[watermelon59]

> As someone who taught kids in person and fell into a deep depression with how Kafkaesque that job was

Would you mind elaborating on why that was the case? I’m super curious because I’ve considered switching careers to become a teacher.

[lr4444lr]

To quote H.L. Mencken (paraphrasing), a teacher's job is miserable because they must ceaselessly try to get masses or people to think who have no real capacity to.

You might be lucky to reach a small minority of your students, assuming environmental forces of poverty, dysfunctional family, and peer influence don't muzzle their gifts. But the day in day out bulk of your work isn't those "Mr. Holland's Opus" moments: it's handling a bunch of kids who don't want to be there in a bureaucratic set of rules imposed on you from above. And private schools are not immune to these problems either.

[conductr]

As a private school parent, I can say it (can be) a significantly better experience. I’m sure there’s different forms of poop you’ll be stepping in, but in general with my experience there poverty factor is removed (affluence has its own problems, but luckily they don’t tend to show up in the classroom) and the biggest key is the parents are engaged. Instead of blaming teachers for our kids failures, we partner with them to ensure success.

I am a firm believer that (lack of) parenting is the problem that most affects the other learning environments negatively. Parents are the key to any meaningful change. Parents should be responsible for all of it. Teachers are convenient scapegoats of bad parents.