Is there an epidemic of miserable teachers ?
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I was a student very recently as I just graduated high school so I can give my opinion on on your question from a student perspective. I would definitely say that it’s not uncommon for teacher to be miserable. They are very under appreciated and very underpaid. They come into a classroom with students who don’t care about learning and only goal is too pass. Then each year the churn out the same information about the same topic just to s different set of kids. Is this the teachers fault? No. Is it the students fault? Definitely not. Its the system itself that’s the problem. Teachers have little to no freedom about what the teachers their kids and how they learn it. Teachers (especially when it get to the older grades) are forced to follow a strict curriculum and anything outside that is considered unnecessary by the “higher ups” and deemed unimportant. Teachers are resorted to giving out packets of information. Throwing up a PowerPoint on the board and telling students “remember this because it going to be on the test”. The goal of a teacher isn’t to teach students it’s to make sure they pass the test and have good grades. Nothing to do with learning and all to do with memorizing information and then brain dumping it back on to a bubble sheet. When students come into class all they care about is what’s going to be on the test and what’s for a grade. Almost every day I’d hear a person as a teacher at least once “is this assignment for a grade” and if the teacher said no, I wouldn’t do it. How could you blame me? When throughout my life my grade is what determined my value. For years students are thought that their grade is what’s most important. Rather than actually learning the topic it’s most important that students memorize the exact answers to exact questions to get a good grade. The desire to learn is literally beat out of us as the years in school continue. After years of standardized test, bible sheets, fill in the blank packets PowerPoints and worksheets how could we not loose that desire. And as a teacher how hard is it to teach people who don’t want to learn. This would make any teacher miserable. Teachers start to develop the “ well you don’t care so neither do I” mindset. And I don’t blame them either. They went to college for years to learn how to teach kids and connect with them. But instead they get to grade test and assignments all day. The school system currently set up to make bots. Shut up and listen to what I say and do what I say when I say it. That kind of environment is not enjoyable for teachers nor students. This response got longer than I intended so I’ll cut and short to say that it’s too sides of the same coin. One can’t be happy without the other. A miserable teacher is going to make miserable students and vise versa. Both sides have no one to blame but the system. Takes the saying “don’t hate the players hate the game” to a more real level. But hey I’m just a high school graduate. I’m just a kid, how could I as a student ever understand, my job isn’t to talk it’s to listen to what I’m told and raise my hand to go to the bathroom. As my teachers always told me “god gave you two ears to listen not to to talk”.
