It was a throw away line from one of our teachers, designed to lighten the mood during a tense and emotional conversation.

But it's so true - and it speaks volumes of what can at times be the community's nonchalant attitude towards the work our teachers do.

Read more: Illawarra teachers lift the lid on a profession in crisis

He was speaking about what he said was a general perception in the community that teaching is an "easy" job.

He suggested that everyone had been to school in their day, therefore everyone believed they knew exactly how schools ran, exactly what work teachers did and did not do, and were therefore quite qualified to pass judgement of the value of a teacher in today's society.

And he's right about the judgement. No sooner does one raise the issue of teachers, pay rises and strikes, and everyone has an opinion.

Unfortunately, plenty of people choose to focus on what they claim to be the extraordinary benefits of being a teacher: the 9am to 3pm workday and the 11 weeks holiday a year.

If only, say our teachers.

Every teacher who spoke to the Mercury went to great lengths to dispel this hurtful yet common myth.

Apparently they are all too polite to tell those commentators to "rack off" but the sentiment is there.

They all spoke of long hours in their home office, often at the expense of their own families and marriages, to prepare for the weeks or months ahead.

According to those interviewed by the Mercury, the bulk of their time is taken up with compulsory administrative tasks and data recording for the NSW Department of Education.

One described it as "data for data's sake", saying he'd never seen any student directly benefit from the information he'd spent hours punching into the computer.

So why do they do it? And for such relatively little pay (they don't even bother trying to work out the hourly rate, it's too depressing)?

Put simply, they love what they do and they want to fight for what is best for your kids.

As one teacher put it, schools and students are the glue for a functional democracy.

All of the teachers agreed there would be no teachers in the future if pay and conditions did not drastically improve. We're sure that's not what our society wants or needs.

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