I want to be a teacher -or- Career advice sought

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve decided to major in education and I have some questions I’m hoping some teachers might help answer for me or help me to answer myself.

I’ve all but decided that I don’t want to teach young children. As much as the thought of helping to shape their little lives appeals (and scares) me, I don’t think I have the patience to deal with a classroom of 10 year olds.

I’m somewhere between wanting to teach high school and college, leaning towards college. The thought of being able to focus on one or two subjects rather than the broader range of subjects required by elementary school teachers fits my personality better.

I’m concerned about the students. I remember what it was like to be a hormonal mess in high school and I’m surrounded by disinterested students who’re fresh out of high school in all of my college courses. The vast majority of high school/college students are only in class because they’re required to and I’d like to deal with students that actually care and try. Would that make college the better choice?

I’m also unsure of what subject I’d like to teach. Literature fascinates me, as does History, and I have more than a passing interest in English Composition, but I worry that my interest wouldn’t translate to understanding it well enough to teach it effectively.

Any teachers out there with some advice? How did you choose your field and what ages you were going to teach? How did you decide on a subject? Are my concerns valid and/or am I missing a fundamental concern I should be thinking about?

2

Um…

  1. Don’t go into teaching unless you are quite certain that it’s what you want to do. The reasons for this will become increasingly clear.

  2. Don’t get your degree in education. Get a degree in something else – English, mathematics, history, art, whatever it is you decide you want to teach. THEN go back and get a TEACHING CERTIFICATION.

If you try to get your degree through the Ed Department of a school, you will be at the mercy of your state legislature whenever they decide to punish those bad, bad teachers because there’s an election coming up and they need an issue to ride into office. Standards will change. Testing will commence. And all of a sudden, you may find yourself having to start all over because someone decided that what you have been doing for the past year is not what you SHOULD be doing in order to teach. Trust me on this. It’s happened to me TWICE now.

As far as I have determined, no one really knows how to teach you how to teach. The best they can do is make your life a living hell to see how far they can push you before you show up one day with twelve loaded handguns and a homemade bomb. Do NOT put the Education Department in charge of your future. Get a degree in something else, THEN go back and get certified. This will limit the amount of time you have with the Ed Department, and once you get a faceful of THEM, you will realize that this is a Good Thing.

Especially if you attend the same university I did.

  1. Note that the politicians are going to ride your ass into office every chance they get, and that they are going to make it clear that public school teachers are lazy, shiftless, stupid, and cruel, but possessed of a certain animal cunning… and that THEIR laws and leadership are required to whip you into your place and make you stand up on your hind legs and do your job. Be prepared to deal with this attitude for the rest of your life, and to do your best despite it.

  2. Note also that your private life is now pretty much open to public scrutiny. You’re dealing with our children, after all, and therefore many people seem to feel that their children’s rights and safety overrides any rights you may have to any kind of privacy. Be prepared to spend the rest of your life dressing, speaking, and acting like a schoolteacher… except when amongst US, when you may discard your mask and behave like a regular human.

As long as the kids aren’t watching.

  1. Note also that your little charges have rights. Lots of rights. They are aware of those rights, and so are their parents, and you will spend a LOT of time being reminded of that… by nearly all of them. Teaching is a profession with great responsibility… and nearly NO power… that requires you to obey a variety of poorly thought out laws while simultaneously making everyone happy.

This is not possible.

The best you can do is to obey the laws while doing your job to the best of your ability. Be prepared to tell yourself that the next time someone’s mother begins screaming in your face about how it’s YOUR fault little Joey won’t do his homework.

It IS your fault, you know. Just ask the politicians.

  1. You want to teach college. This is great. Lots of other people do, too. Your best bet, here, is to get a degree, and then go back and get your Master’s degree in education or a related field.

…and then kiss every PhD’s butt within a hundred and sixty miles, hunting frantically for a job. It’s good work, if you can get it. Be prepared to relocate on little or no notice.

  1. Lastly, bear in mind that I have painted a pretty dark picture here on purpose. It’s not that bad. Not usually.

Only on certain days.

To answer your question, I began teaching because making lots of money as a salesman was remarkably profitable, but ultimately unfulfilling. I got tired of finding new ways to confuse people long enough to get money out of them. I felt like a con man, and I was tired of working my butt off to make more money for my bosses, who dangled incentives, stock options, bonuses, and partnerships over my head like a cart driver with a carrot on a string.

I was tired of feeling like a goddamn hamster in a wheel… and as trite as it sounds, money isn’t everything. It is, in fact, only money.

So I began working with the mentally retarded. Over time, I drifted into adolescent psychiatric care. And in time, I realized I had a knack for teaching Special Ed, and went back to get my certification… largely because I was tired of being told “We’d love to give you a raise and promote you, but without any credentials…”

So, now, I teach. It ain’t what I expected, in a lot of ways, but it is, in many ways, an improvement over psychiatric work. Public school children can be tough, but they almost never actually try to kill you. And a great many of them DO care about their work, and about their lives, and about what they’re doing. Those are the kids that keep you coming back, I’ve found…

…but be prepared for a whole lotta learning experiences along the way. This is NOT a field for people who wanna put in their nine to five, do the job, collect a check, and go the hell home…

3

I agree with Wang-Ka.

Add to that a disease known as teacher burn-out.
I taught for 14 years and loved it. Then, almost overnight, it just became too much.
Done.
Maybe it was putting forth so much energy for so many years; maybe it was the fact I was teaching the same subjects over and over and over.
Whatever the case - be prepared to make a career change later in your life.

I do not regret having been a teacher. It was great and I really do think I made some changes in students’ lives. However, I think it is important that people go into the teaching field with an open mind and with open eyes.

BTW, high school is a lot harder, but the rewards are higher. This is the last chance to save some of these kids from a dismal future - and despite what you may see on TV or in movies, most of those kids really do want and need some guidance. If you are going to teach, jump in head first and go for it.

I admire you and wish you all the best!

4

Soulmark, WHY do you want to teach? You never exactly explain it in your post.

Is it to shape young lives? To give you the opportunity to delve more deeply into your chosen field? To pass knowledge along to others? To get into the last profession (except the military) that still has a guaranteed pension plan?

Figure out why you want to teach and the who and the what will come more easily.

5

Some bad things about teaching:

First and foremost is the fact that you fail more often than you succeed. There’s no getting around this: even the very best, the most intelligent, empathic, concerned, dedicated teachers fail to reach the majority of their students. This is not to say you can’t make a huge impact of a substanial minority–which is something well worth doing–but for every kid you touch, there will be one that simply dosen’t hear what you are saying.

You will never feel like you are doing everything you are supposed to do. It’s not physically possible to bring sunshine and enlightenment and joy and wisdom into 190 little heads in a nine-month period. It’s not even physically possible to cover the course material: my district’s objectives for my class (Junior English) make up a 47 page long word document. Theorectically, I am suppossed to cover a 47-page long list of objectives with kids who have ability levels/prior knowledge level far below average (and if their ability/prior knowledge wasn’t below average, they’d be in my AP class). Logically, all you can do is accept that truth and do the best you can. Emotionally, when you fail to call one more parent or do a less than perfect job grading one more paper, you feel like you are failing your duty.

Teaching is also lonely–you spend all day on a stage, performing, and you don’t see anyone who dosent’ see you as The Teacher.

Kids are cruel, and some are good at it.

Teachers are all meglomaniacs. This effects you because it eventually drives all administrators crazy. They have a job that is akin to herding cats through an underwater tunnel and eventually they either go insane or leave. Working for an insane administrator is not fun.

The horrors of a 25 minute lunch and having to take a half day off whenever you have to take care of anything between 8 and 4 are more frustrating than you might think.

You won’t be teaching a room full of you. You’ll be teaching the kids you hated in high school, you’ll be teaching kids that don’t care, you’ll be teaching kids that are a hair’s breath away from mental retardation, you’ll be teaching kids who resent you because of your race, your gender, your clothes, and because they think you hate them. And you know what? All those kids deserve an education–deserve your energy, your enthusiasm, your goodwill–just as much as the one that’s gonna grow up and be a teacher.

Ok, that’s the bad stuff. Here’s the good stuff.

It’s a vocation. Corny as it sounds, if you are meant to teach, you are meant to teach and you might as well accept it. I thank god every day that a job exisits that so neatly matches my talents and inclinations.

The kids. The kids are great. Even when they are being little shits, they’re great. Teaching means that sometimes you just get to kick back and watch kids be kids, and it’s a joy. We have a club that shows sci-fi movies after school, and every meeting I let them set up the movie/projector combo because watching 5 kids take half an hour to do a five minute job is a joy forever. And they do learn. And you do touch some of them–I got a thank you letter from a senior last year that broke my heart and made me cry–and I’m not the type to cry.

It takes every iota of creative energy you have to get through each day. In a good department, creativity is cherished and stroked.

In the right school, your autonomy is considerable. There are always insane administrators, but usually they are too busy to bother you much. You have a job to do, but you can do it your way.

There is a great deal of community respect. It’s far from universal, of course, but it’s still nice when the homecoming commitee of parents makes you a mum to wear or the PTA delivers carnation.

You get to start anew every year. I love this part. When things go horribly awry, I think to myself “I won’t do this this way next year”.
Summers off. It’s not the best reason to teach, but let’s not ignore it. I loved my job last month.

Now the neutral:

You will make more decisions in a 50 minute period than most people make all day. Everything from “Is this really a bathroom emergency” to "Does Lucy’s friend having an apendectomy constitute “extenuating circimstance” to “have they had enough time to work on this” to “what do I do when one child slams another so hard against the wall that the clock falls off”? I cannot stress enough that if making decisions stresses you out, teaching is not the right career.

Teachers are often strong personalities. I enjoy being surrounded by the eccentric, but if you don’t, stay out of teaching.

The whole “don’t let your job be who you are” thing makes no sense to teachers. You are your job. Teachers are the worst shop-talkers in the entire world because we can’t stop thinking about being teacher.

Seeing your last name in 100 different handwrittings at the top of papers is a weird thing.

Lastly, if what you want to do is TEACH, teach at the K-12 level. University teachers are researchers first and teachers second. Furthermore, if you don’t know what to teach but are leaning in the liberal arts direction, I recommend English, only because it is the most flexible of the subjects. If I get bored with a novel, I teach a different novel. The history teacher has to teach the same war over and over.

6

Hi there,

Just thought I would add my two cents. I agree with Wang-Ka , it would probably be best to get a Bachelor’s degree in a field you want to teach in and then get a certification. Are you just starting your college career? Taking this route will also make it easier for you to change your mind or do something different…if you major in education and decide when you get halfway through that you don’t want to teach, you basically have to start over again.

Teaching college is a tough one. Liberal arts schools and universities are looking for published scholars or researchers, so you have to love writing/researching as much as you love teaching. You’ll need a Ph.D. and from what I understand there is a lot of competition for faculty positions in the liberal arts areas (English, history, etc).

However, there are other options that you can consider. I have a B.A. in English from a liberal arts college. After several years out in the work force I am back at school getting my M.A. in Adult Education and a license to teach Adult Basic Education (not every state has a license for ABE but Minnesota does). I will be able to teach adult literacy and numeracy classes (basic reading and math) as well as GED/high school equivalency classes for either a school district or a community college. I could also teach ESL classes or coordinate a program for adult learners. Then there’s workforce basic skills and literacy. Demand is high in all of these areas although the pay isn’t great and they are usually the first to be cut in a tight budget scenario. I could also go back into corporate training but I will only do that if there’s no other choice, that’s what I was doing before and like Wang-Ka I want to do something that is more than just a means to a paycheck.

I picked adult basic education because I want to work with people who want to learn. And adults are enrolled in programs voluntarily, they want to be there and they want to learn.

Anyway, that’s MHO…ymmv etc :slight_smile:

hill

7

Son of a teacher with a family with quite a few teachers in it. Here’s what I think I can share:

You’re not going to be teaching a class full of beaming, eager to learn young faces most of the time. You’ll probably be teaching a class with a few good students, quite a few pretty alright ones, and a couple young snots. If you can teach electives (my high school had some electives), you’ll probably get a better group. Though in my high school, half of my Creative Writing class was jocks looking for an easy A.

Some parents will be your curse. If Little Billy gets an F, chances are, it’s your fault. Not his fault. You’ll be threatened with lawsuits constantly, especially if a grade keeps an Involved Parent’s kid off the Team. You have to understand that, for some kids and parents, school is about Sports. Classes are just bothersome things you’ll have to jump over.

You are expected to be teacher, parent, psychologist, career counselor, and standardized test expert. You should be able to give the kids a well-rounded education while ensuring they get incredibly high scores on the standardized test of the month.

Teach in a state that values education. It’ll make some difference.

Private school teachers make less. Private school teachers tend to not have to deal with as much crap.

Keep in mind that public school teachers have to deal with beareaucracy. When you combine a school system with The State, you’ll be dealing with two of the worst beaureaucracies in the world.

8

Quite a bit of not-so-encouraging advice so far! Well, here’s a little more.

The subjects you mention were the ones I studied (BA in English Lit, minor in History; MA in Rhetoric/Composition and Cultural Criticism). Most of my teaching has been in composition at the college level, and that’s what I’d like to comment on.

Writing teachers often discover that the hours they spend laboring over their students’ compositions are largely wasted. In undergraduate classes, I honestly believe that fewer than 5% of my students carefully read and try to incorporate my writing advice. I frequently find their returned papers, with my careful comments, corrections, and explanations, on the floor or in the trash. Why do I work so hard at it–why not just slap a grade on the bottom and be done with it? Because I do feel some obligation to that 5% who really want to improve their writing and critical thinking skills, and for those, I believe that a time-consuming, painstaking, word-by-word analysis of their writing is necessary. It’s the Theory of Noble Futility, I guess. The fact that the students rarely do their job does not relieve me of the obligation to do mine.

For some classes (like the summer school classes I’m teaching now, during my alleged long vacation), I’m paid by the contact hour, and the hourly pay sounds pretty good. But no matter how I’m paid, for each hour spent in the classroom, I spend 4 or 5 hours outside the classroom, reading and marking papers. An assignment that the students work on for 2 or 3 hours means an entire weekend of paper-grading for me. Some papers are a real pleasure to read, but those are pretty rare. When I calculate my hourly pay including all the work I do at home, it’s absurdly low.

Many writing teachers respond to this by slapping grades on the bottom of the paper and being done with it, reducing the amount of work outside of class to a minimum. I don’t consider this good teaching. Of course it doesn’t make the slightest difference to most students, but that 5% prevents me from being able to do this. I’m a pretty cynical person, but that tiny spark of idealism creates a buttload of extra work.

I wouldn’t worry about your ability to teach those subjects effectively. That’s what college (and those first few years of teaching, when you’re finding your own style) is for.

Oh yeah, and what the previous posters said, too. But you do get those long vacations–unless you teach summer school.

9

Interesting advice all around, thank you.

I guess I’ll have to speak to my advisor again to make sure I’m on the right track. I’m just beginning my career as a student and have plenty of time to make changes if need be.

I’m currently enrolled at the local community college with plans to switch to a state university when I get my two year degree. My advisor has put me on the path of an education major, but from what’s been said I think I may be doing it backwards.

I suppose I’ll have to decide exactly what it is I’d like to teach before worrying about the teaching part.

I must say though, after reading all the above posts I’m reconsidering my leaning toward teaching at the collegiate level. Perhaps high school is the way to go for me.

I want to teach in the hopes that I can help those who want to be helped (and perhaps even a few that don’t). I want to pass on knowledge and reinforce the ideals of critical thinking and thinking for oneself. Perhaps college is already too late to reach kids with that?

The part that scares me the most about teaching in a high school is having to deal with the parents. College seems so much more removed. The students are much more on their own and in a lot of cases miles and miles away from their parents.

How big of a part of teaching high school are the parents? Their threats of lawsuits and the like seem outrageous, but I’ve learned not to discount something merely because it is illogical. Is it just a nuisance or can they really affect your class so dramatically?