I love being a teacher. But it’s not true that there is no shortage–something like 50% of new teachers leave the profession after 5 years, and in our district, at least, there are literally hundreds of classrooms, mostly in elementary schools, that have had subs all year. Urban and rural districts have tremendous problems finding bodies, and in certain areas–math, science, special ed, bilingual education–everyone scrambles to find people. And even when their are applicants, it can be tremendously difficult to find good people–almost every interview cycle I’ve been part of has come down to “least terrible”.
Your friend sounds EXACTLY like how I felt a few years ago. Good to average school, loved working with the kids, loved being able to do my job, but HATED the lack of respect/support from parents, admins and others. I got out and couldn’t be happier and make a lot more money to boot. I still miss the kids, but it was not a mistake.
Sure, if a teacher wants to teach Science and is told to teach English instead, that’s a problem for the teacher (although, why a district would hire a science teacher to teach english is beyond me, but then I don’t know why an orchestra would hire a guitar player to play fiddle).
If a district needs a teacher to teach English, great. If the district thinks the teacher cannot effectively teach English unless he ditches To Kill a Mockingbird in favor of The Scarlet Letter, the district is not thinking very well.
We hire teachers (and musicians, incidentally) because they have a certain subjective skill that makes them great. Then we want the teachers to turn into objective automatons that teach things in exactly a certain way. That’s a disconnect that needs to be resolved.
And incidentally, having been a musician, some pieces of music are beyond redemption.
No sympathy. There is always time if you get over yourself as a teacher. The truth is a majority of teachers are just as inefficient as the rest of the work force, and waste time with stuff that isn’t important that they could be using constructively towards the goals of their classes. That just might mean dumping that favorite lesson they’ve been teaching for years. Sucks, but you are in this job for the kids, not for your jollies. If you can find fulfillment at the same time, good for you. It’s not like everybody else in the world is grooving on their jobs and you aren’t. It’s a Common Condition of Mankind. Deal with it.
You have to remember that teachers are subjected frequently to ridiculous levels of scrutiny, though. I mean, if your widget ends up coming out slightly wonky because the customer’s spec was asinine and you were fighting to reconcile it and your personal business model nothing but the reputation of your company suffers and maybe your individual employees suffers. If a teacher screws up, real damage to a child can be done.
The problem with this is, despite mounds of research, we still don’t have a perfect idea of how to best do education, and everyone has an opinion, often a strong one. Combine this with the fact that even research and expert opinions can be contradictory and unclear. So a teacher isn’t just getting inconsistent demands, opinions, and data, and being forced to reconcile it with their own personal ideas and experiences about what works well – every single one of those instructions and opinions comes with a very strong moral judgment attached.
If your class does worse than expected on some new test, not only do you feel like a failure like you would in any industry, but you’re stuck with the burden of feeling like you possibly just ruined 30 children’s lives. And due to the data, it’s almost impossible to tell if this happened because you yourself did poorly, or because the principal told you to do something dumb, or because those “tests” the politicians approved were bullshit, or because those problem parents forced you to lower your standards so Mark and Ted didn’t get a D so they could stay on the football team.
It certainly has similar stressors and problems to many other jobs, but the stakes are higher (or at least society makes it seem that way).
In Spring of 1990, I was finishing my undergrad and working in a library part time. I was in the teacher ed program and finishing up my student teaching. All I had to do was send in the paperwork to be certified to teach, and I could start making $20-22K a year in the fall.
I never sent in the forms, and opted instead for $12K a year, because I saw how miserable I would be teaching.
How much of your own money do you spend for class supplies?
And why is that such a surprise?
I’ve had a principal tell me I had to give failing students a passing grade. Not failing with a 59%. Failing with a 23%. In one case, the student was failing with a 4%. The vice principal told me that I should hold an impromptu parent-teacher conference in the middle of class because the parent had shown up unannounced and demanded my attention. When I pointed out that I could not discuss the student in question with his father in front of other students, because it violated privacy policies, she told me to take the discussion into the hallway. When I pointed out that, by law, I couldn’t leave the students in my classroom without supervision, she got angry with me.
I’ve had an administrator tell me that I was going to take that maxed out class at the end of the school day, filled with kids who defaulted to art because they couldn’t be bothered to fill out their preferred class assignments, on 1/10th the budget a regular art class would get, with no lesson plans, no support from the department head, and three days to prep before school started. Was I obliged to do it? Sure. Did I complain. You betcha.
Sometimes, what an administrator tells a teacher to do is illegal, unethical, immoral, unnecessary, or just stupid. Sometimes, administrators suck at their jobs and the fallout lands on the teacher. Like I said, administrators make or break teaching jobs. Good administrators hire good teachers. Bad administrators get rid of good teachers and tolerate bad ones.
IANAT, but I spend quite a bit of time involved with our communities schools, public and private. There are some really good teachers and there are some really bad teachers and lot of mediocre teachers out there. The really good ones have a passion for teaching. For a lot of teachers, it’s a paycheck. A big part of the problem that burns a lot of good teachers out is that they spend the majority of their time dealing with the discipline problem kids and not being able to teach. The school system has to figure out a better way to deal with the dip shit kids if our education system wants to be more successful.
Why were you staying an hour after school?
Straight from the teachers’ mouths. It is NOT like any other job…unless you work in an office where upper management expects you to pay for office supplies out of your own salary for those that work under you.
I guess I need it explained to me why teachers are willing to buy supplies out of their own pocket.
Because if they don’t they’re heartless monsters who won’t make a small sacrifice for the children. After all, what’s more important? Getting a new TV or making sure 30 kids succeed in life!? [/moral hysteria]
I mean, when it comes down to it, the teachers do it to themselves to at least some degree. But guilt is a strong motivator. Similar to what I said in my earlier post: if you need a new computer to do your job, if you stonewall your company by refusing to buy your own the company’s profits are going to suffer. If a teacher refuses to buy necessary supplies for their students, they have to live with the guilt that they may not be giving these students the best education possible. Sure, they can complain to admin, but when it’s clear that admin can’t or won’t do anything about it it’s completely up to the teacher.
Thing is, if my boss is pissing me off, I can shut my office door, put on a Prince CD, and fume all day, if I want.
Teachers can’t do this. They are expected to perform all day long. That’s why I would be a horrible teacher. I like being able to be in a bad mood whenever I want to.
OK, I didn’t read the whole thread, so I may be repeating what others said. Teaching high school for 26 years was fun sometimes and hell other times. Here are some things that made the difference:
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Administration- if they won’t back you up on discipline and you have bad kids, it can really suck. I have seen administrators “out to get” certain teachers fill classes with thugs and not back up any discipline referrals. Administrators who back up the teacher and realize that kids can really be terrible are a blessing.
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Students- hey, some are better in class than others. By the 8th and 9th grade, unfortunately, there are some kids who would rather cause as much trouble in class as possible than cooperate in any fashion. Most of these either drop out, are arrested, or improve their behavior by the 11th grade. Having a class full (or worse, day full) of these kids can make life miserable. One year, I had the worst batch of 8th graders I’d ever seen. At least a dozen of them went to prison within the next three years- theft, breaking and entering, meth lab, and murder among the charges.
On the other hand, I also have had some cherry-picked honors classes that made me really want to get up and go to work in the morning. -
General stupidity: OK, so we’re all held accountable for test results. Fine, my classes usually did much better than the state average. But noooooo- you have to write a freakin’ book for planning one lesson. Doesn’t matter that the school district spent millions on textbooks that provide useful, professionally written plans aligned to the state standards and ready to print out- you can’t be a good teacher if you don’t rewrite them into the obfuscatory language favored by the district, county, or state this year, add in five subjective rubrics to assess the feelings of your students toward thoroughly objective topics such as ionic bonding, and be forced to waste three weeks of your summer vacation trying to word physical science objectives in a manner that pleases administrators that don’t understand the standards.
The amount of paperwork that teachers do that has nothing to do with student’s progress and understanding has exploded recently. It is probably the biggest reason for teacher dissatisfaction.
If etv78’s anything like I was (in elementary school, anyway), the answer is “grading papers for a teacher who’d rather pay me a quarter than stay 2 hours after school.”
My girlfriend’s (corrupt and inept) principal made a declaration that all parent emails would be answered within 15 minutes of having arrived in the teachers in box between the hours of 7am and 7pm. When it was explained to him that 1) they had lives and 2) for part of that day they were, well…teaching children and not looking at their email, he did not back down. Instead, he started firing teachers for non-compliance to policy.
This was the same bozo who insisted that all teachers have a Facebook page and friend their students and parents. Like that is going to be a winning situation when someone tags a photo of you with the huge appletini.
If I ever actually added it up to the penny I’d probably quit. But it is mostly on my debate kids, so I really don’t mind. When you get down to it, 30 kids’ education is more important than me getting a new TV. You try not to let it get out of hand, but if I was out to get rich(er than I would be otherwise) I would have stayed in the private sector running my own business(es.) I teach because I am good at it, I have always wanted to do it, and because** it has to be done, and done effectively**. If not by me, by who? There are times you just have to suck it up and take one for the team. I don’t get trinkets so other people’s kids learn. That’s a pretty good trade-off in my book.
I taught in a small, mainly German farming community for a brief period of time when I finished my undergrad degree. My students were well-behaved and the parents cooperative for the large part.
The hours I spent in the classroom were enjoyable. I didn’t mind the extra hours at home doing prep work and grading papers. It was the administrational aspects of the job that I hadn’t been prepared for. The apathy and actual interference in the teaching process were a deal-breaker for me.
I left teaching many moons ago because, at the time, there were little to no jobs available in my discipline. The most I could get was substituting in three different schools in one particular district. I did that for three years based on the “promise” that I’d be hired FT when a position opened. It opened, and I later discovered I hadn’t been considered because I was supposedly “such a good sub”.
I had an evening/weekend PT job during this time. When a FT position opened at the company, I applied and got it. I made more money in that position than I would have if I had gotten the FT teaching position. I also didn’t want to sub anymore.