Teachers! Tell me about your career!

In My Humble Opinion
21

Well, I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have to declare a major for a couple of years…

I love history and I love economics. Teaching my own kids historical facts is just awesome – my six year old knows who Abraham Lincoln was and what years WWII was fought. I would love to be abortion to teach others about the things I love. When I found out my 13yo nephew didn’t know what the holocaust was, I was dumbfounded. Why? I still don’t have an answer.

I’m not a natural teacher, its not a calling in the sense of “I’ve always wanted to, as long as I can remember”. But I love to learn, and share what I have learned with others.

And, if I’m honest, there’s not a profession that I can see as a ‘calling’. I started a thread a while back asking people to briefly describe their jobs and careers. I live in a small, isolated town and don’t have a lot of knowledge about common industries. I know very little about computers. That thread dropped off the list with I think one response. There is nothing that I am “good” at, save my current profession, and being a good caregiver doesn’t take much.

The idea of staying in this job I’m currently in is depressing. Besides, its getting to be too much physically and mentally. I zeroed in on teaching because its something I think I can do, and frankly there isn’t nuch that interests me (maybe this job has already done too much damage). Sharing my passions has an appeal.

I will not be a nurse.

22

It’s great. I love it. Sure, it’s a pain sometimes, but I love it.

I have no idea about the crazy low salaries on here($35,000?). I don’t want to dislose my salary, but I started(with just a Bachelor’s) at quite a bit more than that and have received my pay increase annually and am quite a bit higher than that, with more steps to come.

Then again, I’ve heard salaries are lower outside Michigan.

23

Teaching is physically and mentally demanding. The dream jobs that people describe are hard to find - and in many areas, just don’t exist.

I am a damned good teacher. I know this. I also know that unless I get an MRS. degree and marry a rich guy, I won’t be teaching in ten years. I just have things in live that I’m responsible for - namely, myself and my son.

<sigh> There’s a reason why so many good teachers go into admin.

24

You could teach at a community college, maybe. Probably one class per semester for $1,500. The days of teaching full time and getting tenure are gone, baby, gone. All they hire now are adjunct, with no guarantee of work next semester, and lots of competition.

Trust me, I have an MFA (a terminal degree) and college teaching opportunities rarely come along for me. I think the terminal degree in history or economics is a doctorate, so getting a college teaching job with a bachelors would be about impossible.

So- I have a masters, I am licensed to teach high school art in two states, have taught college classes, and the only half way regular job I can find is as a substitute teacher for $70 a day. Teachers just aren’t retiring at the first available opportunity these days. They are hanging on to get the most possible benefits when they do leave. The school I work at has two art teachers, both are about 60 years old and WILL NOT retire ever. That school has a good number of teachers who have been there over 40 years.

Forget about teaching, seriously. Unless you have a sugar daddy/sugar momma like I do. Mine was lucky enough to get a job teaching english/drama at a high school. And every year when the town votes on the school budget, we wonder if she’ll have her job next year and freak out that she may be laid off. So stay out of teaching! Right now, it’s a horrible job field to break into as a newbie.

25

ABLE! I meant able. Stoopid spellcheck! :smack:

26

This varies a lot by state, by subject matter, and by where you are willing to teach. I’ve known people who found it impossible to get a job, but refused to apply to urban districts because it was outside their comfort zone.

27

All I applied for was urban ed. Only a few jobs open in the last few years, though.

28

I did 26 years, grades 9-12 (usually 9th), science (mostly biology and physical science). There is one major problem with teaching right now. This problem is that great pressure is being put on everyone in public education except where it should be- the students.

Because of this, expect to do three times the homework your students will do- lesson plans, grading papers with the excessively detailed rubrics you will have to create, constructing bulletin boards, learning maps, word walls, and keeping “professional portfolios”. You will have textbooks with excellent ancillary materials to help you, but the administration will fight you tooth and nail if you try to use them, since the current (moronic) attitude is that using such materials is not “professional”. Expect to lose your in-school planning time several times a month to meetings that have no bearing on what you teach.

The preceding paragraph was only true for the last ten years I taught ('99-'09). I guess the pendulum could possibly swing the other way someday, but right now, it’s almost as if the powers-that-be are just sitting around trying to think up new ways to make teachers do more craploads of paperwork and giving them less time to do it.

This rant is accurate, to my knowledge, for public schools in Georgia. The people I know who teach in Indiana have similar stories.

29

I haven’t written a formal lesson plan in over 20 years. I know my subjects. My “lesson plans” are a few bullet points scribbled on a legal pad. Mainly to keep my organization flowing. Anybody who complains about “too much grading” hasn’t thought the process through well enough. Even when I taught English, I had the process down to where I didn’t have to do most of the work. As for time-wasting meetings…unless you are self-employed, these are a fact of Life. Get used to the idea, because it happens in every single field of employment there is.

Of course TPTB are thinking up busy-work for teachers. That’s their job! It’s not like they can do anything productive while sitting in an office insulated from the students by 15 levels of bureaucracy. 90% of Admin positions are filled with people who felt that money and petty power was more important than the kids.

Teachers are getting dumped on by all levels of society, but to hear the whiney-assed cry-babies tell it, you’d think Rwandan genocide was happening in our schools every day.

Manda JO - First, congrats on the sprog. Second,

you speak Truth. I’ve been cycling through the last three types for a quarter-century, and I’ve loved every minute of it. The kids make me want to come to work every day. Seniors are goofy and weird and wonderful, aren’t they?

30

I really got into teaching because my husband worked crazy hours and I wanted to be home when my daughter was. I had an undergraduate degree, but not in anything that remotely resembled education. The state told me what I needed to do to teach - mostly methods classes, ick - and a couple of foundation classes, and how much student teaching I needed to do, and that was it. I already had all the content I needed from the classes I had taken for my bachelor’s. I subbed for a couple of years first and thought that this was something I could do that would give meth same holidays as my daughter.

Although many people do raise their families on teaching as their only income, I think it would be extremely difficult. It makes a good second income.

And although I know many intelligent teachers, the stereotype that teachers aren’t that bright and went into education (especially elementary) has some basis of truth, sadly.

31

I got three degrees in English, went right into teaching classes part-time while finishing grad school, and many years later…I am still teaching PT in college. I don’t even want to say what I make; it’s too embarrassing. The hourly rate is good, but I don’t have that many hours. Oh, I could have more by teaching on multiple campuses but have been down that road already; it is crazy-making, not to mention the wear and tear on the car. FT jobs are few, and when they’re offered, there are far too many of us competing for them.

I wish I had gone into health occupations years ago.

32

I’m not really sure how to begin this…I don’t want to lead the OP to a false sense of optimism, since what everyone is saying above is mostly true, but…

There is some hope out there, if teaching is something that you cannot be talked out of. I was fortunate enough to get a full-time community college teaching job (in the humanities–English–no less!) right out of graduate school, the first time I applied, without having to move anywhere, in the middle of the Great Recession. Since I was hired, my school has hired another 3 full-time English instructors, one of whom was one of my classmates as an undergrad, and fresh out of grad school, too.

One thing about the economy tanking is that we’re seeing record enrollments, and although this is Texas, and our budget–particularly in education–is shrinking, there is demand for educators. Lots of people look at English as a limited field, but at the very least, all academic degree seekers must take a year of it. And the truth is, there is a significant demand for remedial (or, as my department calls it, developmental) education. In fact, the latest full-timer was hired specifically to teach developmental English. I did it as an adjunct while I finished my Master’s, and it wasn’t too bad.

I get a kick out of my job, most of the time. I teach a lot of dual-credit courses, so I’m on at least one high school campus twice a week, and I broadcast classes to 4 other high schools. I usually teach 2 ‘regular’ college classes, one of those an upper-level literature survey. Teaching high schoolers is not my favorite thing, although it could be much worse. I don’t have to put up with any of the bullshit at that level–I run my class how I run my class, and if I want a kid out, he’s out. I don’t have to talk to parents (actually I’m prohibited from it in most cases.) So in a way I guess I get the best of both worlds–I get to see those lightbulb moments in high school seniors, but with college rules and academic freedom.

I will say, though, that I am a natural teacher. As crazy as it sounds, I don’t have to ‘work’ at it very much. Sure, I have to work to come up with interesting lesson ideas, discussion prompts, essay topics, etc., but the act of getting up in front of a class and being a facilitator of thinking tends to come easily for me. This is not true of everyone, and in my experience, not true of most teachers. Which is not to say that others are ‘bad’ (some are) but rather to say that not many people truly belong in this field. It takes more than a passion for your subject matter–that may be the biggest misconception from outsiders.

So anyway, I guess I’ll try to give you a sense of what I do.

There is no tenure at my institution. Everyone, from the President on down, works on yearly contracts. Non-renewal may happen for any reason or no reason. Pay is based on level of education, years of experience, and years of service to our school. The difference in pay between a Master’s and PhD is only about $2,000 per year. Since I was brand spankin’ new, my first year’s salary was $41,500, plus benefits. Since I’m young and newly married, with my wife in college, I teach lots of overload classes and I adjunct at another college, plus I teach at least one summer term, so I add about $10k to that every year. I’m a 9-month employee, but they divide the salary into 24 payments. The state pays 100% of my insurance and 50% of my wife’s. I contribute to the Texas Teacher Retirement System rather than Social Security, and the state matches. I pay extra for dental insurance.

Contractually, I agree to teach five 3-hour courses each semester, and be on campus for 30 hours per week. My chair makes the schedule of classes, so I don’t have a lot of input there, but there is a lot of flexibility in office hours and on-campus time. For the past 2 years, I have not had any Friday classes, so I work a 12-hour Thursday and get Fridays off. That had to have the Dean’s approval, of course.

I grade lots of essays–probably around 1,500 pages per semester, and that takes up much of my office time and some of my home time. I was the department’s faculty senate rep for 2 years (no stipend there, lol) and on several panels. I have to dress up and participate in at least one graduation ceremony per year. I’m reviewed by my chair and dean every other year. I’m expected to do 45 hours of professional development (or one 3-credit graduate course) every 2 years. Since I teach at a CC, there is no research/publication requirement. It’s encouraged, but in no way limits the opportunity for re-employment or promotion. I research and write about what interests me.

I have lots of economically disadvantaged students and many minority students, and the vast majority of my students are the first in their families to go to college. That can be a challenge sometimes, but only in the sense that many of them just don’t know about the routine. Most of them are plenty smart. I’ve only had a couple of issues with behavior, and those were easily solved (get the hell out and stay the hell out!)

If I had it to do over again, would I take the same path? I think I would, though I’m not sure I would have picked an English major–simply because of the essay grading. My office is in a suite with folks in the history, government, and sociology department, and I never see them leaving campus with a 50-pound bag of shit to grade! But yeah, I’d go to grad school and become an instructor again. It allows me to provide a nice lifestyle for this area (average household income here is $17,000/year) and gives me the free time to volunteer with organizations that I love. There’s stress, but probably less of it than many other professions. The toughest part is being “on” every day–there’s just no way to throw on some comfy clothes and slide through on a bad day.

On the flip side, if I lived in an area where I had to adjunct at several places, have no benefits, and fly the freeways, I wouldn’t do it.

33

I agree with all of this. And for me, at least, lesson planning isn’t work . . .it’s a hobby, and amazing that I get paid for it. If coming up with new and interesting ways to teach something sounds like a burden, then I agree teaching isn’t a good match.

The grading is less fun, but you do find ways to minimize it. Really, a good piece of advice for a new teacher is that your job is to teach, not to assign grades. Grade only in ways that further that goal. For me, a huge breakthrough was when I quit writing on essays. Most English teachers feel obligated to write these long involved notes on each essay, which is why they take 5 minutes each to grade. But 70% of the kids don’t even read those remarks, and of the ones that do, very, very, very few–like a handful–have the self awareness to understand and apply what you said. So I stopped. Now I just make myself available for tutoring and give them tremendous incentives to come in and go over an essay with me. Many do not, but they wouldn’t have read comments, either. The ones who do get a lot more out of five minutes of face time than they ever would have out of scrawled comments, and it’s easier for me than trying to articulate my thoughts in the margins. My net time is less, I hate it less, more kids learn more.

And I do tons of eye-ball grading. 100/85/70/50. I don’t need grades to rank students to seven significant digits. I reformed my whole vocab system to make it matching but still be effective. There are lots of ways to soften the load and save the time for the stuff that actually improves learning.

And it you are smart about it, you can figure out exactly what the bare minimum is to keep them off your back, and adopt a few roles that make you valuable enough to them that they don’t go out of the way to make your life difficult. I’ve seen some good teachers really shoot themselves in the foot because they so RIGID. Have to turn in lesson plans each week? Half-ass them, and save them for next year. No one reads them anyway. Admin arbitrarily demands a certain pass rate? Bump all your kids an equal number of points that results in the pass rate they want.* They want an objective on the board every day? Make it a nice broad one. Parents of a SPED/504 kid throwing a fit? Make them happy. If they think a grade that wasn’t earned is the best thing for their kid, well, unless they are knocking someone out of a good rank spot, I don’t care if little Johnny got a credit when he shouldn’t have. My job is to teach: not to do perfect paperwork, not to be the Sacred Keeper of the Gradebook. Pick the battles that affect teaching.
Teaching is perhaps a more extreme job than some: their are some bad things that can be very, very bad. But there are also more good parts than I think you have in most jobs. For me, it’s totally worth it.

*The year I did this, my AP pass rate went through the roof. Turns out I was being too hard.

34

Some schools require you to turn in typed lesson plans with standards, objectives, outlines, etc.

The teaching colleges today say that in order to be a ‘good’ teacher, you must lesson plan and plan all of your units in advance.

Teaching colleges today (and students - at least mine) say this is the mark of a good teacher – writing on essays and giving feedback.

Another ‘mark of a bad teacher’. Teachers should always have detailed rubrics. No eyeball grading.

This contributes to the ‘lazy teacher’ meme.

…that…astonishes me…

This. Is. Horrifying.

35

I’m sorry I shocked you. I think most of what they teach in teacher colleges is crap. I get fantastic results: my AP scores are far, far, far above what the PSAT scores predict for my kids: of the population predicted to have a 50% chance of passing the AP exam, I’ve had over an 85% pass rate for the last two years (which is when I started getting access to the PSAT data). I’ve also had over 30 kids who were predicted to have less than a 50% chance of passing–kids that College Board doesn’t think are strong candidates to even try the class, let alone pass the class–pass the exam, some with scores of 4/5.

What appalls you so much? That I am sloppy with grades? Whether little Johnny makes a 72 or a 78 in high school English really doesn’t bother me. Grades are not scientific data. They are hacksaws, and there’s no point in pretending they are scalpels.

As far as people thinking I’m lazy because I half-ass my administrative paperwork, or skip it entirely when I can–I am saving my time for my kids. The point of picking your battles is to be available for tutoring 10 hours a week outside of school, to be able to run extra-curricular activities and keep kids involved, to be able to prep lessons in a way that is useful and not just what a methods teacher wants to see, to be able to be on committees and part of groups that make a difference. I promise you, no one thinks I’m lazy.

36

As far as bumping grades to get a pass rate: I think it’s appalling when individuals get bumped. But grades are arbitrary–the number “45” or “86” is meaningless in and of itself. If you bump everyone 5 points, rank is not impacted. It’s a curve–an admission that the course was too difficult. I don’t see what’s appalling about that. Every law school in the country does it, except they will push grades down. The AP people do it: they decide the passing score each year only after all the essays are graded and they’ve seen the distribution. This is not an unusual technique.

37

I’m an adjunct math and science professor, and I make $1100 per class per semester. :frowning:

38

Our college pays $1000 per contact hour, so a three credit course (typical) gets around 3k and lab classes which are 4 credits but 6 contact hours get 6000. Pretty decent pay, comparatively.

39

CitizenPained, if what Manda said shocks you, you are clueless. Good teachers take what is taught in education classes, strip out the few things that actually work, and junk the rest. College education departments are the biggest handicap the school systems of this country have.

Plan lessons in advance? Sure. I try to lay out the general coverage every month. But a good teacher adapts to the students and isn’t afraid to junk something that doesn’t work and wing it, or toss the schedule because the kids are hooked on some side-track. You overcome, you adapt, you improvise.

Detailed rubrics are for amateurs. Eyeball grading gets the job done.

I am beloved by Admin because I have the highest pass rate of any senior teacher. That’s because my job is to teach, not to inflict the maximum of chicken-shit on the students. You can take your “horrifying” and choke on it. As long as it doesn’t negatively impact another kid, I have no problem letting a 504 student slide if she isn’t a pain in the ass and is trying. Did the kid learn? Great. Did everybody else learn? great. Grades are bullshit, and nobody gives a rat’s ass what your high school grades are three weeks after graduation. I am an educator, not the Sacred Keeper of the Gradebook (Thanks, Manda. I’m stealing that line for my next department meeting.)

If that disturbs you, good. I consider that a sign that I’m teaching, not doing whatever it is that you do.

40

Mandy Jo…are you me? Am I off my meds and lead a double life one of which I am still teaching?

I could have written what you wrote. Yes, it will shock people.

Eyeball grading - I did this mainly on finals. We had traditional college-like finals where the students took the test then left for the summer.

Finals were always the worst. That was when you realized just how little most students retained. They also took forever to grade and the admin wanted grades NOW NOW NOW!

In my third year (I notice the third year is when my cynicism about the ‘profession’ came out) I realized that getting a student that averaged 40% during the year…and spending 30 minutes grading his obviously crap test was a complete waste of time. So…see Bobby has a 40%…look over the final quickly to see if anything redeeming in there? No? D. (school didn’t allow F’s). Saved loads of time and bobby wasn’t hurt at all since he would never come and ask for the test anyway.

Think that made me a bad teacher? Screw you…I was a damned good teacher.

School demands a certain percentage of A’s? Mine did just like Manda’s. Easy. Just rank the class list from high to low and give that % A’s.

I didn’t give a damn about grades. I cared about teaching.

There are certain kids that have connections. Maybe the son of a school board member. You have to pick your battles and the hill of 'your son got 88% and that is a B - if he had gotten 90% that would be an A) is NOT a hill you want to plant your flag and die on. I’ve seen teachers who did it…and it hurt them, sometimes badly. I did, however, make sure noone with a higher % got a lower grade…I was consistent.

CitizenPained…I bet you Manda is a good teacher. You just don’t know what it is like in the trenches. As someone said…Naive.