’re like around other humans when the only real person who can discipline them isn’t in the room. That child can be very different from the one the parent sees, and that is a difficult area to navigate with a parent who thinks their child is perfect. Some parents send their children to school with incorrect shoes and lack of any equipment whatsoever. That’s negligence. They’re not involved in their children’s schooling, and homework goes unmonitored. That’s also negligence. All of these enforcing children to be slack does them no good and is why we end up with some teenagers and young adults going into the workforce with no idea about personal responsibility, common sense, motivation or proactivity for their own good, and university also doesn’t help in some cases either.
The political situation makes things worse. You’re now underfunding the entire system and overworking teachers with the volume of things teachers need to do. You put teachers through 30 minute workshops and get them to sign papers which deem them somehow suitable to identify radicalism, depression, or troubles at home. Teachers aren’t allow to print resources in some schools due to the lack of funding, and that makes your lesson planning harder. As a science teacher there was very little budget for any practical lessons which kids really enjoy and learn a lot from. The content itself is now greater in volume and more difficult than 2 decades ago, meaning kids are learning GCSE’s a year sooner and still not learning all of it in time for the actual exams.
The system is also set up in such a way that you’re observed and scrutinised once every term. These feedback sessions are pretty good, and should be used in the workplace more, however you can wear people down quite substantially. There’s no concept of people “having strengths” and weaknesses in teaching. You can be observed and be told you’re not meeting the standards in certain areas. We as humans are individuals and we have individual strengths and weaknesses. Those aren’t encouraged, but you’re under threat because if a lesson is not deemed satisfactory, you can be observed again and again. That makes the job even more unnerving, and many teachers get ground down feeling they’re not good enough to find another job in a private company. I’m lucky I got out – I felt like dirt and wasn’t particularly targeted in this way.
Everybody talks about the customers/clients/patients/pupils/whatever they do or don’t like to their colleagues and I never for one minute thought that teaching would be any different. If little Johnny from class 3k is a little wanker then I’d fully expect that to be mentioned in the staff room.
That said, god alone knows what possessed then to put it on WhatsApp.
Should have kept it off digital media, and likely agreed to via school policies which most schools have in place to maintain acceptable standards and avoid bringing the school into disrepute via social media, messaging, emails, parental comms etc etc…
I bet they’d make for a good chuckle though 🙂
I see no problem if teachers are sending private messages saying ‘oh fuck I have 9G today they’re such cunts’ as long as it doesn’t affect how they teach the kids
You vent at work, everyone does, my son has had friends and I’ve genuinely said to myself or close friends that kid is a fucking asshole, didn’t change how I treated them
6 comments
Teachers are going to describe your kid in the confidence of another teacher as a “horrible little shit” if you’ve raised a horrible little shit.
More often they’ll complain about the parents. Because some can make your life miserable.
Probably best keep it off messages though.
Yes, the teachers were in the wrong. You’re taught about social media and professional conduct when you’re learning to be a teacher. They clearly violated those expectations and standards, it was unprofessional. If you’re going to vent, you don’t put it in writing and you do it as privately and quietly as you are able specifically to avoid situations like this.
But, at the same time, I agree with the call to not share the messages. It would only have caused more harm on what is already a difficult situation.
The situation with teaching really has become a cheap form of day care. What has happened is not excusable, but teachers are really struggling and they’re people we should be supporting. Anybody who’s not married to a teacher or isn’t a teacher themselves in modernity, doesn’t understand the pressures and the atmosphere of the job. You just don’t understand, and it’s no reason why we have a teaching crisis that’s is soon to be boiling over. Speaking as an ex-teacher, it’s a ridiculously hard job with not enough in the way or rewards and society not willing to meet their end of the bargain. No one thanks you except the nice children who value education, and they are few and far between.
Firstly, the Pareto principle applies in that you spend 80% of your time on the kids who don’t need your attention, and 20% of your time on the kids who do. I used to wake up at 6am already nervous about my day ahead, riddled with stress pains and anxiety. The shower would be brief and breakfast, driving into work as soon as so I can go over my lesson plans, print anything I need and feel prepared for the day. The day would be waves of adrenaline dealing with naughty children in classrooms, naughty children in corridors, some really spiteful children doing spiteful things. It was only the top sets that would come in, sit down and pay attention or even engage with me as a human most days, and not some verbal punching bag. I’m not alone here.
Parents can be appalling: You ring them up to inform them of how you’ve disciplined their child relative to their actions and they don’t treat you like the professional you are dealing with not just their children. Teachers do deal with hundreds of other children week in, week out, and their job is to educate. Parents think they know their children, but we have an insight into what they’re like around other humans when the only real person who can discipline them isn’t in the room. That child can be very different from the one the parent sees, and that is a difficult area to navigate with a parent who thinks their child is perfect. Some parents send their children to school with incorrect shoes and lack of any equipment whatsoever. That’s negligence. They’re not involved in their children’s schooling, and homework goes unmonitored. That’s also negligence. All of these enforcing children to be slack does them no good and is why we end up with some teenagers and young adults going into the workforce with no idea about personal responsibility, common sense, motivation or proactivity for their own good, and university also doesn’t help in some cases either.
The political situation makes things worse. You’re now underfunding the entire system and overworking teachers with the volume of things teachers need to do. You put teachers through 30 minute workshops and get them to sign papers which deem them somehow suitable to identify radicalism, depression, or troubles at home. Teachers aren’t allow to print resources in some schools due to the lack of funding, and that makes your lesson planning harder. As a science teacher there was very little budget for any practical lessons which kids really enjoy and learn a lot from. The content itself is now greater in volume and more difficult than 2 decades ago, meaning kids are learning GCSE’s a year sooner and still not learning all of it in time for the actual exams.
The system is also set up in such a way that you’re observed and scrutinised once every term. These feedback sessions are pretty good, and should be used in the workplace more, however you can wear people down quite substantially. There’s no concept of people “having strengths” and weaknesses in teaching. You can be observed and be told you’re not meeting the standards in certain areas. We as humans are individuals and we have individual strengths and weaknesses. Those aren’t encouraged, but you’re under threat because if a lesson is not deemed satisfactory, you can be observed again and again. That makes the job even more unnerving, and many teachers get ground down feeling they’re not good enough to find another job in a private company. I’m lucky I got out – I felt like dirt and wasn’t particularly targeted in this way.
Everybody talks about the customers/clients/patients/pupils/whatever they do or don’t like to their colleagues and I never for one minute thought that teaching would be any different. If little Johnny from class 3k is a little wanker then I’d fully expect that to be mentioned in the staff room.
That said, god alone knows what possessed then to put it on WhatsApp.
Should have kept it off digital media, and likely agreed to via school policies which most schools have in place to maintain acceptable standards and avoid bringing the school into disrepute via social media, messaging, emails, parental comms etc etc…
I bet they’d make for a good chuckle though 🙂
I see no problem if teachers are sending private messages saying ‘oh fuck I have 9G today they’re such cunts’ as long as it doesn’t affect how they teach the kids
You vent at work, everyone does, my son has had friends and I’ve genuinely said to myself or close friends that kid is a fucking asshole, didn’t change how I treated them