I Just Didn't Know

The hardest part of being a teacher isn't dealing with students or behavior problems. It isn't the unnecessary staff meetings that always go over time. It isn't waking up at 5:15 am. It isn't having to grade 120 of every assignment I ever give. It isn't the data tracking, the lesson planning, the standardized testing. It isn't keeping my agenda board, bulletin board, word wall, IFC calendar and data charts updated at all times. It isn't the standard tracking, classroom management, bathroom monitoring, or D.C. Trip planning. It's not the long professional developments or having to eat lunch with my kids everyday. It's not keeping track of 120 student's progress or attendance. It isn't making sure students are actually learning, will be ready for the End of Grade Final, and are engaged during your class. It's not the salary. It isn't keeping up with all the legalities or politics of education. The hardest part of teaching isn't even having to smell Middle School kids when they come back from P.E.

The hardest part of being a teacher is dealing with parents. It is truly the most stressful, maddening, and disheartening part of my job. And it's something that I didn't think much about as a student studying education in college but now, as an educator, it's what I think about all the time.

I like to think that people would be shocked and appalled at the way teachers are treated by parents today, but I'm afraid that they wouldn't. I'm afraid that this is just the way of the world.

It seems as if parents today view teachers as teenage babysitters; not Bachelor of Art (or Bachelor of Science) holding, professional adults that spent 4 years in college studying and training to be an educator. And not to mention hold precious knowledge about teaching and about children that can only be gained by being a classroom teacher.

I've really felt down lately as my inbox has been full of nasty and insulting emails from the parents of students that I truly care about. Students that I've been working with for going on two years. Students that I spend more time in my day with than I do my husband and puppy. Students who I think about constantly, who I worry over, who I plan for, who I spend extra time outside of class helping (and not just with Social Studies but with social and life skills too), students who I love and pray for. These emails have angered me, brought me to tears, and made me feel so overwhelmed at the thoughts that this is what I've chosen to subject myself to, because after all I'm the one who decided to become a teacher.

Parents are never satisfied. We either do too little ("They're only Middle Schoolers! Let them be kids") or we do too much ("They're 14 years old, you shouldn't treat them like they're in Elementary school!"). We either require too much ("Couldn't you just make this assignment optional? She has a lot going on after school.) or we don't require enough ("You don't give enough homework, this isn't a challenge to my brilliant child!"). We either don't contact them enough ("How should I know my child is failing? You never emailed me!") or we contact them too much ("He's in 8th grade, you shouldn't contact me every time he acts up.") And unfortunately, I could go on and on with their complaints.

Maybe I shouldn't care what the parents say or let how they talk to me bother me. But I do and it does. And it can be so frustrating sometimes because though parents can say whatever they want to me, however they want, I have to make sure that I'm always professional in my responses.

I knew that teaching would be hard. I knew it would be time consuming. I knew that it would never make me a millionaire. I also knew it was my calling and I thought I knew that nothing would ever make me doubt that.

But I just didn't know about the parents.








(Also, to be fair, I do have a few supportive and wonderful parents but I'm afraid they are a dying breed.)