Once-Passionate Teacher Now Hates Her Job Because The School System Leaves Students ‘Suffering’
She admitted that it's become exhausting trying to teach her students in the way that's expected of her from administrators.
Krakenimages.com | Shutterstock A once-passionate teacher posted to the subreddit "r/Teachers" to rant about why she's tired of being an educator. She admitted that it makes her deeply unhappy to feel this way about a profession that once brought her immense joy, and unfortunately, many other teachers can relate.
There's nothing easy about being a teacher, especially in today's climate. Not only are public school educators dealing with insufficient pay and a deep-seated unappreciation for the things they do, but the entire school system as a whole has left many teachers feeling frustrated with what they deem important versus what actually matters.
A once-passionate teacher now hates her job because the school system leaves students 'suffering.'
Kaboompics.com | Pexels
"Teaching used to be my passion and every year, every day, I can just feel it draining every ounce of my energy," she began in her Reddit post. "It’s not even the kids. I mean, sure, sometimes it’s the kids. There’s always an absolute piece of work who’s never absent. But the school system has turned so far in the wrong direction that the children are suffering."
She explained that the obsession with test scores, report cards, attendance, and all things optics has left her feeling drained with the profession. She claimed that there are school administrators who will constantly preach about self-care and offer empty promises like taking things off of the teacher's plates so they can actually relax, but will then turn around and put more testing requirements and different curricula that need to be taught right on their desks without a second thought.
"These poor children can’t be kids anymore. I can’t remember the last time I did a fun craft. They sit for hours doing math and reading. Science and social studies are slowly being pulled from our academics — the two subjects kids are interested in most and actually passionate about are going extinct because, go figure, state testing doesn’t assess those subjects!" she continued.
A majority of educators have admitted that standardized testing doesn't help their students.
In a survey from Education Week Research Center, only 25% of educators said state-mandated tests provide useful information for teachers. Meanwhile, nearly half of educators, 49%, reported feeling more pressure now than before the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure students perform well on state tests.
An estimated 42% of educators said the amount of pressure has remained about the same since 2019, while 9% said it has decreased. Not all students retain information through tests, and need a more hands-on approach to learning.
Rather than having to teach to the tests, many teachers wish that the school system allowed more room for creativity in the way they educate their students, including this frustrated teacher on Reddit.
"They’re bored. I’m bored," she admitted. "They give us nothing of substance; every meeting is the same unrealistic conversation about how we should be teaching our kids while constantly ignoring the elephant in the room that we have children performing years and years behind grade level."
At the end of the day, if teachers are feeling this way, then it's highly likely the kids are feeling too. There's more to learning and being educated than having to take tests to measure performance.
The best kind of education is one that nurtures a child's curiosity and creativity, not just teaching them information they can use to fill out bubbles on a scantron. Teachers being stripped of their ability to actually help kids with the important aspects of learning means both they and their students are missing out on what makes learning fun and meaningful in the first place.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
