Is anyone here a teacher?

Recently I have been very seriously considering going back to college and switching my career to teaching. I am looking at high school in history/social studies (possibly math but I'm not sure I want to take the theorectical and 500 level advanced math courses that would be required). When I first started college I wanted to be a teacher but switched to accounting. I find office work terribly unfulfilling and incredibly boring (which is why I goof off online). I work for a large corporation in the finance/accounting department and just feel disconnected from the world. It is good money but what I am doing with my life does not matter to anyone, not even me. That seems like way past the time to make a change. Anyway, I thought teaching would allow me immense amounts of human interaction... even if much it is with teenagers. My work would then matter too as I would be influencing the lives of every student and co-worker who interacted with me. All through my schooling I tutored other student and have been told that I am excellent at breaking concepts down so that others can understand them as well. I thought about elementary school because I truly love kids, however I believe I would like the more grown minds of high schoolers.

I wanted to get some feedback from current teachers about the field...
What is your most/least favorite parts of the job?
Any insight you'd give to someone looking to enter the field?
Things that are nothing like you thought they'd be before you started?
Do you find teaching fulfilling?
What's it like working for/being "the man"?
Elementary, middle, or high school? Why?
Please give a short break down of your day... i.e. how many classes you teach, clock in/out times.


Thanks in advance for any input!

~Sid

Accounting is very good money, but if you're not happy, then go for it. I don't know what you yanks call them, but we have Community colleges, they usually have very good support for people who are interested in changing their career.

Posted by Claro de Luna
Maybe for similar reasons as you, I didn't feel fulfilled in my previous job .. it was seemingly all about making money for the bigger man at an unfair rate and there wasn't enough meaning in it for me.

Yep, dead on. Glad to hear your early experiences have been positive.


Mr. Nice
We have community colleges here as well. You can only go as far as an Associate's Degree (2 yr) at a comunity college though. In South Carolina they require teachers to have a teaching certificate. Every certification program I have seen so far requires a Bachelor's Degree (4 yr) in Education. I already have my Bachelor's in Accounting, so I can't go to community college. That's fine though, USC and Clemson are both really close by here, as are several smaller schools. I already have more than half the credits I'd need for a second Bachelor's Degree.

Do you think simply changing schools (or districts) would help your situation? Did you dislike the job or the work? Did you like what you were doing, just not where you were doing it?

How good are you at coping with ridiculous amounts of stress?

My Leo sister (Pisces moon) became a teacher a few years ago, she gave classes to highschool kids for a few years but had to quit because her health was seriously deteriorating due to the stress of dealing with the craziness and lack of attention span of the kids, it really really takes a toll on you if you cant find a way to deal with it. Although she would probably want to go back to teaching at some point in the future, she is doing something totally different right now.

As for career choices..

Im glad I realised relatively soon that taking the safe road of a greatly paid but boring profession/job would not give me the peace of mind and meaning I have in my current one (Archaeology)

Posted by everevolvingepithet
I could imagine it being tough after a while as interesting and as good the intentions would be for teaching kids. Old people would be far far easier imo.

Yep, unfortunately it seems that in the education market there is currently more demand for highschool/primary school teachers than for other types of students.

My mom retired after teaching for 37 years. She made nothing and put up with the system worsening every year. You are given little poetic lisence to design your lessons plans as you want, the office politics are worse than any office, the parents think they own you, you have very little time during the day to do all the extra work they give you (many teachers off periods have been yanked due to the worsening economy and they end up only having a single off period in which they are expected to patrol the hallways, meet with parents, submit lessons plans, submit test plans, grade papers, etc..... one 50 minute period, this used to be two to three depending on what you taught) and end up working more hours than a first year lawyer, and you get summers off, buuuuuut you'll end up working another job to supplement your joke of an income.

God bless my mother and her love of learning, but even she wishes she had taken her skills and applied them somewhere more fruitful. This comes from a woman who went ABOVE AND BEYOND..... she would dress up in costume to teach the boring parts of science, kept a room full of tanks of cool animals (think awesome fish, hampsters, iguanas and a tarantula), truly cared about her students and their learning and retention of what they learned. My mom IS the cool teacher that should have all the appeal needed to reach even the most difficult students, but even still it wore her out, badly.

In short, teaching may have been great once, but like many other things it's on the downslide..... working harder, less praise, teaching to the standardized tests instead of teaching for learning.....

Then again, that's only my opinion and it's based off my mother's experience teaching in and around Houston, Texas only. I doubt all states and cities are as bad as it has become here. Oh, and don't EVEN get me started on "No Child Left Behind" ......... what a stupid fucking move that was.

Posted by BoomShakalakaBoom
How good are you at coping with ridiculous amounts of stress?

My Leo sister (Pisces moon) became a teacher a few years ago, she gave classes to highschool kids for a few years but had to quit because her health was seriously deteriorating due to the stress of dealing with the craziness and lack of attention span of the kids, it really really takes a toll on you if you cant find a way to deal with it. Although she would probably want to go back to teaching at some point in the future, she is doing something totally different right now.

Yeah, imagine how it was for my mom after 37 years..... I would remember waiting for her to get home OFTEN, she was always having to stay to get things done, often until very late at night. She was never healthy regardless of her organic diet, homeopathic tendancies and riding her bike the few miles to and from work..... she should have been in great shape, but the STRESS....

Not to mention the time away from home. I always love it when I hear one of the girls I went to school with say..... Oh boy, now that I'm happily married and pregnant I'm going to become a teacher so that I can spend more time with my family. HA!

Your mom needs a medal, and MORE! she seems like the embodiment of true self-sacrifice, be proud of her 🙂 people like her are rare these days. Her health might have suffered deeply, still she probably made a huge impact on most of those kids, nothing more rewarding than that 🙂

Posted by BoomShakalakaBoom
How good are you at coping with ridiculous amounts of stress?

My Leo sister (Pisces moon) became a teacher a few years ago, she gave classes to highschool kids for a few years but had to quit because her health was seriously deteriorating due to the stress of dealing with the craziness and lack of attention span of the kids, it really really takes a toll on you if you cant find a way to deal with it. Although she would probably want to go back to teaching at some point in the future, she is doing something totally different right now.

I know someone who is a teacher. The stress factor is very true, so I've been told, Planning the lessons, the workload, constantly being tested, if you don't get results, then your job is on the line and not forgetting the pupils which can make your job stressful.I know there is a certain amount of stress in every job, but teenagers take the biscuit. Welcome to hell Sid good luck mate.

LibraSid, what about trying substitute teaching to get a taste for it first? I'm not sure if it's the same for all states, but you might just have to take an easy basic skills test to get an emergency teaching credential. I know subbing might not be exactly like the real thing -- you may not get to plan the class at all really, and students might treat you, well, like a sub. But, it might familiarize you with the setting at the very least.

I have taught, and like everyone has said, it's truly exhausting. Mentally draining! I got excited about my ideas for the classes (ha, narcissist!), and I liked gathering the materials, but I felt like sometimes I needed a completely different personality to carry those things out. I mean, of course there was a mix between good/"on" days and days where the class seemed to have cooperatively decided to act like statues. But, there are rewarding aspects too, like when they do connect and seem enthusiastic, and I really liked seeing/hearing them think through things and share their own ideas.

Honestly, I think a lot of it comes down to your own personality. (Are you more of an extrovert?) My friends who teach seem to like it and have been doing it for years now. It's something I am thinking of coming back to at some point in time, but I'm tired right now, haha. If you're mentally quick-on-your-feet and a generally resilient person, it probably will not turn you into a drooling, immobile zombie at the end of each day.

Posted by BoomShakalakaBoom
Your mom needs a medal, and MORE! she seems like the embodiment of true self-sacrifice, be proud of her 🙂 people like her are rare these days. Her health might have suffered deeply, still she probably made a huge impact on most of those kids, nothing more rewarding than that 🙂

Yeah, she's a special lady! We often had students join us for dinner and one year she mentored a kid my younger brother's age who's mother had just died... he went on our family roadtrip with us that summer. It was really special.

Someday maybe I'll post a story about the woes of when my mother was my actual teacher for a year, I certainly didn't appreciate her then, LOL.