I never recommend the teaching profession. I'm in my 18th year. I love my kids and I love my co-workers. But my husband is a teacher too and we can barely afford to live here and provide for our own children on our salaries. Two of my younger co-workers have been talking about having kids soon and have been peppering me with questions about daycare costs and other expenses and they are terrified at how much it's going to cost and have no idea how they're going to afford it.

What are the retirement benefits like, say, in FCPS?

Anonymous wrote:I've been thinking of going into the profession. The problem is I only have a bachelor's in a different field. So then what are 'my options? Is teach for America really that terrible? What other inexpensive training is out there for a mom with a couple of kids now to deal with?

Two year master's program is the fastest way if you want to have full choice over your future grade / subject. TFA only contributes to the deprofessionalization of the profession; that's why every single edureformer out there is a big fan of it. Notice how you don't see nonsense like Physicians for America, where one month of training is enough for you to start operating on inner city children.

Anonymous wrote:I've been thinking of going into the profession. The problem is I only have a bachelor's in a different field. So then what are 'my options? Is teach for America really that terrible? What other inexpensive training is out there for a mom with a couple of kids now to deal with?

What state are you in? Yes, TFA is terrible if you want to make a career out of it. The turnover rate in TFA is awful--such little training and support, and rough schools. Set yourself up to be successful.

In Virginia, there are career switcher programs, where you can substitute work experience for a degree in education. That being said, I was in your boat and opted to get my masters through a weekend program. It was $20k and took two years, but it was really helpful and actually prepared me to be a teacher.

Sadly, no I would not recommend teaching anymore. I have taught special ed for 15 years and although I love my students, the job is barely manageable. When I started teaching I spent 85 percent of my time on work with kids. Now, I see students the same amount of hours per week but only 50 percent of my work time is with kids, maybe less. The culture has shifted. Teachers are now held responsible for everything and parents are not as supported. It is sad because my students are making less quick progress because of a shift in accountability from everyone, parents, students, teachers, community, to just the teacher. In addition, the paperwork is unbearable.

It is hard because every year more and more of my colleagues in sped are leaving the profession due to paperwork laws and unsupportive admin and families. This leaves much lower quality teachers in our schools.

I've been thinking of going into the profession. The problem is I only have a bachelor's in a different field. So then what are 'my options? Is teach for America really that terrible? What other inexpensive training is out there for a mom with a couple of kids now to deal with?

no. too much work for too low pay. my colleague was just saying that she has worked 20 years in the field, has 2 ivy league graduate degrees and currently has $7 in her bank account. we are both hatching an exit plan asap

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Clearly, this depends on the school. The ESOL teachers at my school are similar to instructional assistants. Highly paid, glorified, instructional assistants who don't have to do lunch or recess. You've got a crappy gig, pp. Job fair is coming up.

This is as unanimous of a thread as you're likely to ever find on DCUM.

I love my job most days (8th grade public school teacher), but I struggle with the lack of respect from those outside the profession. ("Oh, you're a teacher? Summer's must be awesome")

It's also really hard to deal with lack of response/support from parents. Yesterday I called/emailed home about a student cheating on an exam, and received no response whatsoever. I informed the cheater she would have to retake the test in the principal's office to prove she knew the material (which meant I had to write another version of the test), and I found out this morning that mom contacted the administration and said I was being racist in singling out her daughter, and that I had no proof the cheating was occurring. It's hard when you are hesitant to contact home--the kids know they can get away with murder and they absolutely try.

I also have no supplies. I know people think there's tons of money to go around, but I have tried to order card stock, colored paper, pencils, and glue sticks to use for activities and all my orders got denied--no funds available. I was told to use printer paper and to have kids staple things. I ended up purchasing it myself, because I'd rather have the materials and be $100 poorer than try to half ass the activities.

That being said, I really do love my job. I love the kids, I love the relationships I get to form with these burgeoning adults, and I love the feeling of accomplishment I have when a kid makes a positive change--academically, socially, or emotionally. If someone was aware of the negatives of the profession (low pay w/no merit based raises, lack of respect, challenging classroom management) but they wanted to do it anyway, I'd help and encourage them any way I could. I made the switch from consulting to teaching 6 years ago, and while I'm tempted to go back once a year or so, the reality is I see myself teaching for another 20 years.

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

What Province are they in?

Hit submit too soon. I'm guessing not Ontario, BC, Nova Scotia, or Saskatchewan. All have had disputes in the last few years and Government interference in their contracts... which means their jobs. Contracts imposed on them, or ordered back to work, without the in school issues being addressed.

I teach in private (a "big 3") in the US and I love it... doesn't pay great but it isn't terrible (75k for 10 yrs experience). I have reasonable, predictable work hours and amazing vacations. My spouse is the breadwinner though which means we aren't stressed about a lot of things my coworkers are (we live walking distance to the school so do not have a mega commute and we can easily afford daycare etc.)

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

What Province are they in?

I wonder how much is hearsay about work that teachers feed off of one another on. We've been in the public school system for about 8 years now in an affluent school, great schools 10 rating, and rarely get anything back graded from a teacher. We did private for 2 years and got back graded papers all the time. The private had textbooks and more supplies overall. Public doesn't but this seems to be because of the will of the teachers. When I ask them if they like the interactive notebooks and all the copying from multiple sources they say it's better, so what am I to do about this? The public actually has more resources to pull from.

I understand the difficulties in Title 1 schools, but here the same complaints at our affluent school too and wonder if they are justified. The public school teachers get paid at least twice what our private school teacher was paid. In addition, our schools have more specials and don't have religion, so the teachers are actually teaching less during the day than in private.

I wish public school teachers were more specific about what the issues were. Perhaps they would actually get fixed rather than what's happening how where rumors spread how horrible the school systems are which then promote right wing conservatives to cut off funding to public schools sending them in more of a downward spiral.

Anonymous wrote: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!

Bingo.