Teaching and quiet quitting: Educators voice frustrations

It is something every teacher wants: a work-life balance.  While some consider doing the bare minimum at their job to be a healthy activity, others consider it to be a disservice to the job, deeming it “quiet quitting.” 

Teachers like Maureen McCarthy, literature major, and Mary Bransom, literature major, are just a few in the workforce with negative feelings about the phrase and its implications. 

“Honestly, I really dislike it,” McCarthy said. “It makes it seem like it’s a cowardly thing.  To set healthy boundaries for oneself is a wonderful and very important thing.  The word ‘quiet’ makes it seem like it’s subversive, and the word ‘quitting’ has a really negative connotation. No one is leaving their job – they’re just doing exactly what they’re paid to do.”

Bransom and McCarthy both teach 10th grade English. As students pursuing their master’s while also teaching, they have frustration about a term that in their eyes demeans work-life balance. 

“It’s a stupid term,” Bransom said. “The American expectation that the worker must give of themselves to the company is the most retrogressive and harmful concepts in corporate culture today.”

Brittany Hernandez, literature major and former ninth grade Pasadena Memorial High School teacher, finds the term itself to be inaccurate.

“My understanding of the definition of quiet quitting is to opt not to do tasks that are outside of specified job descriptions and to slowly, psychologically disengage from your job,” Hernandez said. “Based on this description, I would say I disagree [with the term]. While I acknowledge there may be tasks one must complete outside of their job description, I do not feel that opting out of unrealistic tasks is negative. Thus, I don’t agree with the term quiet quitting in relation to this action. In addition, I don’t feel that this term accurately represents someone who is psychologically disengaging from their job. If they are still completing their tasks, it is not quitting.”

Educators experience numerous obstacles amidst teacher shortage

Today, the number of teachers quitting continues to rise. Reasons include feeling a lack of respect, not being valued, being overworked and underpaid. 

“Refusing to go above and beyond in my profession is synonymous with being a ‘bad teacher’,” Bransom said. “If you are not working every second you are required as well as afterwards and on the weekend, you are chastised and accused of not caring about the kids.”

K-12 teachers have the highest burnout rates. As more teachers quit their profession, those who stay do not shy away from their frustration at the job.  

“I think people who are not currently inside the classroom don’t fully understand everything that is expected of a public educator,” McCarthy said. “In addition to content knowledge and lesson planning, we are also expected to help support the students emotionally.  The state also expects us to almost quite literally throw ourselves in front of a gunman for our students.  We also navigate a lot of tricky laws and statutes regarding what goes on in the classroom.  And, of course, we have to make sure the kids pass state tests.  

“There is also a good deal of emotional labor that goes into the job that most people don’t acknowledge.  Even in the last four years, I’ve witnessed huge changes in behavioral issues, both in types and quantity.  If my kids are having a hard time emotionally, I suffer with them.  I remember being at that age and how miserable it was, and my heart aches for them.  As much as I try, I can’t always just close the classroom door and leave it behind.  

“Was some of this what I was expecting?  I suppose, but I also didn’t anticipate the ripple effect a pandemic would have when I started teaching in 2018.  The current attitude toward educators in the general public and the expectations hoisted upon us by them is incredibly frustrating and disheartening.

“My entire life, professional and private, is scrutinized.  I’m expected to give up my time at home because of the profession I chose.  There are very few other jobs that would expect that of a person for so little pay.  And, to be fair, the admin at my school is generally very supportive of us.  I don’t know that I feel like a lot of the pressure to work ungodly hours is really coming from them.  I know other teachers in other districts aren’t so lucky.”

As Hernandez pursues her master’s, her experience as a teacher has stayed with her, giving rise to her frustration with the term.

“I definitely felt that I had to go above and beyond based on the school’s culture,” Hernandez said. “While I loved my department head, she was a bully teacher, and my administrators were micromanagers. I was applauded for being at school as early as possible and leaving as late as possible. The school where I taught was heavy on micromanaging. If I did not adhere to these expectations, one or more administrators would discuss their concerns with me. ”

Hernandez certainly felt she reached a state of quiet quitting before leaving her profession. In her last year of teaching, Hernandez said she felt psychologically disengaged from her job.

“I still performed all of the tasks that were expected of me, but I was on autopilot and my heart was no longer in it anymore,” Hernandez said.

Teachers embrace quiet quitting

In spite of quiet quitting’s growth and negative outlook by employers, McCarthy, Bransom and teachers across the country are striving towards a work-life balance employers are likely to deem quiet quitting.

“Halfway through the 2020-21 school year, I quit working through lunches and taking work home,” McCarthy said. “It makes things tricky when I am at work because I have a lot to juggle too.  It might end up being easier to just take home to alleviate stress.  However, I am naturally wired to be a workaholic. I love people-pleasing.  If someone praises me for my work ethic, I’ll ratchet it up more.  It’s not healthy for me to eat, sleep and breath my job.  I have a partner and two young children at home who want my time too.  It was so hard to give up some of that, but I think and hope it’s helped me to be a little more efficient and less of a perfectionist.”

Bransom said she does the absolute bare minimum for any assignments not directly connected to her time spent teaching. 

“I plan my lessons, I teach my kids, the paperwork associated just gets barely done,” Bransom said. “I am not quite quiet quitting, because I want to keep my job, but I am getting as close as I can to that line.”

As the term continues to populate discussion, the term solidifies many teachers’ thoughts on the society they are expected to work for and educate. 

“I think it’s incredibly reflective of our values as a society that we refer to just doing what is required of us and what we are paid for as something like ‘quiet quitting.’” McCarthy said. “I hate it.  No one is going to pay me more for doing extra.  If I am not being compensated for it, why should I do more?  I understand that at times, extra work is needed, but it’s insane to me to think of how people are being taken advantage of in that way consistently.”  

McCarthy said she feels the term quiet quitting was coined by a corporation that was angry they could not take advantage of their workers.

“We are a godless corporatocracy and we just haven’t noticed yet,” Bransom said.