The teacher’s lounge was a cheerless place with ratty furniture and a

stained rug. The door was firmly closed and woe be it to any student
who dared stick their head through that portal. On the first day of my
student teaching, I was eager to make friends and hopefully get some
inspiration from my new “mentors” so I decided to stop by this
gathering place.

No one even looked up as I entered, and I stood awkwardly against

one wall. Introductions were not made, so I just listened. Every
teacher in there seemed to genuinely hate students, maybe they just
hated what teaching had done to their lives, and since students were
the only people they actually had any power over, they were easy
targets. The students were difficult though and I could see why the
resentment built up.

School administration seemed unwilling to do anything about

behavior problems except tell the teachers to handle it. Their
suggestions bordered on comical.

One week into my student teaching ordeal, one student stapled

another in the hand. The administration told me I should have made
a rule about stapling each other. These students were 17 years old, I
don’t think the problem was that they didn’t know stapling each
other was wrong.

Luckily I had been teaching in Japan for several years before

enrolling in my master's program, so I knew that not all teaching was
like that. I finished my student teaching requirements and got the
hell out of there.

I stuck it out and have had a long and rewarding career as a teacher,
but mostly not in the United States.

Lately, I have been seeing a lot of articles about how teachers are
leaving the profession in record numbers and I am not surprised. It
is a stressful, largely thankless job that doesn’t pay well and requires
a huge number of unpaid hours.

No one in their right mind, who is looking for a nice, well-balanced,

financially-secure life would choose teaching, and those brave souls
who do, soon realize that they are so stressed out they can’t even do
what they had hoped to do which was help people.

One surprising thing I have noticed though is that it is usually the

teachers who love teaching, who are creative and good at their job,
that are leaving. Those teachers who haunt the teachers’ lounge,
hating students, they stay. Why is that?