You do get that vibe from most public school teachers. Like "You used to care, didn't you?" but that's only evident later to reflective adults. My tenth grade class was really good at making my chemistry teacher cry.because the job was grinding her down.
Well, it's a largely thankless profession, you teach the same things year after year, and probably see kids struggle and fail more often than you'd like...every now and then a prodigy will wander through your class, but even then there's they'll give themselves credit for learning so well instead of respecting you for how well you teach. I wanted to be a teacher for a long time until I actually talked to my debate coach. I became very close with him, and I knew he was being brutally honest when he told me that, although he enjoys teaching, it becomes tedious after so long. We all know how awesome it is to have the the young and enthusiastic teacher, but as stricter and stricter rules are laid down from politicians who want to make education a political rallying point, parents and students continue to be batshit insane, and you still don't get the salary you deserve? The young, enthusiastic teacher turns into the crabby curmudgeon who couldn't be arsed to care about another generation of students that they're starting to understand less and less.
When I hear someone advocating cutting education spending in the US citing the fact that spending on educators is the top cost, I just feel like the whole point is being missed. The highest cost at most companies is their employees - and it should be, if you want to attract high quality employees. Some people have chosen to conflate their grudge against a few of their primary school teachers with making our education system better, and it's been extraordinarily popular, with little gain in anything measurable. We do need accountability in education. But we also need to spend on it like it's a national defense priority. My wife is a teacher, and I didn't realize until she started watching how much of the classroom comes out of the teacher's pocket. And the tax credit that teachers get (and almost lost) is such a laughably low amount.