Is it rewarding?
Yes, it can be very rewarding. It is one profession where you know you're actually making a difference in someone's life. That, however, is the double-edged sword of teaching. What you say and do can either make or break a student's self esteem and sense of self-worth. This can lead to tremendous stress, as you are always trying to be a positive influence and "the perfect teacher" to your students. I have many good memories about some students who, for them, I seemed to be the only person they could count on for a smile, a kind word of encouragement or a simple "how's it going today"? Teaching is definately a good profession for people who are looking to help other people, and for people who have a genuine concern for young people.
On the other hand, teaching is not for the faint of heart or the thin-skinned.
As a teacher, anytime you make the mistake of wishing out loud for a decent salary, you will be immediately pounced upon by droves of people who will say "But you get three months off in the summer". Things may be different in other states, but in Minnesota, teachers typically get about 6-8 weeks of "vacation" in the summertime. I got even less than that because I was a band director, and I had a marching band program to keep going during the summer. I got about 4 weeks off in the summer. And nevermind that you typically worked a 12 hour day between time at school, time at extra-curricular school functions and time at home grading papers and planning for the next day, every day. People will come back and always use the "But you get three months off during the summer" on you. Nevermind that you'll be spending most of that time during the summer at college working toward fulfilling your post graduate credits you'll need to renew your license every five year. Minnesota requires that teachers continue to take classes and work toward a higher degree. Actually, I think that's a good thing. It's just doesn't jive with the picture everyone has of the teachers sitting out at the beach all summer sipping mint julips.
Then there's the astronomical pay. Back in 1990, right out of college, my first teaching contract was for $21,000. The previous year, as a college student, I made $23,000. So, my first experience as a new teacher was to take a pay cut. What a great morale booster that was!
My wife, who has a Master's Degree in education, and ten years teaching experience, makes less than $40,000.
Education is funded in great part by property tax. If you were to ask your average person if they think teachers deserve a raise, they would probably say "yeah, they sure do". Then when you remind them that to do this, their property tax will need to go up. The answer soon becomes "Hell no, they don't need a raise".
As a teacher, you are nothing more than an indentured servant to school administrators, parents and the school board. You had better not make any enemies with any of these power groups or your job is as good as gone.
Then there's the tenure issue. While tenure would seem to be a great thing for a teacher in that it provides you with some job security, it is another double-edged sword. It also protects the bad teachers in your school, the few bad teachers that everyone uses as an exmaple to make all teachers look like dolts.
It would be best for everyone if they just got rid of tenure. That would help eliminate the dead weight teachers who are burnt out and just waiting for retirement, and would help establish some credibility for the remaining good teachers.
And if you are a teacher that gets the ax due to budget cuts, then you have a narrow window of opportunity each year to find a job. If you don't land a job between June and September, you're pretty much SOL until the next June-Sept timeframe.
I haven't even mentioned the difficulties of trying to maintain discipline in the modern classroom, or of educating ever growing numbers of students in classrooms.
I could go on and on, but I'm already feeling a Vietnam-like flashback creeping up on me.
Suffice it to say that teaching is not for everyone. I consider myself to be very tough-minded and self-confident. But within 5 years of teaching in the public schools, I had become disillusioned, depressed and nearly suicidal. I bailed out and went into computer science, where I now have a fraction of the stress, just as much vacation time and twice the salary.
IMO nobody can truly know if they have what it takes to make it as a teacher until they try. But I do know that only 25% of all people who start out as teachers, retire as teachers. I got that statistic from the dept of public education last year.
That's really food for thought.
