A new debate: public school teaching vs hospital nursing

[PMHNP10]

Let me be blunt--Which career potentially sucks worse? My fiance and I were hanging out with a teacher and her family this weekend. Some of the things she was mentioning made my stomach turn. For example, she said that insurance for her 2 children (11 month old son and 3 yr old daughter) was running>$400/month. I might also add that when she gave birth she wasn't paid for maternity leave. Pardon my ignorance, but is this a norm?Another travesty she mentioned was that one district took away the 3 days of sick leave teachers earn and used that to help balance the budget. As is typical in TX, there are no unions to fight this type of crap. So what did the teachers do? The did a sick call-out day. And what did that accomplish? Well they get to make the day up at a later time in the semester if that tells you anything. Or how bout paying them $30K/year (in some parts of TX) while spending bundles on hi-tech video equipment? And let's not even get into the kids/parents who don't care until junior/princess is held back a grade; then education becomes priority number 1, and the teacher is 100% at fault. Or one of my personal favorite is the admin. who comes up with slogans like "every student can and will pass". I like to ad "at the expense of an education".

Now I know bedside nursing is horrible for many, and perhaps it would be hard to pick which situation sucks worse, but man, IMHO, at least we are not teachers. If we don't like bedside nursing there are a multitude of options. I don't believe this isn't necessarily the case with grade/jr./high school educators. God bless those who choose to educate our young.

[mustlovepoodles, RN]

I've been a teacher and I've been a nurse. Believe me, hospital nursing and school teaching suck equally. I wouldn't go back to either if you put a gun to my head.