Know-it-all parents, camp, low pay and bragging co-workers: School teacher who quit shares what she won’t miss about the job in a VERY honest list
- An Australian school teacher decided to quit her job for her ‘mental health’
- Deciding it wasn’t the profession for her, Ebony Drake listed the things she hated
- Chief among them were parents who interfered with her student’s work
- She also disliked the amount of planning, marking and overtime required
An Australian school teacher who walked away from her career for the sake of her ‘mental health’ has revealed the aspects of her job she ‘couldn’t stand’ in a very eye-opening list.
Ebony Drake worked as a teacher for four years but felt ‘exuberant relief’ upon handing in her resignation letter, saying that the frustration of the everyday grind was leading her to cry before, during and after a school day.
While she’s unsure what the future holds for her, Ebony penned a letter to Mamamia relaying some of the more painful things about fronting up a classroom of 30 children – with promises that whatever she chose next would be better.
An Australian school teacher who walked away from her career for the sake of her ‘mental health’ has revealed the aspects of her job she ‘couldn’t stand’ in a very eye-opening list (stock image)
She started by saying that having to refrain from using the bathroom until break times was difficult, and she often missed eating her lunch as a result.
General admin tasks involved with teaching – which include yard duty, planning, marking and organising your sick leave cover ahead of time – can all run over the regular school time hours and aren’t paid for in overtime.
Children behaving poorly ‘because their parents aren’t parenting them at home’ were a constant problem, being ‘coughed’ on by kids was an ongoing issue and not to mention having to explain an instruction several times because no one was listening.
Parents became one of the key aggravators in the classroom, particularly at parent/teacher interviews, because they spent most of their time telling Ebony how to do her job.
But the former school scholar didn’t stop there.
She started by saying that having to refrain from using the bathroom until break times was difficult, and she often missed eating her lunch as a result (stock image)
‘Camp. I despise spending overnight trips with kids that aren’t mine (and I don’t even have my own),’ she told the publication.
‘And teacher bragging… cool, you spent all holidays in your classroom and now it’s Pinterest-worthy? Stoked for you.’
Using her time off on the weekends to work, applying for her job every year and the media often putting down the work teachers do all played a part in why Ebony eventually quit.
Using her time off on the weekends to work, applying for her job every year and the media often putting down the work teachers do all played a part in why Ebony eventually quit (stock image)
But she did miss some rudimentary parts of being a teacher, namely when students took the time to learn something new and were excited to share it.
‘Seeing students have those light bulb moments and getting hand-drawn pictures are among the things I miss,’ she said.
Her final word of advice was for those still in the profession who are similarly struggling with the scale of their work, that they may leave if they feel like it’s not a healthy choice for them.