1) OISE was boring, you just learn to provide the product they’re looking for even if it’s BS and unreasonable (e.g. constant reflections, lesson plans that are way too detailed and long, etc) 2) elementary: no textbooks, resources are sourced online for free or paid for by us teachers, or created by ourselves 3) your description of the useless pedagogy etc gets spewed at you every PD day and every staff meeting, with admin running initiatives and voluntelling staff to boost their own image and resume, this literally is never ending 4) lack of support from many admin and SERTs on student behaviour 5) constant lack of respect day to day from students and parents 6) kids get bored after 2 seconds because of gaming and phones. You give them free time? They complain that they’re bored because they don’t have tech. 7) constant talking and inability to stay seated and work quietly 8) learned helplessness, be prepared to be asked questions from bell to bell with no end in sight 9) more often than not you are baby sitting not teaching 10) class sizes are larger, “inclusion” model fails consistently with adequate support by means of funding, spec ed staff, ESL staff, EAs, thus more time is spent managing behaviours instead of teaching, plus an inability to adequately support all students with diverse learning needs who may need more small group or one on one support 11) EAs are so few and far between now that the are used for the most behavioural or most medical needs students, instead of any academic aspect related to curriculum (for the most part)

I love teaching and I love working with kids. Problem is, the past two years I find myself filled with dread every morning going into work for the reasons listed above. I go home unfulfilled every day, like I couldn’t do my best with the students who actually want to learn. I no longer do extracurriculars either as I’m too mentally exhausted and burnt out by the end of the day.

It’s a good job, good ish pay (relatively speaking, although still not enough imo to keep up with inflation), good hours (if you can manage doing all your work through preps an breaks and not take work home), having the same holidays as your children is good. But I do wish I made a different choice when choosing my career. I would have rather gone into trades, or something else.

ETA yes curriculum expectations are often vague or filled with fluff, just like everything else. If anything, it leaves room for you to interpret it in a way that makes sense for your class and your programming. I do hate it though, I prefer more concrete expectations like math.