Elementary School teachers are glorified babysitters

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goodcatholic

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I used to be an ET. I think some of you know that. I remember having a conversation with some fellow male teachers down the pub one Friday after school. The comment has stuck in my head all these years later.
“We are just glorified babysitters you know”.

Now I imagine people being upset to hear this. Other teachers and also parents. What would the kids think of such a comment?
this particular teacher added that “once they learn to read and do basic math, the rest is just icing on the cake.”
To my mind there is some truth in what he is saying. We used to teach all subjects in those days, including Art, Craft, Music, whether we were good at it or not. I struggled preparing lessons for Craft and Science was also a major headache. But maybe it didn’t matter.maybe the kids didn’t care much what they studied. I don’t know.

There is a lot of “downtime” at school. Where it helps to have some ideas to "entertain " the kids. it’s not all serious study. If I look back now, I think I was taking the whole thing way too seriously. And myself seriously as well.

I’m sure parents are glad to have a break from their kids. Maybe they don’t care much what the kids do at school.
 
I have tried to pound it in to my daughter-in-law’s head that teachers are not expected to raise our kids. Unfortunately, I think many parents see sending their kids to school as a place for kids to go to
be taken care of since both parents are working. Unfortunately, sometimes not much parenting happens when the child gets home as Mommy is tired from working all day and has to fix dinner.
It is kind of sad actually.
 
I think babysitting is an underrated skill anyway. Ever tried babysitting 30 kids for 6 or 7 hours? You should try it. You’ll have a new found respect for what elementary school teachers have to do all the time.
 
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