The begrudging teacher is a time-worn trope of film and TV - even though I’ve seen little evidence that such people exist in significant numbers in real life.
The corridors of fictional schools are roamed by frustrated novelists, composers and Nobel prize winners, bitterly regretting that they missed their true calling.
The example par excellence is Breaking Bad‘s Walter White, a put-upon high-school chemistry teacher whose dissatisfaction with his lot fuels his transformation into one of America’s most-feared drug lords.
The 2004 film Bad Teacher also took the begrudging teacher to ludicrous extremes: Cameron Diaz, as the titular character, drugs, poisons and steals from those who block her path out of teaching, her only career motivation being to amass enough money for breast-enlargement surgery.
The begrudging teacher is a weird screenwriters’ tic because real-life teachers draw huge inspiration from the nobility of their profession - they are far more likely to be idealists than cynics.
Yes, teachers may be unhappy about the day-to-day reality of their job but they grit their teeth and get through the hard times because they know they are in a profession that can have a profound influence on the lives of their pupils.
The begrudging teacher of film and TV lore looks down on the very idea of teaching as a profession. The source of frustration for teachers in actual schools, however, is not the nature of their profession per se but rather how their ambitions for the job are stymied by bureaucracy and political meddling.
Yet, however under the cosh teachers feel with workload, the nebulous reform agenda and the continuing fallout from Covid, they cling on to the knowledge that they are doing one of the most important jobs in the world.
At this point, though, it’s crucial to say that teachers’ idealism and passion for what they do are not inexhaustible sources. They have been pushed to breaking point over the past few years and, despite all that they love about the job, some have decided that enough is enough.
The altruism of teachers stands in complete contrast to the begrudging teacher trope, but it must not be taken for granted.
Henry Hepburn is Scotland editor at Tes. He tweets @Henry_Hepburn
