5 Things People Don't Understand About Teachers

5 Things People Don’t Understand About Teachers

I know. You’re reading this title and thinking, “Well, this sounds like it could become one of those ‘my-job-is-harder-than-yours’ posts.” Let me say up front that I completely understand that most people have tough, stressful, and demanding jobs, and mine is no harder than some jobs out there; however, teaching is different in the sense that we live two different lives and I think it’s hard for people to adjust for that. People go from seeing us almost 24/7 in the summer to literally never during the school year.

For me, there is literally Summer Aubrie and School-year Aubrie, and they are two different people. My husband knows this and I am so blessed to have a guy that completely understands this change in me when the school year starts. I think it’s good to lay out what we don’t understand about other peoples’ jobs so we can learn to better love them. I am definitely not looking for sympathy, because I LOVE this job, and I chose it, so consequentially, I chose everything that comes with it.

What is hard about your job? What don’t people get? Don’t be afraid to let me know!

• Teacher brain is an actual thing. I am now capable of seriously listening to two people talking to me at once and having an answer for both when they finish talking. I am getting better at making split-second decisions. I have lots of notes-to-self stored somewhere in there that remind me of certain things to NEVER try again in class, and things that worked really well. If you looked at my planner, it looks like five different colors of Sharpie exploded all over every page. It is my life. Without it, meetings and bus duty wouldn’t happen. Bus duty didn’t happen one year because I didn’t have a planner (oops...no planner?! What?!). I don’t remember what most people told me yesterday. If I forget something you told me, it isn’t because I wasn’t listening sincerely, but because I listen to so many people throughout the day that my brain has no clue what to do with all the information. I have actually started taking notes on students so I can learn more about each one and actually KNOW them.

• It’s not you, it’s me. Just because I do not contact you after the start of the year doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. My day starts (right now, because of marathon training) at 4 a.m. I run, I get ready, I go to school and take care of my over 160 kiddos whom I truly love dearly, try to meet their every need, sprint to the copier every hour because that’s just how I roll, and I go home at 5 if I’m lucky. Then, I turn my brain off. I sit with my husband, who biblically is supposed to be the most important thing to me, next to God, so I truly value the couple hours we get together each evening when we are both at home. We eat dinner, and then I go to bed.

• At least you get off at 3, so it can’t be that bad. Okay. This has been on every teacher blog I have probably read, but it is still one of the top things that is said to me on a regular basis. Yes, my kids leave at 3. But I’m there until 5 or 6 planning tomorrow’s materials. I refuse to pull out exactly what I did last year and give it to a totally new group of kids with new learning needs. Almost everything needs to be tweaked or thrown out and changed.

• Teachers also have summers and weekends off. I once read somewhere that most teachers put in more hours in the 9-month school year than most other people put into a year-round job, and I would be willing to bet it’s true. Some teacher friends and I were lying around this summer and our husbands joked that we should get to work on something. Us: “We are working. On our sanity.” ‘Nuff said. Many teachers are also in their rooms through most of July redecorating or planning for the new year.

• Teachers talk to other teachers. When you get six teachers in a room, they’re going to talk. We vent. We cry (sometimes). We laugh. Most of our stories revolve around school and this drives some people nuts. But, this is our lives. Interacting with anyone under the age of 18 for hours on end each day is bound to produce pain, laughter, love, tears, confusion, frustration, and every other motion under the sun. And if we didn’t get to talk, there would probably be a teacher explosion happening every, like, five seconds.

These are just a few things I have learned and noticed in this short two years I have been teaching. What are some things that you wish people knew about your job?