My experience as a teacher was that I often felt I wasn't living up to the legacy of the great teachers of my youth. I realize now they were performing and I didn't see how they were doing inside. The truly great ones were, actually, heroic. I got tired of being a hero and feeling like each year was a tour of duty. To me, it felt like I was in a war, an emotional one. When you have a job where you literally can't use the bathroom or eat on a regular basis, something is wrong. It's difficult to set healthy boundaries when you are encouraged (sometimes required) not to--and when your peers are busy not setting them in order to survive. Our educational system largely rests on a fresh influx of young teachers each year because people don't last long. And I am quite sure my teachers in the 70s and 80s were not under the level of pressure we face today in classrooms.