Teaching... vs. Being a Teacher

One of the many fine teachers at the high school I teach at recently said that while he loves teaching, he hates being a teacher.


On the face of it, that might seem counterintuitive. How can one love teaching and hate being a teacher? It doesn't seem to make sense.


It doesn't make sense unless you know what it's like to be a teacher.

• A teacher has spent years and tens of thousands of dollars of her/his own money (or some combination of scholarships/grants/student loans) to meet the state requirements for becoming a teacher
• A teacher is required to continue spending time and money to keep a credential current
• A teacher is knowledgeable about both specific subject matter and the specific needs of the students in the classroom, yet must nevertheless follow the dictates of administrations, state boards, and federal organizations that, corporately, know very little about any one subject and even less about the individual students the teacher serves
• A teacher is always vulnerable to the whims of transient administrators and others who are "Here today, gone tomorrow"
• A teacher is seen as having less of a right to representation than a truck driver (I'm not saying they have a greater right to representation than truck drivers; I'm saying that they ought to have the same right to representation as truck drivers)
• A teacher is expected to improve student achievement every year despite reduced compensation, reduced resources, reduced time, and reduced respect
• A teacher is trusted with the education of the precious children who are the future of the human race, yet is seen by many as a convenient scapegoat and whipping boy
• A teacher may see a student just 180 hours a year, yet is considered solely responsible for students' academic achievement (and, more to the point, is considered solely responsible for a student's academic shortcomings)
•  Being a teacher means being part of a mammoth bureaucracy that serves political interests rather than student interests and has an endless appetite for human souls
• Being a teacher means giving mandated tests that rarely show the real growth, achievement, or capabilities of students
• Being a teacher means being vilified for making one's own well-being (financial, emotional, or personal) a priority

Teaching is wonderful; being privileged to participate in the opening of a student's mind to the wonders of the world and our place in it is awe-inspiring and amazing and humbling and startling and infinitely rewarding. It can also be heartbreaking and demanding, but those qualities make it all the richer. It's better to be heartbroken than unfeeling.

Being a teacher sucks.