If you had to do it all over? What would job would you pick for a mom(family friendly/part time?)

[Anonymous]

I wished my mom had been a teacher, but then again, teachers are respected and paid well back at home.

[Anonymous]

My dad was a teacher and despite all the time off they appear to have, he tutored privately after school, usually for 4pm-8 or 9pm, to make extra money for our family. My mom was a SAHM prior to his picking up the tutoring - she got cancer when I was in 6th grade and we needed the money for her medical bills. So not family-friendly, but my mom was always home.

[Anonymous]

You could be a nursery/preschool teacher at a non-competitive school. The after hours workload is not the same as a PK-12 classroom teacher. If you like small children, it can be very, very rewarding.

[Anonymous]

I am a part-time teacher. It works out great for me. There are very few days where I have to work and the kids are off (the week before school starts is really the only days I have to arrange for child care/camp). The school I work for understands my needs and they have been great about my hours. I work 24 hours a week. I am able to get my kids on the bus in the morning and get them off the bus in the afternoon. Since, I work greater than 20 hours a week I get full benefits. This is huge because my DH does not get health insurance at his work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree somewhat with previous assessments of teaching. I have worked in federal consulting and teaching and I found teaching to be much more family-friendly than consulting. True, the first couple of years were incredibly overwhelming and I was often at school for 12-13 hour days (and I didn't have kids then) but once I got the hang of things, I only needed to work outside of school to grade papers - and that was maybe three weeks/quarter. I also got really good at prioritizing how I used my prep periods once I had kids of my own at home. The vacations were aligned with my kids' vacations, and I had so many more sick/vacation days that I could use if I needed to stay home with one of them.

The only family-friendly benefit of consulting is the ability to work from home - obviously that couldn't be done when I was a teacher. But my project does not allow regular work from home, so I don't get to take advantage of it that often.

You clearly aren't teaching now. And, I might add, you were doing the minimal, which , while we understand a person should not have to take that much work home, but teaching is pretty much an 18 hour a day job. The work never ends. With the new evaluative systems in place, you would be earmarked for "ineffective." Also,my colleagues with kids run out of sick days before January. None carry over for the next year for cumulative days. They have had to use sick bank.

You're right, I stopped teaching a year ago b/c of relocation. However, when I was teaching I certainly was not doing the minimal - I just became more efficient at planning and grading. The longer you teach, the more instructional tools you have in your "toolkit" and it becomes almost intuitive which type of lesson to use based on your instructional goals/student interests and needs. You also have materials to draw on for repurposing. I almost never used the same lesson two years in a row, but it's a lot easier to tweak an existing lesson than generate a new one from scratch. A lot of teachers in my school also wasted their prep periods getting coffee, chatting, etc. I was the same pre-kids and paid for it by working long hours in the evening. Once I had kids, I forced myself to be more efficient/less social at work. I was consistently evaluated "exceeds expectations" in all of my reviews, and was the Department chair for my discipline, and this was in a district consistently ranked in the top 25 in the US by US News and World Report. So no, I would not be earmarked "ineffective." Re: sick days, there must be some variation by district - when I left my previous position, I had almost 100 accumulated sick/vacation days.

I should add...I also got to work every day by 6:45am, pre and post kids (DH was in charge of mornings with the kids). The hour and fifteen minutes before classes started was "sacred" time for me and I got tons of work done while the school was quiet. So maybe that is in the spirit of "taking work home," but I didn't see it that way - I went to work early because I loved my job. Federal consulting, on the other hand, comes home with me every day, there are minimal vacations (don't get me wrong, I am not one of those people who complain about teacher vacations - I just see them as a well-deserved perk of the job) and I have absolutely no accumulated PTO or sick days b/c I have to use all of mine on snow days and childrens' illnesses. So, yeah...teaching is hard but in my experience is more family friendly than either of the two corporate jobs I've held. Also, without a doubt more rewarding. I'm not saying teachers don't work hard - they absolutely do and deserve way more credit than they generally receive from the general public. But certain aspects of the job, IMO, are much more family-friendly.

Look at the Charlotte Danielson Framework- you would have upload a ton of artifacts to qualify for exceeds expectation in only ONE of the domains, and much more of the data for others. In a 50 minute planning period per day, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to do that. How about grading 100- 150 papers/essays/projects per day? In your 50 minutes and lunch time? Where does planning come in to play? How about answering 4-12 emails every evening from students and parents about questions, grades, etc. Yes, I can understand that you might have had 100 days of sick leave, but you are obviously older, do not have young kids in day care and stored your days from year to year. This original poster was looking to see what might be a family friendly job...you were not able to acquire a life outside of school until years in, and under new guidelines, I doubt you would be able to do it today. She was looking for a realistic answer. Not sure what you taught, but all of my colleagues from K-8 have to collaborate three times a week at school to plan, and the high school teachers have to track and upload data, and grade heavy assignments, write references, deal with parent complaints about grades. What were you teaching? What grade? Yes, it is true that some teachers may not use the 50 minutes as wisely as you, but it also could be that they know they can't start or finish something in that short time and know it's going home regardless.

Yikes, I'm sorry you deal with that, PP, but that was not my experience at all. What district do you work in because if I go back to teaching, I want to avoid it like the plague. I had two prep periods plus lunch, 100 students max, and why on earth are you grading 100-150 projects/essays/papers per day? Students should not be producing extended assignments like that at a rate of one per day. I'm very sorry to hear that this is the state of teaching in DC/MD/VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree somewhat with previous assessments of teaching. I have worked in federal consulting and teaching and I found teaching to be much more family-friendly than consulting. True, the first couple of years were incredibly overwhelming and I was often at school for 12-13 hour days (and I didn't have kids then) but once I got the hang of things, I only needed to work outside of school to grade papers - and that was maybe three weeks/quarter. I also got really good at prioritizing how I used my prep periods once I had kids of my own at home. The vacations were aligned with my kids' vacations, and I had so many more sick/vacation days that I could use if I needed to stay home with one of them.

The only family-friendly benefit of consulting is the ability to work from home - obviously that couldn't be done when I was a teacher. But my project does not allow regular work from home, so I don't get to take advantage of it that often.

You clearly aren't teaching now. And, I might add, you were doing the minimal, which , while we understand a person should not have to take that much work home, but teaching is pretty much an 18 hour a day job. The work never ends. With the new evaluative systems in place, you would be earmarked for "ineffective." Also,my colleagues with kids run out of sick days before January. None carry over for the next year for cumulative days. They have had to use sick bank.

You're right, I stopped teaching a year ago b/c of relocation. However, when I was teaching I certainly was not doing the minimal - I just became more efficient at planning and grading. The longer you teach, the more instructional tools you have in your "toolkit" and it becomes almost intuitive which type of lesson to use based on your instructional goals/student interests and needs. You also have materials to draw on for repurposing. I almost never used the same lesson two years in a row, but it's a lot easier to tweak an existing lesson than generate a new one from scratch. A lot of teachers in my school also wasted their prep periods getting coffee, chatting, etc. I was the same pre-kids and paid for it by working long hours in the evening. Once I had kids, I forced myself to be more efficient/less social at work. I was consistently evaluated "exceeds expectations" in all of my reviews, and was the Department chair for my discipline, and this was in a district consistently ranked in the top 25 in the US by US News and World Report. So no, I would not be earmarked "ineffective." Re: sick days, there must be some variation by district - when I left my previous position, I had almost 100 accumulated sick/vacation days.

I should add...I also got to work every day by 6:45am, pre and post kids (DH was in charge of mornings with the kids). The hour and fifteen minutes before classes started was "sacred" time for me and I got tons of work done while the school was quiet. So maybe that is in the spirit of "taking work home," but I didn't see it that way - I went to work early because I loved my job. Federal consulting, on the other hand, comes home with me every day, there are minimal vacations (don't get me wrong, I am not one of those people who complain about teacher vacations - I just see them as a well-deserved perk of the job) and I have absolutely no accumulated PTO or sick days b/c I have to use all of mine on snow days and childrens' illnesses. So, yeah...teaching is hard but in my experience is more family friendly than either of the two corporate jobs I've held. Also, without a doubt more rewarding. I'm not saying teachers don't work hard - they absolutely do and deserve way more credit than they generally receive from the general public. But certain aspects of the job, IMO, are much more family-friendly.

Look at the Charlotte Danielson Framework- you would have upload a ton of artifacts to qualify for exceeds expectation in only ONE of the domains, and much more of the data for others. In a 50 minute planning period per day, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to do that. How about grading 100- 150 papers/essays/projects per day? In your 50 minutes and lunch time? Where does planning come in to play? How about answering 4-12 emails every evening from students and parents about questions, grades, etc. Yes, I can understand that you might have had 100 days of sick leave, but you are obviously older, do not have young kids in day care and stored your days from year to year. This original poster was looking to see what might be a family friendly job...you were not able to acquire a life outside of school until years in, and under new guidelines, I doubt you would be able to do it today. She was looking for a realistic answer. Not sure what you taught, but all of my colleagues from K-8 have to collaborate three times a week at school to plan, and the high school teachers have to track and upload data, and grade heavy assignments, write references, deal with parent complaints about grades. What were you teaching? What grade? Yes, it is true that some teachers may not use the 50 minutes as wisely as you, but it also could be that they know they can't start or finish something in that short time and know it's going home regardless.

Yikes, I'm sorry you deal with that, PP, but that was not my experience at all. What district do you work in because if I go back to teaching, I want to avoid it like the plague. I had two prep periods plus lunch, 100 students max, and why on earth are you grading 100-150 projects/essays/papers per day? Students should not be producing extended assignments like that at a rate of one per day. I'm very sorry to hear that this is the state of teaching in DC/MD/VA.

I am also a teacher and I agree with this. None of my colleagues are doing what the previous Pp said - working 18 hour days and grading 100-150 papers daily. That doesn't even make sense. Sounds like someone who is very ineffective in their teaching and planning and has poor time management. Teaching is not ideal as a new career - the first couple years are pretty brutal but once you get past that, and if you are good at what you do, it can be a reasonably flexible career.

[Anonymous]

I could make $60k + full benefits at my current job (programming) 20 hrs a week. For the first three months after mat leave I worked 30hrs/wk at 70k +. I was going to be a lawyer but decided to get a grad degree in usability instead to both avoid debt and more flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree somewhat with previous assessments of teaching. I have worked in federal consulting and teaching and I found teaching to be much more family-friendly than consulting. True, the first couple of years were incredibly overwhelming and I was often at school for 12-13 hour days (and I didn't have kids then) but once I got the hang of things, I only needed to work outside of school to grade papers - and that was maybe three weeks/quarter. I also got really good at prioritizing how I used my prep periods once I had kids of my own at home. The vacations were aligned with my kids' vacations, and I had so many more sick/vacation days that I could use if I needed to stay home with one of them.

The only family-friendly benefit of consulting is the ability to work from home - obviously that couldn't be done when I was a teacher. But my project does not allow regular work from home, so I don't get to take advantage of it that often.

You clearly aren't teaching now. And, I might add, you were doing the minimal, which , while we understand a person should not have to take that much work home, but teaching is pretty much an 18 hour a day job. The work never ends. With the new evaluative systems in place, you would be earmarked for "ineffective." Also,my colleagues with kids run out of sick days before January. None carry over for the next year for cumulative days. They have had to use sick bank.

You're right, I stopped teaching a year ago b/c of relocation. However, when I was teaching I certainly was not doing the minimal - I just became more efficient at planning and grading. The longer you teach, the more instructional tools you have in your "toolkit" and it becomes almost intuitive which type of lesson to use based on your instructional goals/student interests and needs. You also have materials to draw on for repurposing. I almost never used the same lesson two years in a row, but it's a lot easier to tweak an existing lesson than generate a new one from scratch. A lot of teachers in my school also wasted their prep periods getting coffee, chatting, etc. I was the same pre-kids and paid for it by working long hours in the evening. Once I had kids, I forced myself to be more efficient/less social at work. I was consistently evaluated "exceeds expectations" in all of my reviews, and was the Department chair for my discipline, and this was in a district consistently ranked in the top 25 in the US by US News and World Report. So no, I would not be earmarked "ineffective." Re: sick days, there must be some variation by district - when I left my previous position, I had almost 100 accumulated sick/vacation days.

I should add...I also got to work every day by 6:45am, pre and post kids (DH was in charge of mornings with the kids). The hour and fifteen minutes before classes started was "sacred" time for me and I got tons of work done while the school was quiet. So maybe that is in the spirit of "taking work home," but I didn't see it that way - I went to work early because I loved my job. Federal consulting, on the other hand, comes home with me every day, there are minimal vacations (don't get me wrong, I am not one of those people who complain about teacher vacations - I just see them as a well-deserved perk of the job) and I have absolutely no accumulated PTO or sick days b/c I have to use all of mine on snow days and childrens' illnesses. So, yeah...teaching is hard but in my experience is more family friendly than either of the two corporate jobs I've held. Also, without a doubt more rewarding. I'm not saying teachers don't work hard - they absolutely do and deserve way more credit than they generally receive from the general public. But certain aspects of the job, IMO, are much more family-friendly.

Look at the Charlotte Danielson Framework- you would have upload a ton of artifacts to qualify for exceeds expectation in only ONE of the domains, and much more of the data for others. In a 50 minute planning period per day, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to do that. How about grading 100- 150 papers/essays/projects per day? In your 50 minutes and lunch time? Where does planning come in to play? How about answering 4-12 emails every evening from students and parents about questions, grades, etc. Yes, I can understand that you might have had 100 days of sick leave, but you are obviously older, do not have young kids in day care and stored your days from year to year. This original poster was looking to see what might be a family friendly job...you were not able to acquire a life outside of school until years in, and under new guidelines, I doubt you would be able to do it today. She was looking for a realistic answer. Not sure what you taught, but all of my colleagues from K-8 have to collaborate three times a week at school to plan, and the high school teachers have to track and upload data, and grade heavy assignments, write references, deal with parent complaints about grades. What were you teaching? What grade? Yes, it is true that some teachers may not use the 50 minutes as wisely as you, but it also could be that they know they can't start or finish something in that short time and know it's going home regardless.

Yikes, I'm sorry you deal with that, PP, but that was not my experience at all. What district do you work in because if I go back to teaching, I want to avoid it like the plague. I had two prep periods plus lunch, 100 students max, and why on earth are you grading 100-150 projects/essays/papers per day? Students should not be producing extended assignments like that at a rate of one per day. I'm very sorry to hear that this is the state of teaching in DC/MD/VA.

I am also a teacher and I agree with this. None of my colleagues are doing what the previous Pp said - working 18 hour days and grading 100-150 papers daily. That doesn't even make sense. Sounds like someone who is very ineffective in their teaching and planning and has poor time management. Teaching is not ideal as a new career - the first couple years are pretty brutal but once you get past that, and if you are good at what you do, it can be a reasonably flexible career.

Another person who agrees that the original poster was over the top about teaching. I teach in high school and am able to get all my planning done at school and most of my grading as well. I also have more than 500 hours of sick leave saved - I have been teaching for 14 years in FCPS. The summers ofF are great and I don't have to put my kids in camp. That said, I do think there are elements to teaching that are not family friendly. I can rarely attend events at my kids' school because I am teaching and cannot just leave for an hour to attend a party, volunteer, etc. When my kids are sick, I have to provide sub plans which is not fun when kids (or I) get sick in the middle of the night. This happened last week and I was writing sub plans at 11 pm after getting sick. It is difficult to schedule dr's appts for my kids because I cannot go into work late or run out during the day. Also there are days where I am very emotionally spent when I get home and have little patience for my own kids because I have been dealing with my students all day. So there are good things about teaching and difficult things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree somewhat with previous assessments of teaching. I have worked in federal consulting and teaching and I found teaching to be much more family-friendly than consulting. True, the first couple of years were incredibly overwhelming and I was often at school for 12-13 hour days (and I didn't have kids then) but once I got the hang of things, I only needed to work outside of school to grade papers - and that was maybe three weeks/quarter. I also got really good at prioritizing how I used my prep periods once I had kids of my own at home. The vacations were aligned with my kids' vacations, and I had so many more sick/vacation days that I could use if I needed to stay home with one of them.

The only family-friendly benefit of consulting is the ability to work from home - obviously that couldn't be done when I was a teacher. But my project does not allow regular work from home, so I don't get to take advantage of it that often.

You clearly aren't teaching now. And, I might add, you were doing the minimal, which , while we understand a person should not have to take that much work home, but teaching is pretty much an 18 hour a day job. The work never ends. With the new evaluative systems in place, you would be earmarked for "ineffective." Also,my colleagues with kids run out of sick days before January. None carry over for the next year for cumulative days. They have had to use sick bank.

You're right, I stopped teaching a year ago b/c of relocation. However, when I was teaching I certainly was not doing the minimal - I just became more efficient at planning and grading. The longer you teach, the more instructional tools you have in your "toolkit" and it becomes almost intuitive which type of lesson to use based on your instructional goals/student interests and needs. You also have materials to draw on for repurposing. I almost never used the same lesson two years in a row, but it's a lot easier to tweak an existing lesson than generate a new one from scratch. A lot of teachers in my school also wasted their prep periods getting coffee, chatting, etc. I was the same pre-kids and paid for it by working long hours in the evening. Once I had kids, I forced myself to be more efficient/less social at work. I was consistently evaluated "exceeds expectations" in all of my reviews, and was the Department chair for my discipline, and this was in a district consistently ranked in the top 25 in the US by US News and World Report. So no, I would not be earmarked "ineffective." Re: sick days, there must be some variation by district - when I left my previous position, I had almost 100 accumulated sick/vacation days.

I should add...I also got to work every day by 6:45am, pre and post kids (DH was in charge of mornings with the kids). The hour and fifteen minutes before classes started was "sacred" time for me and I got tons of work done while the school was quiet. So maybe that is in the spirit of "taking work home," but I didn't see it that way - I went to work early because I loved my job. Federal consulting, on the other hand, comes home with me every day, there are minimal vacations (don't get me wrong, I am not one of those people who complain about teacher vacations - I just see them as a well-deserved perk of the job) and I have absolutely no accumulated PTO or sick days b/c I have to use all of mine on snow days and childrens' illnesses. So, yeah...teaching is hard but in my experience is more family friendly than either of the two corporate jobs I've held. Also, without a doubt more rewarding. I'm not saying teachers don't work hard - they absolutely do and deserve way more credit than they generally receive from the general public. But certain aspects of the job, IMO, are much more family-friendly.

Look at the Charlotte Danielson Framework- you would have upload a ton of artifacts to qualify for exceeds expectation in only ONE of the domains, and much more of the data for others. In a 50 minute planning period per day, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to do that. How about grading 100- 150 papers/essays/projects per day? In your 50 minutes and lunch time? Where does planning come in to play? How about answering 4-12 emails every evening from students and parents about questions, grades, etc. Yes, I can understand that you might have had 100 days of sick leave, but you are obviously older, do not have young kids in day care and stored your days from year to year. This original poster was looking to see what might be a family friendly job...you were not able to acquire a life outside of school until years in, and under new guidelines, I doubt you would be able to do it today. She was looking for a realistic answer. Not sure what you taught, but all of my colleagues from K-8 have to collaborate three times a week at school to plan, and the high school teachers have to track and upload data, and grade heavy assignments, write references, deal with parent complaints about grades. What were you teaching? What grade? Yes, it is true that some teachers may not use the 50 minutes as wisely as you, but it also could be that they know they can't start or finish something in that short time and know it's going home regardless.

Yikes, I'm sorry you deal with that, PP, but that was not my experience at all. What district do you work in because if I go back to teaching, I want to avoid it like the plague. I had two prep periods plus lunch, 100 students max, and why on earth are you grading 100-150 projects/essays/papers per day? Students should not be producing extended assignments like that at a rate of one per day. I'm very sorry to hear that this is the state of teaching in DC/MD/VA.

I am also a teacher and I agree with this. None of my colleagues are doing what the previous Pp said - working 18 hour days and grading 100-150 papers daily. That doesn't even make sense. Sounds like someone who is very ineffective in their teaching and planning and has poor time management. Teaching is not ideal as a new career - the first couple years are pretty brutal but once you get past that, and if you are good at what you do, it can be a reasonably flexible career.

Another person who agrees that the original poster was over the top about teaching. I teach in high school and am able to get all my planning done at school and most of my grading as well. I also have more than 500 hours of sick leave saved - I have been teaching for 14 years in FCPS. The summers ofF are great and I don't have to put my kids in camp. That said, I do think there are elements to teaching that are not family friendly. I can rarely attend events at my kids' school because I am teaching and cannot just leave for an hour to attend a party, volunteer, etc. When my kids are sick, I have to provide sub plans which is not fun when kids (or I) get sick in the middle of the night. This happened last week and I was writing sub plans at 11 pm after getting sick. It is difficult to schedule dr's appts for my kids because I cannot go into work late or run out during the day. Also there are days where I am very emotionally spent when I get home and have little patience for my own kids because I have been dealing with my students all day. So there are good things about teaching and difficult things.

THINK :
Think Social Studies or English class with 20-25 kids in each class- 5 classes a day. Also consider they are all not the same classes- same curriculum, same level...meaning 3 or more preparations. Think IEP and 504 differentiation for kids WITHIN these classes..think collaborative planning during PLANNING TIME with Spec ed teachers, speech therapists. team teachers- each 3 days a week. That's paperwork for at least a 100 a day. That teacher is not able to sit at her desk grading papers for the only 50 minutes she has per day. Seriously- are all of you teaching small classes and teaching the same curricula for each class each day with no legal/Spec Ed responsibilities? How about the IEP follow ups and meetings? The data tracking for Danielson, the collaborative planning notes between team teachers? Some of you might be private school teachers, correct, or not in a district around here?

[Anonymous]

Another person who agrees that the original poster was over the top about teaching. I teach in high school and am able to get all my planning done at school and most of my grading as well. I also have more than 500 hours of sick leave saved - I have been teaching for 14 years in FCPS. The summers ofF are great and I don't have to put my kids in camp. That said, I do think there are elements to teaching that are not family friendly. I can rarely attend events at my kids' school because I am teaching and cannot just leave for an hour to attend a party, volunteer, etc. When my kids are sick, I have to provide sub plans which is not fun when kids (or I) get sick in the middle of the night. This happened last week and I was writing sub plans at 11 pm after getting sick. It is difficult to schedule dr's appts for my kids because I cannot go into work late or run out during the day. Also there are days where I am very emotionally spent when I get home and have little patience for my own kids because I have been dealing with my students all day. So there are good things about teaching and difficult things.

This was exactly my experience. I SAH until my youngest started kindergarten. I went back part-time teaching pre-k. It was perfect, except for the things you listed - it was difficult when my kids were sick or when they had activities at their schools. I really didn't take work home that often, but I did have a planning period and I took advantage of the time I had while my kids were out if the classroom at music, art, and recess.

I left teaching to become the children's program director at a fitness center. It really is the perfect job. I have lots of flexibility. And it's fun!

[Anonymous]

This is a fantastic thread! Keep the insight coming!!!!

[Anonymous]

OP- does this mean you are not planning to "lean in?"

[Anonymous]

As PPs have noted working for a non-profit can vary widely, depending on the organizational culture and your role there. I worked very long hours as a lawyer for an NGO, but then made the shift to working in development for a different organization, where I've found a much more balanced mindset among my colleagues.

[Anonymous]

Another person who agrees that the original poster was over the top about teaching. I teach in high school and am able to get all my planning done at school and most of my grading as well. I also have more than 500 hours of sick leave saved - I have been teaching for 14 years in FCPS. The summers ofF are great and I don't have to put my kids in camp. That said, I do think there are elements to teaching that are not family friendly. I can rarely attend events at my kids' school because I am teaching and cannot just leave for an hour to attend a party, volunteer, etc. When my kids are sick, I have to provide sub plans which is not fun when kids (or I) get sick in the middle of the night. This happened last week and I was writing sub plans at 11 pm after getting sick. It is difficult to schedule dr's appts for my kids because I cannot go into work late or run out during the day. Also there are days where I am very emotionally spent when I get home and have little patience for my own kids because I have been dealing with my students all day. So there are good things about teaching and difficult things.

THINK :
Think Social Studies or English class with 20-25 kids in each class- 5 classes a day. Also consider they are all not the same classes- same curriculum, same level...meaning 3 or more preparations. Think IEP and 504 differentiation for kids WITHIN these classes..think collaborative planning during PLANNING TIME with Spec ed teachers, speech therapists. team teachers- each 3 days a week. That's paperwork for at least a 100 a day. That teacher is not able to sit at her desk grading papers for the only 50 minutes she has per day. Seriously- are all of you teaching small classes and teaching the same curricula for each class each day with no legal/Spec Ed responsibilities? How about the IEP follow ups and meetings? The data tracking for Danielson, the collaborative planning notes between team teachers? Some of you might be private school teachers, correct, or not in a district around here?

Pp here. Yes, I will think. I have been teaching in FCPS for 14 years and I have never heard of Danielson. We do collect data and it can be time consuming, but we also have people in the school who analyze it for us. Also, all high schools in FCPS are on block scheduling so we have 3 90 minutes classes per day. I also don't collect papers from every class every day to grade. There is absolutely no need to do that to accurately assess student progress. We have collaboration each week for an hour and may collaborate with other teachers occasionally, but it is not every day and it is not overwhelming. If there are special ed students in the class, there is usually a special ed teacher in the class or those classes are self-contained. Yes I have 3 preps, but I have also been teaching long enough that I can build on what I have done in the past. All that said, some people are not cut out for teaching - it can be overwhelming if you are disorganized and easily overwhelmed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not psychology. Getting into a decent PhD program is extremely difficult, the training is long, and it's emotionally intense work. It's also terrific if that's what you love--and there's much you can do with the degree--but it's not a field for someone less than passionate about it. (Can you tell I'm a psychologist?)

OP, in your situation I'd consider PT or maybe OT. Tons of flexibility and room for growth, but not as shift-based as nursing. Possibly social work, if you're inclined towards therapy.

Definitely social work. A 2-year grad program, plus the mafia-style allegiance that DC employers offer to social workers over all other psych disciplines. Make your own schedule in private practice, collect $150 an hour.