Teachers

[SilverTurtle]

I've been sort of job searching for awhile, trying to find what it is I want to "do with my life".

I've been giving serious thought to becoming a teacher. I would prefer high school... and public school at that. I used to think I wouldn't want to teach anyone younger than college age kids, but now that I'm a bit older (all of 26) I think I could handle high school, too.

I have a couple of friends who are going back to school to get their masters in teaching (in Ohio, you get licensed. Eventually you have to have a masters. So for folks like me, that have a bachelors but NOT in education, it makes sense to just get the masters & then start teaching). But I also have a couple of friends that did their undegrad studies in teaching, loved it the whole time- went through student teaching & were overjoyed with the experience- and then after about 2 years of 'real' teaching decided they didn't like it.

So I was hoping some of the teachers on GC could give me some pros/cons to the job. Thanks!

[Kevin]

My mother's a teacher.. Teachers have more politics/drama than any other workplace I've ever observed. Lots of backstabbing and politics.

[kateshort]

As with any other job, it really depends on where you are.

In some schools, the principals make all of the decisions, and are quick to point out where one is lacking in effort or skill. In other buildings, the principals facilitate decision-making by the entire body of teachers, and are quick to assist teachers when they feel like one is starting to slip or slack.

In some schools, you have a lot of dedicated parents and a lot of community involvement and volunteering. The kids are relatively well disciplined and polite (well, teenager-style polite!), and parents are quick to intercede when needed. In other schools, parents are overworked or simply don't care, and are never able to get involved and help their kids out (academically or socially). In still other cases, the parents think their kids shit gold, and *you* must be the reason that Johnny is misbehaving and stuffing erasers up his nose instead of doing his homework.

If you want to see if you like it, the best thing you can do is to try substitute teaching (if possible), and talk to as many principals and teachers as possible. (and talk to the librarians-- they often can have a "big picture" since they often get to know all of the staff members in larger schools!). Other than that, how your teaching experience goes depends on who your principal is, what your school climate is, how much support you get from your mentor teacher, and what level of freedom you're allowed to have in the classroom.

My current school is a lot less political than my previous one. I'm just a better fit for my current LMC position, and I love the support that our principal gives to the entire staff.

I'd ask your friends deep questions about what they didn't like about teaching. Was it the parents? The grading? Lesson planning? Discipline? Red tape? Lack of good peer relationship with others in the building? Those answers may tell you more about their experiences and what you might expect.

[Total side note: I trained as a high school English teacher (MA Teaching English); after a year of subbing (HS dist A&B) and reading assistant (elem school C), and two years of instructional aide tutoring (HS D), I got a one-year position at a middle school (elem dist E). I loved it, and started my library science degree. I had to leave that job, but was hired a year and a half ago at a 5-year-old middle school (large Dist F). I *love* my school, and I *love* my job as a middle school librarian, and I graduate with my library science degree (MLIS) in May. If you don't think teaching is for you, librarianship may be something to look at, though they usually prefer that librarians have a teaching background. Depends upon the district, and like teaching, you can be in a really twisted environment or a really good one...]

[SilverTurtle]

Originally posted by kateshort


If you want to see if you like it, the best thing you can do is to try substitute teaching (if possible)

I've considered this... not to sidetrack the whole thread, but can I expect to make enough money to pay rent, car payment, etc.? The job I have now doesn't really leave much room for subbing "on the side". (One of my friends is a banquet server part time, a substitute part time, and in school full time for education).

Back to the original question:
Thanks for the responses! A couple of the people I know who left teaching left for exactly the reasons mentioned: red tape & politics. Although, one of them has considered trying a different school system. I can handle a little politics, between the music school I attended & my job now, it won't be anything new. Just annoying.

Any other comments/advice?

[MooseGirl]

I'm not a teacher, but here's my opinion
Before you make a decision you should try to get into a school, whether it's through volunteering or subbing.

While doing my undergrad I was in a volunteer programme that allowed me to go into a couple schools and work with the teachers. I got to see the environment and do a bit of work, but didn't really get to teach. I thought it was ok tho, so i eventually went into "teacher's college" (B.ed)

Last year I was going for my B.Ed...it's just a one year post-grad degree. Well after my first practicum I dropped out, for reasons stated below. Everyone urged me to go into teaching so I tried it out and discovered it wasn't for me....I also realized there were A LOT of other education students there who were doing it just "in the meantime". they really didn't want to teach....of course those students didn't last long either...

This year I'm a part-time language instructor in a high school.(no certification required for this) I see nine ESL classes once a week. This gave me an opportunity to teach and to try out different lessons without dealing with exams, tests, or marking.

This job only verified that I made the right decision in dropping! I am horrible at discipline and classroom management...the whole thing is just soooo stressful!


Fortunately, I have a new direction...I'll be returning to school for my MLIS next year!

So basically I'm just saying you may not know if you'll really like teaching or not until you try it, thus it may be better to find a way to at least get into a school and check it out before you spend $$$ on more schooling.....but even with in-school experience, you could end up like your friends who decided it wasn't for them after 2 years or so...

[carnation]

Good things: the schedule, opportunities to make extra money

Bad things: psycho parents, state regulations, stupid rules, administrators who don't back the teachers, grade inflation

I have taught secondary school (ack) and college (great). My husband is also a teacher, who loves teaching in a parochial school, but we and other dual-teaching couples have told our kids that if they go into education, we're not paying for theirs.

[tcsparky]

This is my 10th year teaching. Would I suggest someone else teach? It depends on the person. You have to be a very special type to get into and enjoy teaching. I would hate doing what my friend Adam does (sales) but he is great at it. However, I would never let him into a classroom to teach. I am a great teacher, and work hard. Every school is different. I hated my job at some schools, loved it at others. I liked high school and middle school, it depended on the place. I will take a leave of absence next year to get my master's. I will miss some things, and be glad to not have to deal with others. Teaching is a mixed bag, good and bad. Again, there's a special type needed for long-term happiness and success.

[SAEalumnus]

Ok, so here's my whole story about this.....

I wasted my first 3 years in college as a mechanical engineering major (no thanks to the guidance counselor at my high school's career center who directed me there arbitrarily without bothering to investigate my interests, but anyway) ....well, when I finally switched to physics, I assumed I was going to teach high school math and physics after graduation.

Here's the catch: our "pro-education" panzy-arse governor keeps making it more and more difficult to become a teacher and keeps cutting more and more funding from education to bail out companies that couldn't run themselves properly. Over a thousand new teachers have lost their jobs state-wide as a result of these budget cuts - there's also currently a hiring freeze from what I understand. Apparently rescuing people from their own stupidity and incompetence is more important than educating young people. So now, having a bachelors degree in a subject from an accredited university is not sufficient to prove competency in the field. Now, you either have to take a battery of tests (formerly the SSAT and Praxis, now the CSET), or take an additional 18+ semester hours of crap that you're not interested in and have no intention of ever teaching to "prove competency."

Once you've proven that you know a subject you've already earned a damn degree in, you have 15 units of prerequisites (some of which are prerequisites for each other) which require at least a year to complete, then the year of the actual credential program (another 30 units). An individual who knows from Day 1 of their freshman year that they want to teach can generally plan all this b.s. in with their undergraduate program (needing only 1 add'l year for the 30 units), but for the rest of us, it means at minimum of 2 additional years after the bachelors for a total of up to some 60+ additional semester hours (assuming you get a supplemental authorization for a second subject - something highly recommended by credential programs - all this being more than your average masters degree). Meanwhile, during these two years, you don't have any time for even a part-time job on the side, and you certainly don't get paid for student teaching (generally).

After all of this work, you finish with nothing more than a bachelors degree and a state-issued piece of paper that says you get to teach a subject in a public school. Now, you get to start at some $30-35K/yr. So all said and done, by the end of your third year after graduation, you've only cleared $30-35K before tax. On the other hand, going into industry, one can start at $30-40K/yr, and by the end of the third year in, should be making $40-45 (if not 50) K/yr. So the total opportunity cost over the first three years of going into teaching is at least:
[(30-40) + (30-40) + (40-50)] - [(30-35)] = $65-100K, if not more, plus a loss in salary of at least $10K/yr after that.

I also realized after looking at some reports and statistics from the American Institute of Physics that:

1) of all high school physics teachers, only 22% majored in Physics (earned the BS in Physics) and only 8% even so much as minored in Physics [70% therefore had no real Physics training beyond one or two courses in general education, if any at all.]; and

2) of all recipients of Bachelors in Physics, only 4% go straight into education after college, and only another 1% earn a Masters in Education (i.e. only 5% of all Physics majors end up teaching below the college level). The other 95% figured out that they can do better almost literally anywhere else.

I don't know whether or not these trends follow into other academic disciplines, but I find this kind of alarming. It's no wonder that students get such poor preparation. The teachers, generally, have little if any preparation in the field and are stretched beyond what they should be in terms of demands, dealing with students, dealing with parents, dealing with administrators, working 40+ hours per week ON campus, nevermind countless hours at home doing grades.....good grief! And the state's answer to this problem is to take money AWAY from education. Leave it to politicians who have never so much as set foot in a classroom since they finished their own meager education, nevermind taught, to make decisions regarding the budgets and standards affecting public schools (how many students' families can afford private school anyway?)....then have the audacity to whine about the declining quality of education.

I think I'll get off my soapbox now.

[cntryZTA5]

SAEActive,


From your post, I can tell that you're from CA. I am currently completing my credential in CA and will be done in June. I graduated with my BA in June 2001, and have been in the credential program for two years. Up until student teaching, I substituted while going to school. From what I've found, the whole program is jumping through hoops. Luckily my BA proved my competant in my subject area. Now, when I will finally be finished, I am afraid that I will not have a job for next year. Right now it's a wait and see.

I know that once I find a job it will be worth it, but it is extremely frustrating right now!

Good luck if you decide to pursue a credential.

[SilverTurtle]

SAEactive * cntryZTA...

I'm in Ohio, where the licensure is different, but still excessive. Many universities are making their education programs 5 years to account for the additional testing & licensure requirements. And I'm not sure on the timeline, but I know that all teachers in Ohio eventually have to get a Master's degree to continue teaching. And that's not just to teach like AP Calculus.. it's for elementary teachers, too. I really feel for my friends who are in music ed. It's like 2 different degrees with equally demanding regimes.

My mom get really annoyed when she reads this stuff. (She's not a teacher, she's in journalism, so she's pretty up on the newest proposals, etc.) She is adament that you can't really teach someone to be a teacher. You can teach them about their subject, even give them advice on dealing with psycho parents, but they either have it or they don't.

Anyway, this is one of the reasons I wanted some advice.. it's a lot to go through to decide in the end that I don't want to teach after all.

carnation I see you enjoy college more than secondary school. Does it have to do more with the actual kids, or with the adminsitration/parents/etc. ?

[SAEalumnus]

Based on my research, after graduating with a BS in Physics and to pursue a credential to teach Physics and Math at the high school level in California, this is what it would take (keeping in mind, this is all AFTER the bachelors degree):

Credential Program: 30 semester units
Program pre-requisites: 15 units
Supplementary authorization (math): 20 units
"Breadth Requirements": 18 units
CLAD Certificate: 4 units

Total: 87 semester units (131 quarter units) BEYOND the BS/BA. The program would take a minimum of two years.

This works out to:

almost 2/3rds the amount of units required for the average bachelors degree on my campus, or

about the same as a typical Juris Doctorate degree (Yale is the #1 rated law school in the country and requires only 82 units), or

about three times the amount of work required for an MS in Physics (30 units at a school near me)

more than the amount of work required by M.I.T. for a PhD in Physics (66 units)


Now how about some salary figures.....

The average starting salary for a..... is.....:

Teacher $30,000 (less in private schools)
BS employed in industry $40,000
PhD (university fac/staff) $50,000
Masters employed in industry $60,000
PhD (industry) $80,000
Lawyer $90,000

The State of California's (i.e. Gov. Davis') answer?

Hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars have been cut from the education budget, 1000-1500 new teachers have gotten lay off notices, there is a hiring freeze for all state jobs, extra requirements have been added to get a credential, and extra requirements have been added to keep/renew a credential.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

[Eirene_DGP]

SAEactive, I am going through that same drama now trying to get certified. I already have my degree in English and most of the universities claim that they have a Teaching Certification program, but that just boils down to a second degree, which requires between 70-80 credits.

I was originally going to do the Masters of Arts in Teaching, which allows you to become certified as a teacher as well as get a masters, but the cost difference between becoming certified as an undergrad and a grad is huge. One of my professors told me that it is better to get certified as an undergrad and then get your masters in education...So at this point I'm not real sure what I want to do.

To top all of that off. In my lovely state of South Carolina, we used to have a program where you could teach critical needs immediately after graduation with a degree in English, Math, etc., but now they have this stipulation that you have to have 2 years full-time work experience prior to going into critical needs, which certifies you while you teach. Now what graduate fresh out of college has 2 yrs. full-time work experience....That's a crock of BS!!!

[BabyBlue91]

The community colleges in New Jersey are offering a partnership with New Jersey City University called New Pathways to Teaching in New Jersey, which students can take for teaching certification or toward credits leading to a master in teaching from NJCU.

Info is available at www.njccc.org/teachered.htm or http://coeserver.njcu.edu.npt .

[carnation]

Originally posted by kateshort

In still other cases, the parents think their kids shit gold, and *you* must be the reason that Johnny is misbehaving and stuffing erasers up his nose instead of doing his homework.

Silver Turtle, sorry--I just now saw your question to me! The main reason that education is going to hell in a handbasket is the one quoted above by kateshort. Many principals refuse to support the teachers because they're afraid that the parents will sue the school. A kid makes bad grades? The principal blames the teacher. Low standardized scores, bad behavior? The teacher's fault.

I would rather teach in a school in a poor neighborhood where you never see the parents than one like my kids go to where the parents are always up the teachers' noses, ready to tell them how and what to teach-- and scream at them for disciplining their little darlings. The teachers really do get a lot of grief when students make less than an A because you need a 3.0 to get a HOPE grant to get free college tuition in this state. I think that anyone who can't pull a 3.0 in high school doesn't need to go to college just yet.

One school where I taught had many students who had severe psychological disorders (for instance, obsessive-compulsive disorder that interfered with their and other students' ability to learn) or obvious learning disorders and the principal would order us to ignore it because the parents didn't want it in their kids' file. You can not ignore some behaviors, especially when they stop you from teaching.

I like teaching. I like kids. I can't stand principals and parents who are self-absorbed jerks and that's why I teach at a college...professors rarely have to deal with that kind of crap. Campus political shenanigans are nothing compared to what teachers have to endure in secondary schools.

Right now, there's a secondary school that has offered me an incredible salary to come teach there in the fall. If I go, I'll keep teaching at the college at night so I'll have something to return to in case "crap happens".

[SilverTurtle]

No problem carnation. I am still sort of considering this, but not as ferverently as before. I don't think I could handle the parents, really.

<begin rant>
I was a hyperactive kid. If I were diagnosed today it would be ADD or ADHD or whatever. Except that I just learned to control it myself because there's no place in the classroom for that. And even at 5 years old I didn't want to act like that. Much less have my parents & teachers mad at me over it. Even at 26 years old, I have trouble sitting still and concentrating on one thing. But I always internalize it- I don't act like a monkey or anything. Sure, my leg might be bouncing up & down a mile a minute, or I might be doodling all over my meeting agenda. But I'm not distracting other people. And I figured this out at like age 4 all by myself. If parents would discipline their children, it might improve their behavior.

I have a cousin (by marriage) who is severely ADHD (or something, I don't know). He's a year younger than me. He has a hard time controlling a lot of his behaviours. And he was allergic to a lot of the available medicines when we were kids. Unfortunately, he still gets in trouble occassionally. So I'm not saying that everyone can sit & be good all day - he really couldn't. BUT his parents recognized this & did everything they could to help him.

I think many parents today only have kids because that's what they're "supposed" to do & they really have no idea how to handle them.

</end rant>

Okay- I feel a lot better. But maybe teaching isn't such a great idea since I would have to talk to parents occassionally