teacher q

[Anonymous]

If you are a teacher, is there any type of "moving up"?

Is the job challenging enough to stay in the same position year after year?

[Anonymous]

Moving up usually means out of the class room and into administration.

[Anonymous]

The job is extremely challenging. I don’t think it gets easier; I just think you get better at it the more you teach. (I’m in my 20th year.)

I don’t consider administration a promotion since it’s no longer teaching. In order to move up, you have to move out of the classroom.

As admin, your experiences in the classroom stop, whereas teachers continue to progress and get better. Then you end up with what we have now: administrators with less experience evaluating teachers with far more.

It really is a messed up system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The job is extremely challenging. I don’t think it gets easier; I just think you get better at it the more you teach. (I’m in my 20th year.)

I don’t consider administration a promotion since it’s no longer teaching. In order to move up, you have to move out of the classroom.

As admin, your experiences in the classroom stop, whereas teachers continue to progress and get better. Then you end up with what we have now: administrators with less experience evaluating teachers with far more.

It really is a messed up system.

In my experience, a really good admin learns quite a bit from observation of a range of teachers, students, looking at data etc. and can offer helpful feedback. They also often deeply respect the perspectives of experienced teachers. A really bad admin just imposes whatever they did back when they were teaching as the gold standard and gets increasingly defensive about their own teaching skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The job is extremely challenging. I don’t think it gets easier; I just think you get better at it the more you teach. (I’m in my 20th year.)

I don’t consider administration a promotion since it’s no longer teaching. In order to move up, you have to move out of the classroom.

As admin, your experiences in the classroom stop, whereas teachers continue to progress and get better. Then you end up with what we have now: administrators with less experience evaluating teachers with far more.

It really is a messed up system.

In my experience, a really good admin learns quite a bit from observation of a range of teachers, students, looking at data etc. and can offer helpful feedback. They also often deeply respect the perspectives of experienced teachers. A really bad admin just imposes whatever they did back when they were teaching as the gold standard and gets increasingly defensive about their own teaching skills.

I’ve worked for MANY really bad admin. I’m fortunate to work for one very good one right now, who clearly sees her role as supporting teachers. Wish more were like her.

[Anonymous]

Dealing with the outlier behaviors is becoming more challenging and time consuming. We used to have a challenging student every year or two and now we have a handful of them every year. I've taught for 11 years but it has become more challenging to teach due to these students.

[Anonymous]

Many admin manipulate the system and bully teache4s for inflated and falsified data. Many teachers know this is fd up so ...ya know. Not worth it and we tell our prospective teachers all about it.

[Anonymous]

Moving up means becoming admin. There are different layers of admin; you can be a department head working outside of the main office, for example.

Some people move out of the classroom to anything from tutoring, to policy work, to curriculum development. However, education is still a bad fit for anyone who wants the recognition that comes with “moving up.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The job is extremely challenging. I don’t think it gets easier; I just think you get better at it the more you teach. (I’m in my 20th year.)

I don’t consider administration a promotion since it’s no longer teaching. In order to move up, you have to move out of the classroom.

As admin, your experiences in the classroom stop, whereas teachers continue to progress and get better. Then you end up with what we have now: administrators with less experience evaluating teachers with far more.

It really is a messed up system.

+1 Some admin in my school district are very young and don't inspire a lot of confidence. I have heard and seen many instances where the length of teaching experience of an admin is inversely proportional to how much the regular teachers respect and get along with that admin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are a teacher, is there any type of "moving up"?

Is the job challenging enough to stay in the same position year after year?

Teaching will always be more challenging than anyone needs. If you do get to where you need something different, you can always change grade levels. There is no moving up. But you can get some pretty nice pay raises by earning more degrees and surviving.

[Anonymous]

Getting a high school position can be tough sometimes. So, sometimes teachers will start in middle school, build skillset, gain certs, and then transition to high school with a better resume. I have seen this happen quite a bit with elective teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Getting a high school position can be tough sometimes. So, sometimes teachers will start in middle school, build skillset, gain certs, and then transition to high school with a better resume. I have seen this happen quite a bit with elective teachers.

Interesting. My DW taught in an ES for 17 years and switched to MS this year. There are many things she likes about MS over ES.

[Anonymous]

Unclear if you are interested in promotion opportunities or challenge.

If you’re looking for promotion, you could be a dept chair or admin.

For challenge, each year presents new challenge. I like to switch up the courses I teach, which gives me a chance to refine the lessons since the last time I taught that course. Technology brings new opportunities to improve. If you’re doing it right, teaching is never boring and always challenging

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unclear if you are interested in promotion opportunities or challenge.

If you’re looking for promotion, you could be a dept chair or admin.

For challenge, each year presents new challenge. I like to switch up the courses I teach, which gives me a chance to refine the lessons since the last time I taught that course. Technology brings new opportunities to improve. If you’re doing it right, teaching is never boring and always challenging

+1 I don’t move up in terms of title but I definitely do in terms of my skills. Experienced teachers are often tapped to mentor, train student teachers, become leads in some way, staff development, etc., so if you want leadership challenges, you can do those.

[Anonymous]

Three times, when it became intellectually boring, I changed grade band levels or programs.

It’s become more challenging in other ways that make me want to leave teaching. I never wanted to be a social worker, therapist, or law enforcement.