This Teacher Has Had Enough

Image - Julie Marburger

Teaching is not just teaching the children their academics anymore. In fact it really does sadden me to see so many wonderful teachers walking away from the profession because it is quite simply too much. People who have a burning passion to make a difference in the lives of children. People who have spent many hours dedicated to learning and achieving to get to where they are - walk away, feeling broken.

Not only do they have to ensure the progress of children, they battle never ending paperwork. They have the burden of lack of funds to develop their classrooms and create the enriched environments they dream about. Many teachers are known to reach into their own pockets to provide for the children that they care so much about. They do this because they care. 

In many schools, not just nationally but globally - education is at a crisis point. There are record numbers of teachers leaving the profession completely and not enough people qualifying to fulfil the job roles. It is without question that teaching is one of the most important professions that we have in society.

Yet what teachers come up against is often overlooked or misunderstood. They leave work late to come home and continue to work into their evenings. They have restless nights feeling stressed about the demands and incomplete tasks. Weekend plans are often put on hold and work life balance is completely off. Not through choice. It really is a needs must.

I recently came across a viral post from a teacher who has had enough. Julie Marburger poured her heart and soul out and received almost 400,000 shares across the Facebook platform. It resonated with so many:

“I left work early today after an incident with a parent left me unable emotionally to continue for the day. I have already made the decision to leave teaching at the end of this year, and today, I don’t know if I will make it even that long. Parents have become far too disrespectful, and their children are even worse. Administration always seems to err on the side of keeping the parent happy, which leaves me with no way to do the job I was hired to do … teach kids.

Image belongs to - Julie Marburger

I am including photos I took in my classroom over the past two days. This is how my classroom regularly looks after my students spend all day there. Keep in mind that many of the items damaged or destroyed by my students are my personal possessions or I purchased myself, because I have NO classroom budget.

Report cards come out later this week, and I have nearly half of my students failing due to multiple (8-10) missing assignments. Most of these students and their parents haven’t seemed to care about this over the past three months, though weekly reports go out, emails have been sent and phone calls have been attempted.

But now I’m probably going to spend my entire week next week fielding calls and emails from irate parents, wanting to know why I failed their kid. My administrator will demand an explanation of why I let so many fail without giving them support, even though I’ve done practically everything short of doing the work for them. I am expecting this, because it is what has happened at the end of every other term thus far.

People absolutely HAVE to stop coddling and enabling their children. It’s a problem that’s going to spread through our society like wildfire. It’s not fair to society, and more important, is not fair to the children to teach them this is okay. It will not serve them towards a successful and happy life.

You can see more about this - here, where Julie Marburger gave an interview about her thoughts and feelings that she shared on Facebook.