When all else fails

Coffee and cake with boy wonder and the bonus of Mum coming along too. I think she was surprised about the conversation returning to Russian history, apartheid and other things.

I had a rant on the Facebook before. I reproduce it here. I haven't fallen out of love with teaching, but I am utterly sick to death of the crappy stuff that goes with being in the profession these days. I am reassured that it isn't just me that is feeling it.

When did it become a requirement of teachers that they 'entertain' children in order to 'keep their attention'? We train for years to do this job. We work bloody hard. We are professionals, with a wealth of expertise and talent. We teach, assess, support, cajole, challenge, stretch, give pep talks, build confidence, inspire and our moral purpose is to ensure we contribute to young people becoming fully functional citizens in society. I am utterly sick of hearing from a small minority of parents, across the country, via social and other media, that we aren't 'entertaining' their child and that is why they are 'bored and playing up'. I am ANGRY that this is what we put up with, collectively, as a profession. We are fair game in the media, we are not protected from the verbal abuse of parents (and neither are our amazing support and ancillary staff, without whom the whole system would fail), we are expected to take every last bit of crap that is thrown our way, apparently with no right of reply. It's part of the job.
Coming home on the edge of tears (of frustration) every day at how little we are respected is becoming tiresome now, with still at least another decade to put up with it. When are we going to say ENOUGH????