Those Whiny Teachers
If you’ve ever scrolled into the comments section of just about any education article, you have undoubtedly been greeted by the sentiment that teachers are, by and large, a bunch of whiny losers.
My article, Why Teachers Are So Tired, elicited a number of comments, most of which were verbal nods of the head. This wasn’t surprising. This is a blog written by a teacher for teachers, and I don’t know any teacher who wouldn’t like more energy at the end of the day. But there was one comment that ruffled a few feathers. Strider opined:
It got me thinking why there is such a chasm between what teachers say about their jobs and what non-teachers believe.
Our Faulty Imaginations
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness (which is excellent, by the way). Gilbert is a Harvard social psychologist who specializes in happiness. You’ve probably seen him on YouTube giving TED Talks and on TV standing in front of a large wall of blue dots.
Much of Gilbert’s book addresses how terrible people are at what he calls “affective forecasting.” It turns out humans really sort of suck at predicting how they will feel about future events because they fail to consider all of the details.
I had a dental appointment recently. First, I had a cleaning and then I was getting a crown on a chipped tooth. I figured it would last two hours. I was not looking forward to it. But when I got there I waited less than a minute before being called back. I had my favorite hygienist, and we enjoyed an excellent conversation about Caribbean cruises. When I Those Whiny Teachers - Teacher Habits:
