Teachers, would you still recommend the profession?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only if you are willing to work a lot outside of normal working hours. I work about 4 hours a night on average - from 8pm to midnight. And I get to school about 30 minutes before I have to and stay about 90 minutes after dismissal most days. I also work most Sundays for most of the day. I teach kindergarten and I have taught for several years.

Good grief...what are you doing? And do you have a family?

Yes, I have a family. That is why I don't work from 5-8, as I spend that time with my children.

The work entails: writing curriculum for all subject areas, responding to emails from colleagues and families, writing weekly newsletters, sending home weekly progress updates, updating our class blog, researching books and reserving them at the library, creating various materials for students to use, analyzing assessments to inform my instruction, creating individualized materials for students in order to differentiate, planning guiding reading groups and math small groups - six groups for each subject area, creating new components of dramatic play, reading various texts and publications from the education world to inform my practice...I could go on, but hopefully this begins to give you an idea.

PP here. Good lord. How long have you been teaching? I am the five year poster and I think you need to find a way to Kurt tailed this. I know differentiation is really difficult, but there are things you can do to streamline it some – some of the same types of tools or outlines, or beginning of questions, etc. Teaching is one of these jobs when you could work 24 hours a day, and still not be done. what you're doing is not healthy. I hope you are OK and happy

[Anonymous]

I'm in education and love my field. I would never for a million dollars work in public schools the way they are now. No, thank you. I do work *with* public schools, so I spend enough time in them to know I would not be happy.

[Anonymous]

I am home on maternity leave and a teacher. I would never, ever recommend teaching as a classroom teacher. It's just crazy the amount of demands on their time. I do love teaching ESL and tell people to get certified all the time. It's a great job.

[Anonymous]

Wow, this is a depressing thread.

[Anonymous]

Wonder if its just a DC area thing. My teacher friends back home in small town VA seem to have a much lighter workload although the pay still sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wonder if its just a DC area thing. My teacher friends back home in small town VA seem to have a much lighter workload although the pay still sucks.

Virginia is not a common core state, so there's that, and small town teaching has very different challenges than urban.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, this is a depressing thread.

You try spending a day in a crumbling building with no resources, mediocre colleagues, high needs children, and a clueless administration. And don't forget to hold your pee all day, eat your lunch in 11 minutes, and tap dance for parents on your way out the door.

[Anonymous]

My friends who are teachers in Canada are quite happy. Slightly better pay, pretty easy hours and no government onslaught against their field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, this is a depressing thread.

You try spending a day in a crumbling building with no resources, mediocre colleagues, high needs children, and a clueless administration. And don't forget to hold your pee all day, eat your lunch in 11 minutes, and tap dance for parents on your way out the door.

Believe me, I have the utmost respect and admiration for teachers. My kids have had many amazing teachers. I'm sadddened to hear people have these regrets- and would not encourage others to teach, which likely will have a huge impact on the next generation and beyond.

[Anonymous]

No way. Absolutely not. I had a conversation with a colleague about an hour ago about how neither of us would have chosen this career if we had known what it was really like.

Some days I like my job, but the lack of respect and administrative support really gets me down.

My grandma used to be a teacher, and I marvel at how different the job was when she was in the classroom. She tells me that in her day, you gave students the grades they earned and parents and admin didn't question the grades. Also, parents were respectful, and teenagers were expected to adhere to certain standards of behavior. Apparently students used to be punished if they swore at a teacher, etc. And admin backed up the teacher. I know this comes to me through a filter of nostalgia, but my grandma and I have had a lot of talks about the job, and I really think things have changed for the worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regular gen ed classroom heck no! Focus, reading specialist, staff development, speech, ot, esl media, p.e....maybe.

Agree, huge growth in esol and esol counseling. Is at specialty pay and low hours

[Anonymous]

I enjoy it but have a different perspective. I moved into teaching as a second career at age 42 after working 29 years in finance and investing. I teach elementary school and magnet kids. "Office politics" still there but I'm not there for anything else than to be a helpful colleague and great teacher to young minds. Grading papers 1-2 hours twice a week once or twice a week NBD to me, better than doing quarterly board books to the CFO!

[Anonymous]

Sorry meant 20 years (not 29) in private sector. I'm at a public school tho did consider private school teaching as less classes to take to get certified so to speak.

I rec teaching. Tangible mission and I like working 7-3. So do my kids.

[Anonymous]

NCLB really did a number on most schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regular gen ed classroom heck no! Focus, reading specialist, staff development, speech, ot, esl media, p.e....maybe.

Agree, huge growth in esol and esol counseling. Is at specialty pay and low hours

Elementary ESOL teacher here (in a doctors waiting room). That's not actually the case. I'm at the same pay scale as general ed teachers and my caseload increases every year. I teach 5 different grade levels which means knowing the curriculum for all of them and also creating materials and assessments for all of them since we don't have a curriculum provided to us. I have 55 students on my caseload this year and they come and go all the time so I'm constantly shifting my schedule around to meet needs since students need varying amounts of support.

I'm here before and after school and bring work home. Then there's the whole business of coordinating the annual language proficiency test and also being pulled to cover classes during your in school planning time as well as being assigned multiple weekly duties. Your subs will be pulled if there's not coverage for a classroom teacher so a lot of time is spent wasted on securing subs and writing detailed sub plans only to have the sub pulled that morning to cover a classroom.

I definitely would not want to be a classroom teacher but ESOL isn't a walk in the park either.