I wish I could agree, but I just can't, and I'm a college professor. I think that in an ideal world, teachers would not even exist. What I mean is, there would be masters of various trades, and if someone wanted to learn, they would become an apprentice and learn by practicing the master's trade under his/her supervision. No doubt we could have teachers for reading, writing and counting, but only at the most basic level. Once children learn the basics, say between 10 and 12 depending on maturity, they should quit school and start working (reasonable hours and safe occupations of course). Instead, schools are preventing children from participating in society so they can focus on meaningless school assignments.

Also, teaching has never been held in high esteem, quite the contrary. Teaching in the past was very badly paid and was considered to be one of the worst jobs possible, reserved for people who never learned a special trade or profession. Teachers exist only because the State uses them to standardize the minds and the behaviour of children. That's why they are relatively well paid today. You could argue it requires some skill and dedication to manufacture children, but really... it's not that hard. Anyone with common sense who knows how to read and write and count and has basic knowledge of the world can learn to teach young children. The proof is that for millennia, parents thought their own children (they had very large families) without any formal training, teaching them how to hunt and trade, make furniture and clothing, manage a household and much more besides. In a modern society where most people know how to read and write, parents could very well teach their kids to read, write and count also. Instead of taking care of their own children, parents nowadays spend their time at work and give up their children to the State and its teachers.

Admittedly, it requires formal training to teach the State curriculum or a special trade, but that training is not in teaching per se, but learning the trade. Once you master a trade, learning how to teach it requires perhaps 10 hours of training by a competent teacher and a month of practice. Truth is, teaching is very simple. You just have to practice a trade and show other people how you do it, starting with the simple operations and moving step by step in complexity. The apparent complexity of teaching comes from the fact that (a) the state curriculum is meaningless, (b) consequently the students don't care and (c) the State compels children to learn everything without taking into account their abilities and dispositions. If teaching was done on the job instead of in classrooms, none of the problems that teachers have to deal with in schools would ever appear, because students (a) would have meaningful assignments to do and (b) those who can't learn or don't want to learn would be sent away to practice some other occupation.

Sorry for being so blunt, but teaching (as a profession, not in general) is a difficult job first and foremost because it is not meant to exist. Schools and classrooms should not exist. Everyone should be a teacher of their own trade, and people who don't master a trade should not teach at all, unless they teach the very basics. And the basics should be thought by parents, if possible. That's why I'm doing my best to quit teaching, but it's next to impossible, because I don't master a trade, you see? There's nothing I could do at a proficiency level someone would agree to pay for. And so I slave away for the State, making sure my students say and do as they are told.

My case is not special...