Questions for Teachers?
Favorite Answer
-Seeing an impact from your work
-Having your own classroom
-Hugs and smiles from happy kids
-Summers to use for professional development and family
-Feeling good when you impress parents and colleagues
Cons
-Parents that don’t get it
-Administrators that don’t get it
-Lower pay than business jobs
-Not having the resources you need to teach
To me – the benefits are worth the hassles. I’ve got a great team and school – so it makes me saying this easier.
Private often have more money, but a smaller network of educators and administrators to bounce things off of. The cons are the same except for that you often get the resources you need. Pay is not usually more in private, but there are perks that are not in public. Some perks I’ve talked to one private teacher about included much more planning time without the kids around, free meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner – including for your family), cheap/nice housing that they’ve bought up around the campus, a better retirement plan, your kids go to the school for free. There is a different attitude at private schools with regard to feelings of deservedness.
I thought I wanted to teach upper elementary and then the 5th graders ate me alive while I was their board sub. The principal offered a 2nd grade position at the end of the year and I did the same searching you did. I talked to about 4 teachers and asked if I should take it. All of them said to go for it. I took the job and have loved it the last 2 years.
2nd graders are 7 years old turning 8 while with you. Their reading levels do vary from 1st through 6th grade, so I’ve had to do leveled groups. I am in love with diagnosing and teaching reading, as I am now getting a reading specialists degree.
In Virginia our year in tests do not go to the state level yet – so a little less pressure. They really are old enough to tie their shoe and wipe their noses, but not too old that they have lost any fun innocence. They have been able to pick up on my sarcasm and are able to dish it back after the first semester.
I have heard that 4th grade is also nice. 3rd seems to be a real growing up transition year and can be hard. 4th they are more mature, but they do not have the arrogance of being a “senior” at the elementary school level.
If you are worried whether the benefits will be worth it, chances are teaching may not be for you. So, okay, I will start with the cons:
Probably 50+ of your students are in school because the law requires it. They would rather be anywhere else but the classroom.
Kids are not very respectful these days, many have emotional and social problems, and you may begin to feel like the only adult who cares how they turn out as adults.
Parent-teacher conferences are hard work, and usually the parents you really need to see will be the ones that don’t show up. If they do, their kid cannot possibly have learning difficulties, or just ignoring the homework,you must be a bad teacher.
The pay and benefits may not be that great, considering all the years you went to school, and the hours you spend nuturing young minds for the future. In some communities, teachers are on the low end of the pay scale.
Now for the pros:
If you love learning something new everyday, teaching is a great place to be.
If you love watching a students eyes light up with excitement and wonder, when they “get it”, then teaching is for you.
If you want to help children grow up to be successful and educated adults, then teaching is for you.
If you want to make a difference in the life of at least one child, who has no positive influence at home, and needs a caring role model, then teaching is definitely for you.
Personally, I have a degree in English/secondary education. I love the high school kids, as screwed up as a lot of them are. However, I have also taught grade school kids, and I love the desire to learn and be helpful, somewhat unspoiled by life. In other words, that is totally up to each person.
If teaching is just a job choice, please choose something else. All of the good teachers I have had, worked with, and desired to immulate had a passion for teaching, and excitement for their subject, energy, and a true compassion for the students they taught every day.
Hope that helps,
Tina
www.TheInternetBusinessSchool.com
Teaching is stressful. It isn’t easy. But if you feel you are called to teach, then it can be rewarding. It is worth much more than you get paid. If you don’t love teaching, then you shouldn’t pursue that as a career. It has to be something you enjoy.
One of the pros, of course, is summers and holidays off. Another pro, and a big one, is knowing that you are helping to shape the future. A con, is that your work day doesn’t end when you leave school. You will take some problems home with you.
I have taught in both public and private. In private school the students are usually from high income homes. They may be better academically, but they can also be arrogant. In public school you will teach a wider variety of students and probably not have as much parental involvement. I would rather teach in public, just because I have a heart for kids who don’t always have an easy life.
If you are unsure, volunteer in a school for a while or work as a teaching assistant. That will give you an idea as to whether or not teaching is for you.
1) Pros: you get to work with emerging minds and you get to (hopefully) teach a subject you have a passion about.
Cons: long hours, awful parents, moronic administrators who have lobodomies the instant they stop teaching
2) the first few years are tough, especially since you’ll probably have student loans as well to pay off. Districts don’t pay as much for Bachelor’s but they don’t HIRE Master’s degrees generally because that costs them more. Benefits for teachers are rather good, although the state keeps chipping away at those.
3) I have never taught at a private school. I do not think I would want ot. Public school is fun because there’s so many different types of personalities you deal with EVERY day.
4) For myself, I cannot see myself doing anything but teaching teenagers. I love the energy. I love their humor and sarcasm. I love the inquisitiveness that comes along with that. I love how loyal they are to you if they truly like you (and they are very affectionate if they do) and I love the fact that although they get a bad rap, tehy are basically really good hearted but just finding their own way. I like being their guide, their instrument in learning. If I impact some of them, great, but, unlike a lot of pompous idiots in administration, I’m not here to “leave a legacy.”
*I would say summers off, but that is not always true. Some teachers work other jobs in the summer in addition to getting ready for the following school year.*
Cons – politics, lack of parental support and involvement, sometimes lack of administrative support, tons of paperwork, long hours, meetings galore, constant testing, time constraints
Pay/Benefits – this varies from state to state and district to district, but overall teachers aren’t paid enough for the amount of work they do
Private vs. Public – funding is the main difference
Best Grade – depends on you
Summers off. Promotion or pay raises for additional education. Hours that allow after-school parenting of your own kids. Knowing that all by yourself, you’ve positively affected hundreds of kids by teaching them not only classwork but personal responsibility, courtesy, and everything else that’s packaged into your every lesson.
Public schools may have larger classes and poorer pay, with far more economically disadvantaged students, the group which most often produces individuals who disrupt. Or they may not, in a good district that values its teachers. Private schools can be better or worse, in part depending on whether they are well-funded, religion-based, elite and selective, alternate-method, or “other.”
What grade is best is a matter of personal preference.
I taught HS and it was rewarding but difficult. If you teach English or history, you have a heavy workload of papers to read.
Middle School is the most difficult and the lower primary grades are probably the easiest.
no worry about losing your job or the economy.
lettle kids are cute and innocent 1-4
however, bigger kids are easier to talk to
