ramblings of a yapper

Must be tough being an Educator

As a student, there's been no shortage of times I've felt genuinely bad for teachers. Of course, there's the odd teacher or member of staff at a school you're studying at which you can't feel bad for for plenty of reasons, I'm sure all of us can think of plenty of "bad teachers" we've had that we memorably dislike. However, as a whole, I find myself feeling a little bad for the education industry most of the time.

I can totally understand the appeal of being a teacher and why so many do it when it's a relatively thankless and tiring job. I've had many a teacher who have genuine passion for watching their students grow and wanting deeply and determinedly to see improvement within their students. Those teachers are often the best, more so than the funny or hip ones, because their effort and care is very evident and can be very helpful if you want it to be. Teaching, I believe, is a job where passion and care beyond all is really really important, more so than other jobs where it might be easier to "phone it in" so to speak.

This is also exactly the problem with teaching, the fact that a lot of the time a lot of teachers put their heart on their sleeve and a lot of students find it fun or hip or cool to totally ignore that. I can't count the amount of times a teacher, in good faith, tries to help or encourage or give tips to a student only to be clowned behind closed doors for whatever reason. Everybody who's ever studied in any institution has had times where they ignore their teachers or don't fully appreciate their advice or even dislike a teacher, but it really irks me when, beyond ignoring them, you go so far as to actively trash someone who's trying their best. To me at least, there's a difference between "I'm not going to listen to them" and "Wow how dare this teacher say this this or that." You can ignore someone's advice or even condemn someone's actions while also acknowledging the fact that they've made an effort, not even doing the latter, the bare MINIMUM at times, is what disturbs me.

I can understand having the benefit of the doubt and maybe not believing that every teacher has your best interests at heart, maybe it's hard for you to be convinced of that notion, but I think when it's evident to see someone's actually trying, the least you can do is acknowledge that effort. What's the point of a teacher pulling you aside and giving you a thumbs up and pushing you to keep going only for you to slander them on your private social media account because you don't like what they said?? It's so scummy and scandalous that it genuinely disgusts me at times.

It brings me back to my original point: How hard must it be to be a good faith educator in our time? There's been and continues to be so many toxic, performative notions implanted into the heads of the youth as of recent times...

... that being a teacher and dealing with students day in day out must be HELL. Of course, not every kid nowadays is a rotten apple, but I feel like the amount of people growing more and more comfortable with being disrespectful dickheads increases year after year. We can talk about filial piety and anonymity on the internet and things like that, but even the simplest things like genuine, front-facing respect is harder and harder to come by now.

In some ways, thank goodness for internet anonymity. How shattering must it be for a teacher to find out someone's been talking shit about them behind their back because they complimented a student in nothing but good faith the other day for their hard work and good grades and the student took it and told their friends "this teacher's calling me a nerd and tryhard ew." (REAL SCENARIO BY THE WAY, it's what prompted me to write this in the first place). In the same sense, fuck internet anonymity for the way it's emboldened people to say whatever shit they want.

Just needed to rant about it, scary world we live in :(

xx