Welcome to Confusion

Life? What life? Parents believe that teachers are on call 24/7. As if we are doctors. We are expected to respond to their emails and phones at all hours of the day and night. They don’t accept the fact that we have a home, families, and lives that we live outside of work hours. We don’t get paid over time when we answer emails and parent messages at 8:00pm or 12am. We aren’t allowed to have emergencies or sick days without parents complaining. Please don’t even mention getting pregnant, that’s a huge no no. Teachers don’t have a life because parents expect so much from us and all of our attention. If we don’t give that to them then they immediately run to our higher ups. If their kid doesn’t do their homework at home they blame us and want to fuss at us at 5pm or later. This is the time we should be at home or dealing with the different things going on in our life. Please, remember that teachers have lives too. That we want to spend time with our loved ones and our families. Please let us been once it hits 4:30 or once school ends.

While teaching is such a rewarding job, parents can also make it an oppressive job. I’m an elementary school teacher. I have been blessed with a miracle that medically I was told wouldn’t happen and hadn’t happened for almost 8 years,  I was blessed to conceive my first and possibly my only child. Being due in February that isn’t even half way through the school year. I told my students I was expecting because they had been watching the other second grade teachers play with the other children at recess and I haven’t tried. I would tell them that I couldn’t but I would watch them. This made my students feel like I didn’t like them so I revealed that I was expecting at 4 months (my students have no clue how far along I am.) Being children and excited they went home and told their parents. Most of the parents were happy for me and congratulated me. There was one set of parents that unfortunately did not feel the same way. They feel that I am doing harm to their child by being pregnant and I am not doing everything in my power to help them academically due to my pregnancy. After they had a conference with me where they smiled and in my face and thanked me for working so hard for their child (mind you we have only been in school for 3 weeks now) they precede to run to my principal to express concerns of me not supporting their child academically. Thankfully my administration knows I am pregnant and have known for months. They also know how hard I work for my students and that I will do anything for them. So my principal asked them if they expressed these concerns to me and my dean. They confirmed they spoke to me but not my dean. Now they will be meeting my dean to express their “academic” concerns stemming from my pregnancy.

 This is just one example of the life of a teacher. Deemed by the parents we are not allowed to have a life outside of school. We are not allowed to be sick, miss any days from school, do anything that would cause us to not give their child attention with our lives. We’re not allowed to want to get married or start a family of our own. IF we do any of these things then we obviously do not care for the children and their academic needs. This is one of the things that is wrong with education. We are expected to live our lives the way that the parents see fit. Anything outside of that realm they think we should be fired for or blacklisted so to speak.