I have been a student for twentysomething years and I never get enough time to myself.  I constantly have to cancel plans and bail on friends because there just isn't enough time to focus on school, work and have a social life.  It's like school is a full-time job.  So not only do lots of students have a real full-time job, they also take on school.  That is essentially two full-time jobs.  Not only am I trying to educate myself, but I also have to have a job to pay for that schooling... oh yeah, and I also like to eat sometimes and have to pay for food at the store.  It's all stuff I have to do to provide for myself and get through life.  Am I stressed?  You better believe it.  Am I going to complain about it and demand time off?  No.  If I couldn't deal with the pressure then I wouldn't have taken on so much.  But I know my breaking point and I deal with it all.

It's kind of funny that the roles are a bit reversed.  Being a teacher usually just involves dishing out the work and causing stress for others.  But somewhere along the line THAT has become stressful!  What a world!

I totally agree with the points in the newspaper column.  I don't know how many birthday parties I've missed or how many plans I had to break just so that I could be a loser and sit home doing school work.  It's kind of depressing when you realize that this is a time in your life... maybe the only time in your life... where you should be carefree about most things but you can't be because school is like your life. What gets me through it though is that I know it'll be worth it in the end and I'll be successful because I made those sacrifices.

I can understand why a teacher would need time to de-stress.  When it comes to marking papers I know that there isn't always a right and wrong answer.  You have to read between the lines a lot of times and learn each of your students' styles.  That can be difficult.  I was a student teacher for one semester and learned real fast that you can't just mark every paper the same way.  Many times I was shocked with some of the research the students did.  I was constantly learning even though I was the teacher.  And you also have to remember that not all students are the same.  Some learn at different levels and others can whip through things right away.  It's a constant juggling act not only in front of the class but afterwards too.  But I can also say the same thing for being a student.  You have to remember what teacher (or professor) likes what a certain way and how you can and can't write things in papers for each of them.  A big part of the understanding is putting yourself in the other's shoes and walking a day in them.

In life we all have to make choices.  My choice was that I wanted to go to school and make something of myself.  We aren't forced to do anything we don't want to do if we are adults.  I think too many people make their job their life.  That's great if it's what you love doing but if you are too stressed from it is it really worth it?  I know that I found taking too many classes at once was stressful so I had to drop some.  I didn't whine and complain to people about it.  It was too rough for me so I stopped.  But when it comes to a career like teaching I don't understand how you can complain about the job.  It's not like being an astronaut or something that you had no idea what the job entailed before you got into it.  We all know what goes along with being a teacher and there aren't very many surprises.

I'm waiting for the time when everybody will be able to take a year off because of crying from having a hard job.  I'm amused that teachers are having a tough time only working half days and having a few months off every year.  Boy, that does seem like a tough job. How do I sign up for that?  Maybe switch places with me when it comes to mid terms and I will get maybe two hours of sleep each night for a couple of weeks, or I will spend most of Christmas break finishing up projects and writing papers.  Give me a break, teachers.  You assign us work, too bad you can't do your own.

Just like in middle where students are allowed to take "optional" classes.  Students get a list of classes they can pick from and then take the ones they want.  It's the same thing with being a teacher.  You don't have to coach a team and you don't have to work during other times if you don't want to.  If you want to volunteer to do that -- and at my school teachers used to wear shirts that said "Volunteer" at these events -- then who are you to complain about doing it?  If you didn't want to do it, then don't do it.  It's an option you're given to either take part or not.  Why get "stressed" over something you wanted to do?

I think your column needs to be renamed, Jeremy.  I think you should tell those teachers to stay out of the classroom and stay in the driver's ed car.  Maybe that's the stress they are talking about.  But I can't see being in a classroom to be stressful at all.