Why do teachers leave the profession?

Author: Vinita Tripathi

These are just a few examples of ‘seriousness' of grade 12 children during their online class. I am not even mentioning the background songs, abusive words, and absolute silence when a question is asked from them. A teacher feels as if he is teaching walls, all alone in the room.

There is something call mischief But this is maleficence.

As a teacher, it pains to see the children suffering so much during this pandemic which has handicapped them of practical and physical education. All the stories of grandparents crossing the rivers holds no water now. Theirs was physical but these children's are emotional, physical, mental and psychological strain. As per parents, the screen-time of children had risen exponentially (forget about online games and binge watch etc because no-one had problem).

Now take the situation from another perspective, the perspective of a teacher. A teacher has been taught by their teachers in conventional way, and trained in conventional teaching, in most cases, but they have to teach using modern tech. They are trying to unlearn yet retain the ways of teaching because when the school opens then they should use the previous methods only. They are trying to learn new ways.

Meanwhile, as a teacher we are suffering due to our own ambition of imparting the lesson in the best possible way. For each lesson, we have PDF of book, slides, and worksheets and more worksheets. We are suffering at the hands of management because they think we are at home so ‘what are we doing?’ The teacher have been asked to call home to motivate parents to pay fee as per their convenience, though. Meanwhile, the management is either not paying any salary or half salary at the max. We have suffered at the hands of our students who fiddle and write such disrespectful comments and think it is their way of having fun. And then, there come parents, the ones who like their children to be engaged but complain that we have risen the screen time, who are happy that school is providing the education online but think that it is a gimmick when they have to pay fee.

Why we want to leave this profession because

There are rules for us about how and what to wear but the students, if tried to disciplined, have been seen threatening Teachers of committing suicide. (Trust me this is not an exaggeration).

There are rules for us not to utter abusive words like -stupid, mentally retarded but the student have called us bi***h, f***, M******ch but we can't say a single word even in our defence.

There are rules for us to know in and out of each child, to understand them but they call us englishwali, physics wala, computerwali. But they are innocent, they can't remember due to stress so it is okay.

For board classes, the stress on us is to push children to score maximum (no management bothers about knowleged, just the score) and not on the children.

When a child passes the class and moves on to the next, he starts ignoring his previous teacher. No-one remembers the teachers who tried to support them not only academically but psychologically too. Who had been their ‘guru' in all the matters.

Why we want to leave this profession because there is no motivation and it has became berating.

View the original story on Quora.

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The author speaks the truth. Having a teacher in my family, I know quite well the ordeals a coming-of-age educator has to go through in these times of crises. Being a teacher, you have to be answerable to not just one, but three bosses: The managament, The parents, and The society at large, It is really a stressful job. We should make efforts to help teachers in our community so that they can carry out their duties and fulfill one of the direst needs of the coming generation: being the role models and the architects of tomorrow's citizens.

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