Why do we make it so hard?

A conversation with a very close friend a few weeks ago made me really question how I feel about my job as an educator and why I do what I do. It is amazing how someone who knows you well (and is extremely insightful) can ask a few poignant questions that have you wondering exactly what it is that you think and feel about your work.
At the risk of sounding like a whinger (because isn't that how the media like to portray all teachers) there are some things about my job that I find challenging. Most of them have nothing to do with the classroom or the students because generally they are what excite me and buoy my spirit. What upsets me about being a teacher is that when you meet a new person and they ask you what you do for a living and you say you are a teacher, inevitably the first thing out of their mouths will be "oh, you get so many holidays - aren't you lucky!" You know what - we do get a lot of "holidays" and sometimes we even actually have a break during those holidays and take some time off, but I cannot imagine another job that so thoroughly consumes you and makes you desperately await the next set of holidays. I guess the bigger question here though is exactly why it bothers me and why I think in my head whenever someone asks me what I do for a living "here we go!" I think it bothers me because there seems to be an underlying lack of respect for teachers in the general population. When I meet a new person and they tell me what they do for a living, I never respond with a comment like "oh wow - you have it easy" or "geeh - that's a slack job!" I like to think that most people choose jobs that are challenging to them and that they work their hardest at that job, whatever it may be. My theory is that because everyone goes to school (and had varying experiences of education), everyone believes they are an expert and that they are entitled to bestow you with the qualities of their best or worst (generally worst) educators. Maybe this is a pessimistic attitude and I don't for a second think that everyone believes that teachers are slackers but when you work so hard at a job and then you feel like people are judging you unfairly when they have never been taught by you and barely know you, it is a hard pill to swallow. I just smile weakly and say, yeah, heaps of holidays... and generally my husband jumps in and starts talking about how hard it is to be married to a teacher and how many hours I work etc. I feel that if I say any of these things to defend myself I just seem like I am complaining about my lot, which I certainly don't want to do.
I love my job teaching young people. The sort of energy and enthusiasm that a room of teenagers has is infectious. I love the silliness, the seriousness, the controversial discussions, the opportunities for sharing and learning from each other and the way that kids are intensely passionate in a way that few adults ever are.
The thing is, I feel like teaching is a profession that you never feel like you have mastered. No matter how long you teach or how hard you work at it, there is no end point, no magical day when you realise you have made it - there is just a continual quest for improvement. For those who choose to take up the challenge. For some of the others there is the feeling that a life in education has taken from them all they have to give and left them unsatisfied, and angry, a twisted shell of their former selves, with no one to remind them how they used to be. Others still run for cover before they are chewed up and spat out - some of our most passionate and innovative young teachers end up leaving the profession because of a feeling they are not making a difference or a sense that they would get more recognition and more of sense of affirmation from a job that has clear goals and a clear measure of whether or not those goals are achieved.
You see the learning of young people is not something easily categorised and quantified and theorised and standardised. There is no magic wand that can be waved in the direction of the youthful masses that will bestow them with all the skills and attributes we believe they need to become successful adults. Not only is there no magic wand, but there is also no magic set of skills and attributes that each and every child will need to successfully navigate their adult lives. So I ask the question - when the world is changing at a rate that is ever more rapid and our sense of the future changing with equal speed, when will our notions of how we educate our kids catch up?
Can a standardised system relying on fitting every student in to the same box be the way forward? How will we, as educators, ever feel that we are truly making a difference to every student we teach when the system we teach in asks that we teach the masses, not the individual? How do we retain passionate teachers who do make a difference to students and convince them that what they are doing is making a difference, when the outside world still measures education by old standards that no longer ring true to the new reality?
Feel free to agree, argue or just have your say by leaving a comment.