Teachers love whining. Everyone knows it, but no one likes to say it because they’ll get whined at if a teacher happens to be listening. Most teachers can’t go a day without making some sarcastic remark about how difficult and unfair their job is.
What is it about teaching K-12 that makes our educators so irritable? Their holidays extend for weeks or months. Their job security is maximal. It sounds like an employee’s dream.
If you ask one of them directly, she’ll set aside her Starbucks latte, widen her eyes sarcastically like she’s amazed you even have to ask, and subject you to a rehearsed tirade about how bad she has it. If you’re listening carefully, you may catch a few keywords in the otherwise incoherent deluge of self-pity: standardized tests, paperwork, and administrators.
In this article, we will examine why teachers find those aspects of their job so egregious. We will also conduct a more sober analysis of their working conditions and responsibilities, ultimately confirming what most people already suspect—that teachers are underworked and overpaid.
Teachers Versus Tutors
To understand the difference between teaching and other jobs, it’s helpful to compare teachers to private tutors, the latter being respected professionals who rightly command a premium.
Although tutors are in essentially the same business as teachers, they differ greatly in that they’re held accountable by their students. If their performance is underwhelming in the eyes of the student, their services are terminated. It follows that every employed tutor is performing at least satisfactorily.
On the other hand, K-12 students don’t have the option to leave a teacher. If a teacher is unclear, rude, or uninformed, the students may grumble about it, but she’ll still have a class to teach, and she’ll still collect a paycheck. Even when student evaluations of teachers are elicited, they are almost never considered in calculating raises and firings.
Some teachers like to imagine that they earn their students’ respect, even though they don’t have to. But even the best teachers rely heavily on the fact that their employment is not contingent on student satisfaction. They know that if it were decided tonight students could stop attending their class, then they would arrive tomorrow to an empty classroom.
Allergic to Accountability
Seeing as teachers are not accountable to the direct recipients of their service, where does accountability come from? What tools exist to assess their productivity? Put simply, standardized tests, paperwork, and administrators. Sound familiar? These are the parts of teaching our fictional latte-drinker—like the vast majority of her real-world counterparts—railed most loudly against.
We’re beginning to solve the mystery of the most common teacher whining points. Teachers hate anything that attempts to apply an objective standard to their work. They don’t want their performance to be measured—not by testing their classes, not by having them document their progress on paper, not by sending an administrator to their classroom to observe, and certainly not by querying the dozens of students who receive their teaching for hours each day.
This also explains their near-universal opposition to merit pay. Paying better employees more is such a reasonable concept that in most professions, it isn’t even debated. But if, as teachers claim, we shouldn’t try to distinguish good teachers from bad ones, then we also shouldn’t be making judgements about who deserves higher pay.
This all triggers an obvious objection, which is perhaps best captured in the comedic title of a Dilbert book: Your Accomplishments Are Suspiciously Hard to Verify. If teachers are doing such good work—and they’ll go on for hours about how they are—then why don’t they want it quantified? Why do they push back so hard against any effort to gauge the positive effects of their teaching?
There is a simple explanation for this apparent allergy to accountability. Teachers believe education is a difficult craft, and they are its rare experts. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense for an administrator to evaluate a teacher’s performance, either through paperwork or direct observation, since a non-teacher would struggle to recognize the subtle signs of healthy student learning. And even when it is possible to measure changes in student knowledge—most agree that standardized tests achieve this, to some extent—using such measurements forces teachers to teach what is being measured, overriding their own expert opinions about what kids should learn.
Teachers’ mentality of expertise—a rarity in a nontechnical field—makes them suspicious of anyone else who tries to have an impact in the classroom. It’s difficult to overstate the passive-aggressive bitterness they feel towards the administrators who run their school districts. In a survey conducted at my own former high school, only 16% of teachers reported feeling respected by administrators. (For context, over 80% of students said they felt respected by teachers and staff.) Likewise, teachers have no patience for parents who take issue with the content or style of their classes. They reminisce about the good old days when parents trusted teachers absolutely. Now, they lament, parents feel emboldened to call in with complaints when their children are dissatisfied. Parents should stick to parenting and leave education to the experts.
In short, any effort to impose accountability on teachers can only get in the way of their nuanced and highly skilled work.
Given that teachers are so talented, one wonders why they don’t pursue a more lucrative career in science or medicine. Maybe we should add selflessness to their long list of talents and virtues. Or maybe we should interrogate their claimed expertise a little further.
Experts in a Basic Human Function
As a university student, I often walk past the College of Education on my way to the College of Engineering. I try not to stare at the math-illiterate twentysomethings texting on the benches. As STEM majors, we joke that a Bachelor’s in Education is at best practice in a basic human function and at worst license to party for four years.
When teachers hear their prized credential being slandered, they recoil like they’re losing a month of summer vacation. But there’s more than a grain of truth to the jabs thrown by STEM majors.
What skills does a K-12 educator actually need, assuming she really wants to excel in the profession? She must be able to explain concepts to an audience that doesn’t understand. She must show patience if they take a while to sink in. She also needs some amount of self-confidence to convince a rowdy class to shape up and focus on work.
But none of these soft skills are off-limits to a person who lacks formal training. My sisters used to “play school” when they were younger, and it seemed that the one who played the teacher had all those qualities even then. Of course, the average businessman possesses them in spades. Teachers see themselves as specialists, but the skills they flaunt are standard human abilities that most people develop without college.
Here, teachers might object that they also need knowledge in the subject they’re teaching. For example, a history teacher should know about the Civil War. But much of what is taught in a K-12 class is common knowledge among adults. The rest is trivial to pick up, otherwise we wouldn’t expect disinterested children to absorb it along with the content of four other classes.
Consider that pretty much anyone can fill in as a substitute teacher. At my high school, it was sufficient to possess any college degree. Equipped with a Bachelor’s in Marketing, you were prepared to teach social studies. With such lax requirements, it was not uncommon to see neighborhood moms working the whiteboard for a few extra bucks. Why don’t substitute teachers require more qualification? Because any adult who can hold a conversation can teach. There aren’t many professions where so little skill and technical knowledge is needed that a random person can replace you at a day’s notice.
The more honest teachers will concede that what they do isn’t intellectually strenuous like mechanical engineering. They’ll grant that it doesn’t require long hours like medicine. They’ll admit they don’t need the broad knowledge of an actuary. But it’s stressful, they say. Dealing with kids is a nightmare. And I’m not the kind of person who hands out worksheets and browses Pinterest. I go above and beyond. I take it upon myself to make sure everyone participates and understands the concepts, whatever hurdles the administration puts in my way.
To hear teachers tell it, their burden gives Atlas a run for his money, and they get none of the glory. Well, waiting tables is stressful, thankless, and low-paying, and there are plenty of waiters who go above and beyond, who put on a smile for obnoxious, ungrateful diners, even when they’re exhausted and just want to go home. I respect people who thrive under stress. But earning employee of the month at Buffalo Wild Wings is a few notches below practicing law.
Speaking of skilled jobs, I once heard a professional chemist say he could never do the work of a high school teacher. It was a safe conversation filler. There was something witty and self-deprecating about it. But taken literally, it was ridiculous. If you can analyze complex proteins, you can ask surface-level questions about Hamlet.
The Pay Debate
I once had a friend who told me he only supported two political causes. I was saddened to learn that the first was higher pay for teachers, but it didn’t surprise me that the second was pot legalization. You would have to be high to give teachers a raise.
We’ve established that teaching is essentially unskilled labor. At the same time, teachers make well above the minimum wage (even if you pretend they’re working during the eighty weekdays a year they have off). It follows that they are due for a pay cut.
And while all teachers should be grateful for their generous salaries, their often-successful fight against accountability has made the job downright cushy for the unmotivated and the incompetent.
As an example, we’ve said that teachers don’t like having their classes observed by administrators. But they especially hate it when the observation day is unexpected. In many districts, teachers’ unions have managed to eliminate unannounced observations, meaning teachers are informed of the event days in advance. You can see why victories like this are a godsend for slackers.
(Needless to say, the day with the observer is always highly unusual. The lesson plan is tight as a drum. The students leave wondering if Mrs. Smith ate a good breakfast.)
There Are Still 85 Words Left in This Article. You Click Away When I Dismiss You.
In summary, teachers work an easy job for a substantial paycheck, view themselves as experts who are above accountability, hold few or no hard skills, and complain to anyone who will listen about how bad they have it.
Some might call it ironic that a group so resistant to ordinary adult responsibilities would be tasked with preparing our youth for the trials of life. Modern schoolchildren get criticized for being lazy and entitled, but how can we blame them when they’re learning from the best?
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I am a teacher and I can honestly say that I do not complain about most of the things that were mentioned in this article. I feel that teachers should be held accountable. There’s nothing wrong with an administrator coming in to observe and it is perfectly okay if some of these observations are unannounced.
I also recognize the fact that we teachers do kind of have a sweet deal because we get summers off and have every bank holiday and even get a Christmas, winter, and spring vacation! Let’s not forget to that we get snow days off. in most professions when it’s snowing you’re still expected to drive in the dangerous conditions and be on time to work.
However I have to be honest and say that I do complain about the fact that students (or at least many of them anyway) can be quite disrespectful and unmotivated. I feel that I give my students a lot of respect but oftentimes I feel I am disrespected in return. it doesn’t seem that students are raised to have a lot of respect for the adults in their lives. This does make my job harder and tends to cause me a lot of stress.
A dentist tells his/her patients to brush their teeth every day. One year later, the patients return with mouths full of cavities. The patients, the patients’ parents, and society in general all blame the dentist. That’s why teachers complain. Teachers are the dentists. We blame teachers for everything and most people could never put up with the things they put up with on a daily basis. It’s beyond me how somebody who does not teach has the audacity to make these kinds of assumptions.
This is written by a college student who has never taught? Give me a break. Wow, I am amazed by the over-confidence of this young man who thinks he can opine about a profession he has never tried himself. There are many assumptions made in this article with no actual understanding. Have you considered teaching for a while first?
I agree with everything said here. they basically have it as easy as a student. it’s basically not ever getting out of school and hitting the real world. that’s right, if you don’t want to have to compete in the real world and never graduate from school then there is only one job for you .
How about this. I know a high school counselor on Long Island that makes $150,000 a year. Could be the most obscenely overpaid person I have ever encountered.
I wonder how many suicides and fights they have prevented that you had no idea about. Put a price on that.
Just read this article and couldn’t agree more teacher earn about 10 grand more than me but i can do there job with almost no orientation, where as my job it would take a teacher months to learn if they could even grasp it
Do the job then
What do you do Justin?
Teachers have it easy. Did you know that among SAT scores their’s is among the lowest scoring in high school? Plus you know how much bullying and other stuff that they look the other way.
It’s easy to be a bad teacher (like any member of any profession), but If you think it’s so easy to be a good teacher and provide for your family with the $ that taxpayers think you deserve, I invite you to try it for a few years. My guess is that Nik Noble and all of the people who commented wouldn’t make it two years.
They make $60,000 median in my area, that’s a 15 year experience teacher, in an area where the average family of 4 with 2 wage earners makes $65,000. So, no, they don’t struggle to earn money in this area. That’s for the crummy kindergarten teacher my kid had who worked 5 hours a day, at most, pre-Covid and now 1 hour virtual during Covid with plenty of time for ABC Store runs at 1 p.m. and wineries on the weekends. She sets aside 5% of her salary for her pension and also gets Social Security, they get that in my state. That 5% gets her a $2,700 a month a month or soon check for LIFE and lifetime health insurance that costs less than I pay for my 9 year old. I was reading where the average female teacher who passes away is around 88 years old or so. The job must not be that stressful, lol. Just admit it, the deal is a sweetheart deal, no one gives out guaranteed income like that for so little work.
You are one who is honest in your evaluation. Keep it up. Most teachers are very overpaid.
One has to wonder just who the smartest college kids were – the ones with the easy major who then went on to cushy, high-paying jobs for which they need no skills, or the ones who studied engineering, entered the rat race, and spend their off-hours penning diatribes against the people who enable those in the STEM fields to go serve their corporate overlords.
And really. How much take home work can there be if you teach Kindergarten? Grading finger painting?
Maeve, spot on!
Covid is still ongoing and the public school kindergarten teacher my kid had, I moved my kid to private school due to the bad experience, teaches about 1 hour online, makes runs to the ABC Store, goes to wineries on the weekends and collects a $60,000 a year salary with an outrageous pension on top. We are paying someone $60,000 a year, in an area where a family of 4 has a household income of $65,000, to do 5 hours a week of work. She also says that returning to school in person is dangerous. I might respect that opinion in theory but, when you run out to the ABC Store and go to wineries, well, I guess COVID must not be that dangerous, lol. How do I know she goes to wineries? She posts updates to her open Facebook page each weekend about trying a new one.
Heh, this blog is great. I hope it keeps running a while.
I believe many people secretly know the things you’re discussing openly. Lots of people seem to lock their childhoods away behind a mental door, but anyone who attended college knows that the education majors were not respected by anyone else. Everyone except them knew that education was the easiest major by a large margin.
When I was in college, I calculated that — when the massive amounts of time off were factored in — teachers in the local school system worked an average of 22 hours per week. That’s not even a full-time job. Teachers moaned that they sometimes worked longer hours than the official hours, but that’s true of just about any job, and they didn’t seem to understand that. When everyone from high-powered lawyers to the local fast food manager is finishing work up at home, I have a hard time pitying people who sometimes have to work past *three* o’clock. If one of your goals is never to think about work outside of work hours, you’ll be needing a low-level, dead-end sort of job.
“But I don’t really have the summers completely free! I have continuing-ed requirements!” Those are very easy classes which take only a few weeks, and we all know it. My local community college actually *advertises* its short and easy classes as suitable for continuing-ed requirements. Do you really believe that (e.g.) a software engineer doesn’t have to keep up with his field? Of course he does, and he puts more time into that than you do, and he does so without being forced, because not to do so would be to lose his employability. That will never happen for teachers because of this magical “tenure” thing that other fields don’t have.
As my son progressed through school, I observed which of his teachers whined and which didn’t. I may still have that data around here somewhere. There was a clear pattern. Teachers who had held jobs other than teaching were fine; it was those who had never done anything else who constantly griped about their horrible oppression.
Great points, and very well said!
I’m honestly a bit surprised (pleasantly!) to find someone who agrees with me on both youth rights and teachers. In my experience, a lot of youth rights supporters see teachers as tireless martyrs struggling against an oppressive system.
Hope you continue to enjoy the posts.
Thank goodness for this article! When my son started 2nd grade, the school had a “Back to School” night in which they gave a PowerPoint presentation that said teachers spend 10% of my child’s year with them in-person. I quickly did the math, determining that working 8 hours a day/5 days a week/with 11 holidays/10 vacation days, I was at work 22% of my year. I then pulled up the school calendar to check their math (perhaps they miscalculated??? Lol!). They are in school for 165 days, for a maximum of 6 hours including lunch period, not including minimum days (which are at least once a week). Yep, right on at 10-11%!
I’ve been told the same thing – continuing education is required, workshops, grading papers, preparing lesson plans. I have a couple of points about this:
1) You have 937 hours left to meet “40-hour a week” status.
2) Have you not learned how to copy last years plans?
3) You work a part-time job which is paying $35-$50 an hour ($40k-$55k a year) – if you have to get another job to “supplement” your income, you have poor money management skills, or are living a lifestyle that requires a full- time job. Don’t complain that your part-time job doesn’t give you a full-time job’s lifestyle.
4) For being an educator, it’s amazing you have to be forced to continue your education.
5) Have you not learned to make your lesson plans easy to grade? It’s your fault that you are unable to design papers that make for quick grading.
As for the “hundreds of dollars” on school supplies – why are you designing lesson plans that require materials you do not have?
As COVID-19 has shut down schools, parents have been expected to homeschool as well as continue to work their full-time jobs. It has been an eye-opener for how out of touch teachers really are, as they lay out 3 hours of work to be done while parents are also working a full time job from home. Hmmm… somehow managing to do your job and mine.
Sorry to say you have no idea about the teaching profession, how we view ourselves or what our job is like. I would very much like to argue you with you because you have an extreme bias.
As a teacher, I agree with much of what you say. Many of my colleagues would probably be unhappy with me if they knew that. Specifically, I wholeheartedly support having administrators do unannounced evaluations, especially because of what you said about teachers’ lesson plans being unusually high-quality during planned observations. Prior to being observed, I tell my students that they should expect “business as usual” from me, and the day following my observed lesson, I tend to give my students an anonymous feedback slip asking them if I did anything “out of the ordinary.” If I have done something unusual during my observed lessons, I feel like I have been dishonest and disrespectful to my students by not giving them my best during every lesson. Also, I strongly agree that standardized test scores are generally valid, and if a teacher’s students are doing poorly with those tests, then the administration should intervene to help the teacher improve. If the teacher is resistant, she should probably be fired. And yes, my education classes in college were pitifully easy. I actually complained to my professors on at least a handful of occasions about the total lack of rigor. The final thing I want to say is that I am incredibly grateful for the significant amount of time that I have off each year, and I am grateful that I have a generous salary. I don’t think that we teachers need any raises these days. Thank you for preaching the truth!