Overrated Career: Teacher

teaching sux

I agree with the previous comments. I have worked in the public school system as a high school teacher for the last five years, and now feel as though I have wasted the best years of my life. The ongoing stress of this job is appalling, and teachers are placed in the impossible position of managing behavior of students who simply refuse to participate or follow instructions, and are in many cases violent and mentally ill. Add to this ongoing bullying and harassment from 'managers' and principals and it becomes clear that this is one of the few professions where you can be abused in your workplace every single day.

bandit of AL @ Nov 07, 2009 22:21:49 PM

Making a Difference

To be a teacher, you need more than a degree in education. You need to love kids, especially the age group you're teaching. You need to believe that you're making a difference, even on days when it seems nothing's been accomplished. You need to be able to get along with people in general--not just your students, but their parents, your teaching fellows, the administration and staff, and John Q. Public in general. Teaching is all I have ever wanted to do, and I love it; it's less a job than a lifestyle. I have to agree, however, that it requires a lot of energy, and that you need to be adaptive to the various needs of the classes. In today's inclusive classroom, the students come from all backgrounds, the majority of them without any real love of learning or even support of learning. (Our district has 72% of its students on free or reduced lunches, which makes a big difference in the classrooms.) Trying to reach everyone from the lowest-level achiever and special education student to the gifted can leave me exhausted some day, but it's a good kind of exhaustion. And yes, I have the summer off, but during that time I'm working on things for the next school year, attending workshops, etc. A teacher needs that time off for mental health, because dealing with 138 psyches a day is draining. The amount of paperwork has increased. And yes, teaching and learning styles get revamped and recycled. There are challenges the public has no idea of, but then, they're not the ones called into a classroom, are they? I look at my students as "my kids", and I give them everything I have, seeing in them the future--future doctors, future sanitation engineers, future technology inventors, future teachers--and I know I am making a difference even on my worst day. Not everyone can do it. It's not like simply walking off the street and being given a textbook and a classroom. As my former pedagogy professor told us, you have to have the C's to teach---Be calm, cool, collected, competent, compassionate--with a sidedish of P's--presence, patience, and preparedness. 30 years later, I can tell you, he was absolutely right.

Janey Haynes of TN @ Nov 01, 2009 19:58:57 PM

Both sides of the issue

I left health care and research to become a teacher 18 years ago. I love teaching. However, I have experienced all of the disadvantages mentioned in the first posting. I have mixed classes, regular ed, special ed students and low income students. I teach high school and they can be in your face and difficult. You do need the right personality. My whole life I have had the tendency to make wise-cracking comments although I try to use them carefully and effectively. I love working with high schoolers. They are old enough to understand your comments and where you're coming from and yet haven't developed the negative adult personalities.

On the down side, as I approach my senior years, I find that don't have the energy to keep up with it anymore. I taught many of my early years in a private school so I don't have enough years in the public system to retire in my 50's. I find that I am beginning to resent the hours I must spend grading papers on my own time and the "volunteering" for school activities. I also get impatient with the continually revised curriculum which repeats itself about every 5 years. We keep going back to a previous form of curriculum and throwing out the current curriculum.

I am paid well and the benefits are good. But it's time to move on for me. I agree that teaching is much easier if you have industry experience, however don't ever walk into a new teaching career thinking it's going to be all fun and games and that you are going to change the world. If you can influence a handful of students a year you are a great teacher. I have been mentioned 3 times in the Who's Who in America's Teachers and I will tell you for a fact that it is a lot of hard work, personal commitment, and you need a very thick skin; and be willing to challenge parents and administrators when they challenge your ability as a teacher, but the rewards are definitely there.

Linda of IL @ Nov 01, 2009 11:32:00 AM

Left the Profession

I was passionate about teaching and eager for a job. Even with a bachelor's from a top school, a great GPA, and experience working with children, I received only one job offer after interviewing all over the state. The job offer was in a failing school district, but I took it anyway because I wanted to begin working in the profession and believed my passion and smarts would lead to success.

However, I should have listened to veteran teachers who said that classroom management is a nightmare. I got a sense of this early on when people kept marveling that someone of my personality and stature wanted to teach, but I ignored the naysayers to pursue my dream. On one interview, I was even called a "little girl," and my classroom management abilities were questioned because of that.

I lasted two years as a teacher. It's unfortunate, but even after following all the management techniques learned in college, physical appearance has a huge impact. It's hard to get respect as a smaller female, especially since my voice is soft and I'm not great at wise-cracking to keep the students in line without having to alienate them through traditional discipline. Security was at my classroom every day, parents wrote emails to administrators, I was called a racist epithet by a student who didn't even know me, my life was threatened, and a chair was thrown. I taught to the mandated test all year, and then on test day, watched in dismay as my students scribbled their essays in five minutes and put their heads down to sleep. You just can't make a kid do something. Plus, parents see everything as the teacher's fault. So do administrators. No one is on your side.

Teaching destroyed my self-esteem and wasted valuable years I could have devoted to pursuing a different profession. Some people can be great teachers and love it, but it's more about having the right personality than the right brains and education. Unless you land in a posh suburban district of course, but those jobs are almost impossible to get. You may have to sub for years without any guarantee, or you may get lucky out of college and land in a place you can stay till retirement. But teaching has the potential to be hell on earth. I wouldn't recommend it, especially as a first career. Go do something else, something in the real world, then come back to education ten years down the line. You'll be more mature, more respected, and have marketable skills to fall back on.

To love teaching, you have to love group dynamics, like being the head honcho wrangling a crowd of discontented kids, constantly "on" and being judged. You have to be okay with being called names. You need to be fine with seeing progress in only a handful of students. You need to be okay with students hating you (some will always hate you irrationally) and then going home to grade papers where your students mostly fail. And then being told by parents, admins, and society that it's all your fault.

Mary Smith of CT @ Oct 30, 2009 12:58:15 PM

ex= special ed. teacher

This article was correct. However, you eliminated one interesting fact.

No matter the degrees, you are forced to read a script without any changes. So a degree in Education is not needed. Just read and fill out report. Useless degree area.

sue of OK @ Oct 05, 2009 21:37:40 PM

Glad I teach

I left a job in health care where I owned my own business. I hated it. I went into teaching and I have now been at it for 10 years and I love it. Maybe it is because I teach high school, but I have never understood why some teachers are at school until 6 at night and are back at 6 in the morning. After a few years of teaching, I had all my tests written, my lesson plans done and every year is less and less work and I become better and better. I currently teach Anatomy and Physiology, Microbiology and Biology and love it.

I can only imagine that it is the elementary teachers and those who teach at the inner city low income schools who have long hours and stress. When June comes around, I send an email to my friends and tell them my shirt, tie and slacks are in the closet for the Summer. As far as effective, eighty percent of my students passed the California Biology test last year (2009) and several more just missed passing. Only one student was Far Below Basic. I know some people will knock my results and there is still work to do. I am not saying I am better than other teachers, but it teaching and having a life can be done.

When I add up my pay (68,000) retirement (about another 9,000 that my employer contributes to my retirement) and my benefits (about another 9,000 which I do not pay any of), I am making $86,000 per year.

Why any teacher has additional work to do in the Summer is beyond me. The hardest thing about my job is trying to keep keeps from being bored, but I teach science so that is not too hard to do.

The funny side to teaching is listening to knucklehead radio talk show hosts who work 4 hours a day and get paid millions talk about how much teachers have it made.

I started teaching at 36, I have been doing it for 10 years, and I plan on going another 30 (yes to age 76). I love what I do, I just wish I had entered the career first.

Way to go Doc of CA @ Sep 26, 2009 13:27:48 PM

Teachers Overworked, Under Valued

My heart goes out to USA teachers. I am a Language Arts teacher who moved to Australia in 1972 and taught in the Victoria state Education Dept. I cannot fathom how the government has stuffed up [aussie expression] education with mandated programs, quotas tied to funding and a test mad bureauracy. The reforms that are being proposed [uniform core curriculum] will create a one size fits all culture. Gasp!

I sympathize with teachers who are forced to do more policing than teaching; who are under resourced, under paid, and held captive to data driven administrations.

Somewhere in all this mess, teachers still manage to touch and impact a child's life, inspire hope and direction, and even complete correction and yard duty.

In contrast, Victorian schools have 220 instruction days over 4 terms, with a 4 week summer break in Dec/Jan. There are 2 week holiday breaks in april, june, sept. Students in year 11 and 12 complete a two year VCE [victoria certificate of education] course which determines , at the end of year 12 exams, [3hr. tests in each subject] a tertiary entrance score.

The system here is moving more toward the US test driven model, and the central education boffins keep issuing new assessment guidelines and standards.

To my classroom colleagues Stateside.... Soldier on Mate! Your work is vital.

Martin Horrigan

Warrnambool, Victoria Australia

Martin Horrigan @ Sep 24, 2009 00:58:58 AM

I agree with Curt

Teaching's a racket if you are a streetsmart person and you're in a union. Most teachers are, interestingly, in teaching as a first career and are generally very uptight folks. If you worked another job, you realize what a racket it is. I did. In one job, I saw maggots crawling out of necrotic flesh. In another, I had a guy pull a gun on me who later flipped on the Gambino family.

Teaching - worst thing that's happened Johnny and Jack tell me to go F myself every day. I call security every day. I go back to teaching. Then eventually I get 2 months off. Not bad. A lot of the kids are pretty decent, too.

The big barriers are the years of utterly useless education. My Master's in Ed was 2 years of nonsense work.

Mike of NY @ Sep 23, 2009 21:51:03 PM