I intend to keep this brief, but I just really don’t understand why some people think it’s socially acceptable to bash another person’s profession based on their very limited and perception of what that person’s job entails.

I would never presume to understand what an engineer, a tool and die maker, a lawyer, a roofer, a doctor, or police officer’s job entails based on my limited interactions with them. So why is it that because everyone was once a student, they believe they understand what teachers do for a living.

I only write this after spending my entire day in my steamy office working on lesson plans and course outlines and then reading a rather passive aggressive response to an article I posted on my Facebook page. I read this article by Sarah Fine about why she quit teaching, and commented that I found it a bit of a bummer and got the following response from an old high school friend:

I can think of many comments, the nicest one is that be glad you teach in Ontario. the rest aren’t so nice

I’m not sure that I’ll ever understand that. Here’s my response:

Oh believe me, I AM glad I teach in Ontario–or Canada at least. I promise you, you will never find a “gosh it sucks to be a teacher” comment on my facebook page. I just hope you’re not making assumptions about how hard I work or how much I care about the job I do based on what you know about how some other teachers do their jobs. Don’t judge until you walk a mile in my stylish shoes. Actually, I’d like to see you walk in six inch heels. That would rock!

(I should probably clarify the shoe comment by adding that my old high school pal is a man)