New Teacher Advice and Such

[Tekoa]

To be honest, your heart really has to be in it for education to be a worthwhile profession. I just completed my student teaching in a kindergarten classroom and it was the most rewarding and exhausting four months of my life (I also worked part time while doing this). If you're looking to go into K-4 like you stated, you really have to put forth a good deal of extra effort to make the lessons you do interesting, creative and educational so that you can keep the students interested and their participation level high. Education isn't exactly the type of 9-5 profession either so you have to keep in mind that you will almost always be bringing home work because your work day doesn't end when the bell rings. You definitely don't chose to be a teacher because of the salary


On a separate note, isn't a masters required to teach at the college level? I was always under the impression that most professors at universities are required to have a doctrine to teach whereas adjunct instructors get paid less but are required to have a masters. I'm not sure of the degree required to teach at the jr. college level.

[Rocl]

College is the sweet life. Work 6-9 hours a weak(of actual work...you still gotta BE on campus a lot longer, but it's not so much work as just hanging out...I think I had people attend like 5 of my office hours EVER, this is why research is a popular hobby), and make high 5/low 6 figures.

I can't imagine rationalizing wanting to teach elementary or HS other than the "somebody HAS to do it" angle.

Apparently, somebody didn't HAVE to teach you.

[Darus Grey]

Apparently, somebody didn't HAVE to teach you.

I was too busy learning about why that happens. The Slips Pages

The Slips of the Tongue research Group at SUNY Buffalo is steadily accumulating corpora of slips in other languages.

On a separate note, isn't a masters required to teach at the college level? I was always under the impression that most professors at universities are required to have a doctrine to teach whereas adjunct instructors get paid less but are required to have a masters. I'm not sure of the degree required to teach at the jr. college level.

This varies state to state, university to university within said state. It's not uncommon to see people with just a Bachleors teaching the introductory level classes, but afaik it's almost exclusively people *in* a grad program who have that oppurtunity, and you can teach full-time with a masters, but then the PHD students get first crack at those positions(cause it's cheaper to give free tuition + low pay). You need a doctorate level degree for a tenured fulltime position.

[Cesaria]

I'm in the UK so what I say may not be 100% applicable to other countries (although Obama seems to have a great big hard on for some of the crap going on over here and so it's probably headed all over the Atlantic as well).

Fell into it by accident really - took a general helper job at a private boarding school for basically beer money just because it was a part of the country I wanted to live in, and then started working with the younger kids (I'm primary trained - so 3-11 years old) helping out and realized I was actually pretty good at it - so applied for training courses, got on my first choice course - went through the post-grad training year and qualified.

The thing I'll say is - I LOVE the actual teaching. I get the same buzz out of a lesson that's going well, where I can lead the questionning where I've got it planned and see the lightbulbs going off in kids' heads as they get the hang of something. I get to muck around, be a complete looney and play with glitter and glue and things - and get paid for it! However, I made a choice a year and a half ago to never ever teach contracted full-time again, and I just do substitute work now (which is dying out as they're increasingly letting unqualified teachers cover for teacher absence over here).

The reason I quit was the bit they didn't tell you in the adverts - the toll the job took on my health was basically killing me. The adverts didn't promise you a nervous breakdown before your 30th birthday - but many many teachers have stories to tell of the day they finally broke down. Generally I can cope fine with the stupid paperwork, ridiculous orders from on high, trying to squeeze the nationally-required levels of achievement out of children who can't even sit in a chair - what I couldn't cope with anymore was the complete lack of support and blaming the teacher for incredibly damaged children with behavioural issues - who weren't severe enough to get the psychological help they desperately needed. In a year in one school (with a wonderful head) - we had children dumped on us who'd lock themselves in lockers, climb out of windows, kick their teachers black and blue, one of my class brought a knife to school and ran around the playground with it (he was 8), and the child who finally broke me would beat anyone to a pulp, throw furniture at me if I dared to ask him to do any work, threatened people with scissors to cut their throats - and yet there was no support in place for this kid (I can see him turning around and knifing someone before he's 18). I hit the point where I was so worried about protecting the other kids in the class and trying to do right by them that I was suicidal, on tranquillizers, anti-depressants and god knows what else and I cracked completely. I'd been teaching 6 years - I lasted a lot longer than many do (the average is 2 years after qualification dropping out).

It's not the job it should be - the UK at least has ridiculous levels of pressure put to get the right levels out of children who are going through hell at home, and are so disturbed and damaged they can't cope with being in a school (we had one child who we were advised to deal with his behaviour by just never saying no to him - how's that going to help him function in society?), you get threatened on a regular basis by children and parents... in addition to the working hours (which didn't actually bother me that much) - I'd get into work before 8, stay till after 5, then go home and work making resources and doing admin till 11 at night most days.

I just decided I was never ever going to be as ill as I was back then - so I do supply work - the money is crap, I rely on the dole/exam marking to get me through the summer, I see some fabulous schools and some utterly horrific hell holes - but I get to do the stuff I'm good at (I've got inspection reports praising how good I was as a class teacher) and I enjoy, and then I get to walk away at the end of the day and have my life back. Takes a lot of time to build up a rep on supply though - agencies are crap, and it's just pushing pushing pushing all the time to be good so that you get schools ringing up requesting you back again and again (makes it a fucktonne easier to discipline once you have some standing in a school as a regular face).

The other issue to be aware of is, at least in the UK, we had a falling birthrate for many years working its way through the system which led to a drop in primary numbers and teacher redundancies etc. The jobs available are all temporary contracts, and because our pay scales are set nationally based upon experience and time teaching - schools only want the newest most cheap teachers - I'm too expensive now to be able to ever land a permanent teaching contract - and I've only been teaching for about 7-8 years or so.

On the other hand - I'd die in an office job - I took one for a while and lasted 3 months - I felt I was suffocating chained to a PC in an office. Wouldn't swap the lunacy of working within schools for anything!

I've also worked in both state and private schools - private the behaviour's better but the parents tend to view it that they own your soul and I just found a lot of it petty (and our school owner was, to put it bluntly, completely barking mad).

Apologies for the length of this! Just thought I'd tell it from the chalkface so to speak.

[EckoGecko]

just don't end up like this guy.

San Mateo court sentences teacher to two years for teen sex date on MySpace - Inside Bay Area

was my teacher for my economics class senior year.

[guartz]

Andrew, have you ever considered looking at how different cultures teach their young? Might not be P.C in American schools, but you can cross reference foreign ideas, maybe you'll pick up on something that sounds interesting to you.

Maybe even look at obscure cultures, like native Americans, Buddhist, Japanese, etc.

[Takedown3]

get another job

[Andrew]

With the debate on tuition I always thought the reasoning for private school was more of the religion integration, not necessarily for the "better" education? Hrm and I guess education isn't so recession proof after all...I was thinking there will always be a demand for educators despite funding cuts and whatnot. Schools might be shitty in some places, with no principals or textbooks dated from the 60s, but they still will need teachers. Er...at least you are out by 3PM? That's terrible I know <.<

GinormousLevi your advice is just what I'm planning on, and I'm going to check into that book, thanks. I just finished up First Days of School by Harry Wong not too long ago. It has pretty good structural advice. Guartz I'm actually really interested in the different cultural aspects of education. I'm an open mind when it comes to trying new/alternative things. Will check it out thanks. Nothing bugs me more than teachers who aren't willing to learn more about their job. That whole "My way, and it sucks for you if it isn't working out" philosophy :/. Even if you are a veteran, education is always changing.

And as for getting another job I do plan on eventually becoming a school counselor but just gotta get in 3 years of teaching. And what do you teachers do/plan on doing during vacation time?

[GinormousLevi]

This summer I'm resting/relaxing, working summer camps, and setting up my classroom for the fall. I'm switching grades and classrooms AND the state of TN is redoing the standards for teaching...I've got a lot to do before the fall!

[Plow]

Are you suggesting people would willing continue to pay for their child's tuition even if the education provided was poor quality?

Is it a Catholic school?

Cuz if so, absolutely, without a doubt, 100% positively, they will.

[MisterBob]

College is the sweet life. Work 6-9 hours a weak(of actual work...you still gotta BE on campus a lot longer, but it's not so much work as just hanging out...I think I had people attend like 5 of my office hours EVER, this is why research is a popular hobby), and make high 5/low 6 figures.

I can't imagine rationalizing wanting to teach elementary or HS other than the "somebody HAS to do it" angle.

Research frequently isn't a "hobby" for professors. The college I went to mandated a very large amount of research hours from them. If you want a high-paying job teaching at a college, prepare to lose a lot of your free time. And by a lot, I mean a LOT.

[Phla]

Are you suggesting people would willing continue to pay for their child's tuition even if the education provided was poor quality?

People generally regard private schools as better educations... and as I went mainly to private catholic schools my entire life, I think its not so much the education, its mainly focusing on enforcing decent morals into people. Comparing that to kids in public school i can say yeah, some kids who i could've seen being complete fuckups turned out to be half decent kids. Also, private schools are generally considered "better" by colleges due to a more intensive workload (which is actually bullshit, I'm sure kids in public HS did as much as us..). Of course there are some public schools that stand out, but every college I applied to knew the name of my school, and I'm 100% positive the name of my school got some kids into their college of choice, or into any colleges they got into in general.

[EternityEnd]

There are differences between Private schools and Religious Private schools.

[Cesaria]

I've worked in a couple of private schools - one religious (Quaker - if you've ever heard of them) and one non-religious and run by a husband and wife team. I'd go back to work at the Quaker one again in a heartbeat - well organized, well resourced, cracking kids (they had their moments but even the scallies were nice scallies), but the small family operation... let's put it this way - it ended with her flipping her lid, closing the school with 2 weeks notice because staff dared to get pregnant, mass redundancies and me having to take her to court to get my redundancy money and her running off with people's pension contributions.

The kids in both were well-motivated, nice, articulate kids you could have a conversation with - but the parents in the small school ran the roost - I had one come in and demand that she didn't like how I was teaching division - and I was ordered to change how I taught it... that kinda thing went on regularly. As for textbooks and stuff - in that school I was teaching from the same textbooks I had used when I was at school (and I'm 30) - the entire place was front-show and crumbling foundations (or furcoat and no knickers as my mother describes it) and there were teachers there who were, to put it bluntly, crap - but very good at playing the parent game.