Stepping in the door and seeing my husband, I fall sobbing into his arms. It has been a hard day, made even harder by yet another complaint by a parent: more pressure on my already burdened shoulders.
I feel like a failure. I wonder if I should just quit and choose another career altogether. No matter how much CPD I do, no matter how much I spend on stationery just to make sure that all my pupils have a pencil, no matter how many hours I spend in front of a laptop, no matter that I care so much about my pupils - it is still, and will never be, enough for the judge and jury of parents.
A range of questions keeps going through my head - if I did less, if I stopped caring so much, would they stop their constant criticism of me? I doubt it very much. My feelings really don’t count for anything. The buck, of course, stops with me. I’m the one who has to change, to get better at what I do.
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When I finished my postgraduate teaching degree, I breathed a sigh of relief. I really thought that was it then - I didn’t have any more hoops to jump through. Looking back, I can’t believe how naive I was. If only I’d known.
Parents criticising teachers
How do parents feel justified to make these kinds of judgements about teachers? To be able to freely criticise everything teachers do? I try to answer these questions myself, because frankly I am feeling exhausted and completely perplexed by the whole injustice of it.
Perhaps it’s because teachers are responsible for so much of their child’s learning, for preparing their child for exams and so much more. Yet should teachers be discredited by an informal jury of parents? No, definitely not.
I remember when I was a child, telling my mum about what happened at school that day. Her response was a simple question: “Well, what was the teacher doing when all this was going on?” Now I know the exact answer, because I am that very teacher: they are taking the register, issuing toilet passes, having a restorative conversation while still trying to teach the class, handing out yet another sharpener, trying to coax an answer out of the very quiet pupil who just does not speak - and everything else that can happen in a single period.
That is what I am doing. I am certainly not sitting with my feet up and sticking a video on, nor ignoring any of the myriad issues within the classroom that I am trying so hard to control. I am proud to be that kind of teacher: I know deep down that I am doing my very best for all my pupils.
I worked so hard to get to this point. I studied so hard and, now, giving my best is all I can do. I care about all my pupils. Maybe my critics are the ones with the problem, not me.
The writer is a secondary teacher in Scotland
