Reply to Any high school English teachers here?

Forum Index » Jobs and Careers

Reply to "Any high school English teachers here?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Unfortunately, I have to agree with the PP. Even if your daughter LOVES teenagers and LOVES English, she may come to regret being a hs English teacher.

I teach at a small private, so I don't have to worry as much about testing, and I have more freedom with my curricula. But, there are other issues. My school boasts about its rigorous college prep-- but fills spaces with students who aren't ready for that level program. I'm expected to get ALL my students ready to ace the SAT's. Hard to do if they come in unable to write a coherent sentence, or understand much of what we read.

Pros: There will always be jobs for English teachers. Sometimes you get to make a real difference in a student's life. Sometimes you get the great feeling of knowing you helped students gain skills important to their personal growth and future success. Sometimes you get to have exciting discussions of fabulous books.

Cons: You work a lot harder than your paycheck suggests. Many (even most) of your students don't want to learn anything you have to offer. You'll have to teach things that bore YOU rigid to kids who don't want to be at school in the first place (how to write a bibliography and anything about grammar, for instance). You have to read SO MANY ESSAYS, AND SO MANY OF THEM ARE PAINFULLY BAD. Bad like, you wonder how they managed to get to high school in the first place.

Grading student writing takes FOREVER. Students do not read your comments. They go straight to arguing about the grade.

They won't read the books. They won't do the homework. They won't listen to the discussions.

They WILL text in class. They will cheat on tests. They will turn in late, plagiarized essays. They will come to you the day after grades go in and ask if is too late for "extra credit."

Some of their parents will act like you are personally keeping their kids from getting into Harvard by not handing them A's. It doesn't matter if you sent daily messages explaining that their kid was skipping, sleeping, failing, or turning nothing in-- it is YOUR fault.

Teaching English is like trying to teach several classes in one class period. Grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, literature, writing-- EACH of them could easily be a class by itself, so good luck trying to make progress in 45 minutes a day.

I've had some wonderful times teaching hs English, but if I could choose all over again, I'd choose something else!
[/quote]

I could have written this! Sooo true[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics