Most people have some type of idea of what they want to be when they grow up from the time that they are at a very young age. In some cases, it may change as they get older and they begin to realize that life is not all about such simple decisions. At other times, however, we may find that we hold onto the same love that we had at first, and that is especially true when it comes to teachers. Often, people realize that they want to be a teacher from the time they are very young and they continue to love it, even after they become part of the profession.
That isn’t to say, however, that teaching is always going to be an easy job. In fact, it is perhaps one of the most difficult things to do. Not only do you have to deal with children, who can be unruly at times, you also are very limited as to what you are able to do in order to keep them under control. When students start to misbehave, teachers may look to the parents in order to correct the situation but unfortunately, most parents tend to look to the teachers to handle the matter. That is what a woman by the name of Julie Marburger experienced when she was a teacher.
Marburger went on Facebook to talk about her experiences and the post went viral. The post was all about parents and how they need to care for their unruly children at home so that they are able to be cared for properly at school. It was a message of responsibility that every parent should hear:
“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.
“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.”
Julie continues: “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.”
She went on to say:
“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.”
I think there’s a lesson in there for all of us.
