By David Postic

Teachers are the worst…

1. Teachers don’t have that hard of a job.

They basically just babysit kids for seven hours a day. Anyone could do that. Never mind that, if we paid them like babysitters, we should be paying them $250,000 per year rather than $44,000.

2. Teachers don’t take care of their classrooms.

The books are just falling apart, the desks are old and broken, and I have to contribute classroom supplies for my kid every year. Never mind that funding for common education has been cut dramatically over the past decade, and never mind the fact that teachers make do with substandard classroom resources, often using their own money to give their kids a quality educational experience.

3. Teachers indoctrinate my kids with anti-religious nonsense.

If I don’t want my kid learning about evolution, the teacher shouldn’t be allowed to teach evolution. Never mind that teachers are charged with opening minds, exposing children to new worlds of ideas, all the while putting up with hell from parents and special interest groups for teaching a curriculum over which they have little to no control.

4. Teachers complain too much about not getting enough money for their schools.

I don’t even have kids–why should I have to pay my hard earned dollars for someone else’s kids? Never mind the fact that education funding has decreased across the board since the Great Recession; that good school districts often result in greater benefits to everyone living there; and that “kids are the future” and all that jazz.

5. Teachers get off work at 3pm.

Never mind the countless hours they spend grading papers, preparing lesson plans, tutoring students, or pulling all-nighters to get ready for class.

6. Teachers get a three month summer vacation.

Never mind the professional development seminars they attend, the workshops they travel to, the classroom workdays they set aside, the lessons they plan, or even the second jobs they have to work to make ends meet.

7. Teachers complain too much about standardized tests.

Never mind the fact that such tests measure only “low level” thinking processes, take education out of the hands of educators, allow pass-fail rates to be manipulated for political purposes, and radically limit the ability of teachers to adapt to learner differences.

8. Worst of all, though, teachers try too damn hard.

Never mind that they come to work every day not for the meager pay but for a chance to make a kid smile because they understand the world a little bit better than they did before. Never mind that they try to have an impact and make a difference. Never mind that they try to change lives. Never mind that a lot of people don’t support them, don’t listen to them, don’t understand them, and don’t respect them. …Never mind that teachers try anyway. Because that’s just who teachers are.

Yeah. Teachers are the worst. And we should all want to be like them.

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See this post on Thought Catalog.

David Postic is a second-year law student at the University of Oklahoma.