You don't survive in teaching without collegiality and friends. There is time to be social, although sometimes everyone's busy (e.g.during reporting weeks).
There's time within the day (sometimes), but not really after work or on weekend and holidays, at least at my school. Everyone firmly separates their work from their social life - or maybe I'm just not invited, who knows.
That's why the summer holiday is actually my least favourite time of year.
It can depend on the workplace. If the staff are collegial and thre is a positive culture you will have a professional community to help you.
If you are stuck in a toxic shitheap then you will isolate yourself to survive until you can gtfo.
Teaching is all consuming unless you get very strict boundaries in place early on. There is always something more you can do to make a lesson better. Notably though, it takes exponentially more effort and time to take a lesson from good to great than it does to take it from ok to good.
I’ve approached it as only taking marking home with me, and being ok with ok. As the years have gone on I’m now minimum ok, consistently good and occasionally great. I still make time to see people outside of school but also purposely connect with my colleagues. Asking “How are you holding up?” has been a much better opener than the standard “How are you doing?” especially since it’s culturally assumed teachers are not ok. (Quite a weird norm imo).
I have seen teachers than work 70-80 hour weeks. Their lessons are amazing, but that’s all they have. No partner, no pets, no friends but their colleagues. It is a valid option, but if you don’t actively say no to it, teaching leads you into this lifestyle against your will.
As a young (22 currently, worked as a teacher since 21), teacher I’ve found that it can be quite isolating. I’m much younger than my colleagues and don’t have much in common (no kids, unmarried, I refuse to watch MAFS, etc..). We’re friendly, not friends and I’m ok with that.
It’s also harder for me to keep friendships from before I started teaching full-time as I’m so time poor and can’t see my friends who work hospitality jobs or are studying at uni as often as I used to.
This was definitely me at the start of my teaching career, at my first school. After that, it became easier to make friends. But when I think about the friends I did make in other schools, it's not because I got older. I really just didn't have anything in common with the people at my first school *in addition* to age.
It'll depend on the school and whether you get lucky or not. Hopefully that sounds somewhat hopeful!
Our faculty make sure to organise an informal get-together at least twice a term (start and end, usually). Whilst we co-exist in the same staff room and have fortnightly faculty meetings, we found all of our interactions to be purely work-related.
These catch-ups are an opportunity to stop being teachers and colleagues for a few hours and just bond, chat, get to know each other.
Other faculties have impromptu drinks most Fridays, but they are full of young, mostly single, mostly childless teachers. Maths teacher at my school are the opposite. Before this year, I was the youngest Maths teacher on staff in my late 30s.
Teaching is highly social and not isolating at all.
For a start most of us are sitting in the same staff room. I've got half a dozen colleagues within arms reach of me at lunch time. And during NCT time there is generally someone in the room with me while we work. In engineering my first office was in a literal explosion proof concrete bunker in the middle of a chemical plant.
For the most part all teachers are doing the same basic work. So its very easy to strike up a conversation about the topics or the curriculum or the students or leadership. Teachers also come from rather similar education, social and wealth backgrounds. About the only weird barrier is age/life stage.
I’m not from Australia. I’ve been here for 11 years and all my lasting friendships are with my colleagues. All other friendships outside teaching have been very transient.🤷♀️
I’ve said it a lot that teaching is somewhat of a lonely profession, at least in my head and perspective. I might have 20 minutes of my day where I’m able to talk to colleagues, but I’m arriving to school for my classes and I go home when the 3pm bell goes off.
its very easy to becomes ‘siloed’ in a school and get stuck in a routine of same staff room, same people, same arguments…etc…sometimes its good to veer out of your lane and ensure you work with a variety of people and set boundaries surrounding work and leisure time.
I think it really depends on ya few things. Primary or highschool, the nature of staff common areas, the culture of the staff and school and your personal willingness to make connections. I would also suggest it takes patience, especially in a secondary setting it takes ages to make strong connections across KLAs.
I find Christmas parties are often the best times to make colleagues friends!
I've just started my career as a teacher in my forties as a CRT. I made an effort to connect with people in the lunch rooms at my school and found a little core group to chat with in between.
I’m making some great friendships with my teacher colleagues! There’s time during lunch, recess (if you’re not on duty or in your classroom), RFF time. I’ve gone out with a few of my teacher mates after school and on the weekends :) Also, the school I’ve started at plans gatherings every now and then
It can go either way. If you have a positive culture within the school, then you will make friends and develop positive relationships within the school. The important thing for you will be to not get stuck doing work during your breaks…go to the staffroom and sit down with the other staff and initiate conversations. It’s hard to stop in teaching, there’s always something to do, so it’s important to find time to connect with other adults and take a break, even if it is just 15 minutes.
I imagine there's a difference in the answers depending on if you are primary or secondary, and if your staffroom is a 'common room' with tea, coffee, and staff morning teas, or if it's a 'faculty office' staffroom where you have your (second) desk with all of your resources, planning, the photocopier, etc.
As a secondary teacher my staffroom has about 20-25 teacher desks where at any one time during the day, you can pretty much guarantee that there are at least 4 other people in there, whether before school (nutsoes who get in at 6am *who are you?*) during break times and NCT, and especially after school. I will sometimes need to escape to a classroom in order to get work done as the staffroom is so social. This has been my experience across multiple schools, both in the country and in the city, and in cath ed as well as state education.
I will preface, that there were some country schools where, because I wasn't married, or looking for marriage, I was on the outer with the clique in my school. ~~Sorry, not sorry, I don't want to be married with 3 kids by the time I'm 25 to an alcoholic farmer~~.
Good news! If these are the working conditions that interest you, you are very welcome to join us.
I mean I honesty can't work out why *more* people aren't knocking on the doors to get into teaching with such a sweet cruisy deal. Baffling. 6 hour days. 18 weeks leave. The DREAM.
I know a number of agronomists who skilled across into teaching Ag, or maths. You could be another one.
These are all really helpful comments, they help me to picture what life might be like as a teacher. I'm only just starting my masters, but I expect 18months will fly by.
I’m about to start my masters too, I come from a line of work where I work solo all day, everyday. I was able to do a volunteer day at a primary school prior to enrolling and it seems like an amazing place to meet a variety of people.
I don’t have teaching experience, but I can say at least you will have the opportunity to talk to someone, my line of work (tradie) I only socialise with dead spiders and rats I find in peoples roofs.
I am single person in my 40s and so it is practically impossible to make friends because people my age are likely to talk about their kids. So, I just won't be able to contribute on anything of that nature.
So, for me, it is like school and meetings, and then no contact afterwards.
You don't survive in teaching without collegiality and friends. There is time to be social, although sometimes everyone's busy (e.g.during reporting weeks).
There's time within the day (sometimes), but not really after work or on weekend and holidays, at least at my school. Everyone firmly separates their work from their social life - or maybe I'm just not invited, who knows. That's why the summer holiday is actually my least favourite time of year.
It can depend on the workplace. If the staff are collegial and thre is a positive culture you will have a professional community to help you. If you are stuck in a toxic shitheap then you will isolate yourself to survive until you can gtfo.
Teaching is all consuming unless you get very strict boundaries in place early on. There is always something more you can do to make a lesson better. Notably though, it takes exponentially more effort and time to take a lesson from good to great than it does to take it from ok to good. I’ve approached it as only taking marking home with me, and being ok with ok. As the years have gone on I’m now minimum ok, consistently good and occasionally great. I still make time to see people outside of school but also purposely connect with my colleagues. Asking “How are you holding up?” has been a much better opener than the standard “How are you doing?” especially since it’s culturally assumed teachers are not ok. (Quite a weird norm imo). I have seen teachers than work 70-80 hour weeks. Their lessons are amazing, but that’s all they have. No partner, no pets, no friends but their colleagues. It is a valid option, but if you don’t actively say no to it, teaching leads you into this lifestyle against your will.
As a young (22 currently, worked as a teacher since 21), teacher I’ve found that it can be quite isolating. I’m much younger than my colleagues and don’t have much in common (no kids, unmarried, I refuse to watch MAFS, etc..). We’re friendly, not friends and I’m ok with that. It’s also harder for me to keep friendships from before I started teaching full-time as I’m so time poor and can’t see my friends who work hospitality jobs or are studying at uni as often as I used to.
Also echoing and adding at 6 years in, I have lost those friends.
I echo this.
This was definitely me at the start of my teaching career, at my first school. After that, it became easier to make friends. But when I think about the friends I did make in other schools, it's not because I got older. I really just didn't have anything in common with the people at my first school *in addition* to age. It'll depend on the school and whether you get lucky or not. Hopefully that sounds somewhat hopeful!
Our faculty make sure to organise an informal get-together at least twice a term (start and end, usually). Whilst we co-exist in the same staff room and have fortnightly faculty meetings, we found all of our interactions to be purely work-related. These catch-ups are an opportunity to stop being teachers and colleagues for a few hours and just bond, chat, get to know each other. Other faculties have impromptu drinks most Fridays, but they are full of young, mostly single, mostly childless teachers. Maths teacher at my school are the opposite. Before this year, I was the youngest Maths teacher on staff in my late 30s.
It's great you have informal get togethers twice a term. I'm also in my late 30s, but don't mind crashing the young people parties now and again!
Teaching is highly social and not isolating at all. For a start most of us are sitting in the same staff room. I've got half a dozen colleagues within arms reach of me at lunch time. And during NCT time there is generally someone in the room with me while we work. In engineering my first office was in a literal explosion proof concrete bunker in the middle of a chemical plant. For the most part all teachers are doing the same basic work. So its very easy to strike up a conversation about the topics or the curriculum or the students or leadership. Teachers also come from rather similar education, social and wealth backgrounds. About the only weird barrier is age/life stage.
I’m not from Australia. I’ve been here for 11 years and all my lasting friendships are with my colleagues. All other friendships outside teaching have been very transient.🤷♀️
I’ve said it a lot that teaching is somewhat of a lonely profession, at least in my head and perspective. I might have 20 minutes of my day where I’m able to talk to colleagues, but I’m arriving to school for my classes and I go home when the 3pm bell goes off.
its very easy to becomes ‘siloed’ in a school and get stuck in a routine of same staff room, same people, same arguments…etc…sometimes its good to veer out of your lane and ensure you work with a variety of people and set boundaries surrounding work and leisure time.
My colleagues are the best part of my job. Many of us hang out outside of work, cos we all love each other!!!
That's a bit cute 😍
I think it really depends on ya few things. Primary or highschool, the nature of staff common areas, the culture of the staff and school and your personal willingness to make connections. I would also suggest it takes patience, especially in a secondary setting it takes ages to make strong connections across KLAs. I find Christmas parties are often the best times to make colleagues friends!
I've just started my career as a teacher in my forties as a CRT. I made an effort to connect with people in the lunch rooms at my school and found a little core group to chat with in between.
That's good to know. Thanks 😊
I always make sure I have lunch with colleagues. Recess, too, most of the time.
I've made proper friends at both schools, it's little and often versus chunks of time.
I’m making some great friendships with my teacher colleagues! There’s time during lunch, recess (if you’re not on duty or in your classroom), RFF time. I’ve gone out with a few of my teacher mates after school and on the weekends :) Also, the school I’ve started at plans gatherings every now and then
Yes it is isolating. Everyone’s comments here are great for solutions.
It can go either way. If you have a positive culture within the school, then you will make friends and develop positive relationships within the school. The important thing for you will be to not get stuck doing work during your breaks…go to the staffroom and sit down with the other staff and initiate conversations. It’s hard to stop in teaching, there’s always something to do, so it’s important to find time to connect with other adults and take a break, even if it is just 15 minutes.
Great advice. Thank you.
I imagine there's a difference in the answers depending on if you are primary or secondary, and if your staffroom is a 'common room' with tea, coffee, and staff morning teas, or if it's a 'faculty office' staffroom where you have your (second) desk with all of your resources, planning, the photocopier, etc. As a secondary teacher my staffroom has about 20-25 teacher desks where at any one time during the day, you can pretty much guarantee that there are at least 4 other people in there, whether before school (nutsoes who get in at 6am *who are you?*) during break times and NCT, and especially after school. I will sometimes need to escape to a classroom in order to get work done as the staffroom is so social. This has been my experience across multiple schools, both in the country and in the city, and in cath ed as well as state education.
I will preface, that there were some country schools where, because I wasn't married, or looking for marriage, I was on the outer with the clique in my school. ~~Sorry, not sorry, I don't want to be married with 3 kids by the time I'm 25 to an alcoholic farmer~~.
You are probably isolated because you work 6 hour days and get 18 weeks leave per year. Most people work more than this.
6 hour days? Is your planning and marking done by somebody else?
Good news! If these are the working conditions that interest you, you are very welcome to join us. I mean I honesty can't work out why *more* people aren't knocking on the doors to get into teaching with such a sweet cruisy deal. Baffling. 6 hour days. 18 weeks leave. The DREAM. I know a number of agronomists who skilled across into teaching Ag, or maths. You could be another one.
Depends on the school and your colleagues
It can be. Depends a lot on the person and the school.
These are all really helpful comments, they help me to picture what life might be like as a teacher. I'm only just starting my masters, but I expect 18months will fly by.
I’m about to start my masters too, I come from a line of work where I work solo all day, everyday. I was able to do a volunteer day at a primary school prior to enrolling and it seems like an amazing place to meet a variety of people. I don’t have teaching experience, but I can say at least you will have the opportunity to talk to someone, my line of work (tradie) I only socialise with dead spiders and rats I find in peoples roofs.
I am single person in my 40s and so it is practically impossible to make friends because people my age are likely to talk about their kids. So, I just won't be able to contribute on anything of that nature. So, for me, it is like school and meetings, and then no contact afterwards.