To appreciate teachers, people who are not teachers should acknowledge that teachers are doing yeo-person’s work. Being responsible for other people’s children’s learning and behavior every teaching day is heavy. Teaching is very different from babysitting, taking neighborhood children to the pool, or chaperoning at a dance.

Sure it might seem great to have summers free. Don’t teachers get great vacations? Well, sure, some vacate for the summer. But many take summer jobs or summer courses, not extended play days.

Sure, one might think about how great it is to be finishing work at 3:30 in the afternoon, but are teachers really finished then? When do you prepare for the next day? When do you evaluate students’ work?

Sure, one might consider the role of “teacher” to be an easy gig. After all, a teacher just has to hang with a bunch of kids for, like seven hours a day, right? Right…sorta. But the clock doesn’t start when the students arrive; has to arrive early to ensure that everything is ready and stay late to attend faculty meetings. And the clock ticks really loudly during the work day; for example, teachers may not have higher risk of mental health problems, but they are more likely to have rhinopharyngitis or laryngitis, conjunctivitis, and lower urinary tract infections (Kovess-Masféty et al., 2006)—they spend their days in close contact with germy vectors and they can’t just leave their classrooms to walk down the hall and use the facilities.

So, we who are not teachers should acknowledge that teaching is not a cushy job.

Source

Kovess-Masféty, V., Sevilla-Dedieu, C., Rios-Seidel, C., Nerrière, E., & Chee, C. C. (2006). Do teachers have more health problems? Results from a French cross-sectional survey. BMC Public Health 6(101). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-6-101

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