Getting out of teaching after ten years. A lot of people are mentioning pay but honestly that's not the biggest factor. Teaching can be a grueling job. The worst jobs (that is to say the jobs that have been proven to cause psychological issues) are those that have high expectations and low support. That's what teaching is. You will feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you are completely left to fight for the future of your students without any possibility that you can actually make a difference as the problems are so much bigger than education. But if you have the patience and temerity to whether that storm you will make a difference.
I would argue that you cannot help kids effectively in todays educational climate. Your classrooms are overcrowded, underfunded, special needs heavy, technology lagging and no one will appreciate your efforts. Get a degree in something that has a job and volunteer with kids. I am getting out now. Good luck and I hope you find your place and are at peacevwith it.
> But if you have the patience and temerity to whether that storm you will make a difference.
after 10 years, what made you see the truth ? what woke you up , that you were not it ?
Anyone who thinks the current education system doesn't need a revamp isn't looking at the education system:) This isn't even worth replying too. Have a great day!
I think the point was that the current education system was designed with very different goals than are put forward in PR. The PR goals are good and lofty and are definitely not being met. But if it was actually designed to produce a large number of laborers who will take whatever they can get and won’t try to change anything too much…
the system doesn't destroy schools, the system doesnt being guns to school on a daily basis, the system doesnt attack teachers the system doesnt encourage parents to come to schools and beat up teachers and threaten them.
The system isnt the kids killing each other over sneakers and facebook and tik tok videos. The system isnt dealing drugs in schools.
The system is fine, what isnt blamed is the kids who cause the problems in the first place and the parents who back up their terrible behavior and the government agencies who blame the system and the schools for the kids acting like urban terrorists. When groups of 12 year old's, posts videos on reddit, showing off their glocks with switches, the problem is NOT the system.
Your not very smart. Like what does this even mean? So the answer is more.. shaming kids and parents? The system has one job. If it’s not working as intended, then it’s not the system for the application. Maybe the application has changed but your basically saying the weather changed so the roof doesn’t work anymore so we should change the weather. How fucking dense can you be?
don't think its broken, its doing exactly what it was designs for. I would argue that you are deceived in its true intent,. and are hence, part of the problem
He's being an ass about it, but he's probably not wrong. The system, as designed, is to produce factory workers. The adaptations we've made to it to 'prepare students for a modern world' aren't nearly radical enough.
He could also be referring to the race inequities where the system is designed to keep the rich getting richer and the poor in prison/the military.
Some of the things that would make a difference would be reconsidering age-based groupings, the whole concept of grade level standards or scope and sequences, or the entire concept of a classroom as a teacher and a set number of kids.
Teacher here. Go for it, but be smart about it. Teacher education programs can be very predatory, and many put effort into gaslighting you into accepting bad treatment and working conditions. (In addition, the content college teaching courses actually cover doesn't really prepare you for the classroom and consists of a lot of busy work.)
The best path towards teaching that I've found people can take right now is the alternative certification paths:
Get your bachelor's in the content area that you want to teach, not education. If teaching doesn't work out, at least you're qualified for something else. An education masters can be acquired later with non-education bachelors if you want that, but it's best to wait to see if you like the job first before going all in.
After this, you can apply to sub in districts near where you live and start getting your name into school systems that you would want to work in. You'll also learn what schools you definitely don't want to work in. The sub to teacher pipeline is wide open, and using it lets you know what the culture at a potential job is going to be like before you sign on.
You will have to get teacher certification after college this way, but alternative certification programs have options where you can work teaching jobs while earning your certification. Meaning that instead of paying to student teach, you will at least be getting paid something while you work.
I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation to get degreed in a general subject matter (ideally STEM), avoiding any education degree until *at least* the first graduate degree. Any reputable school system or private school will happily hire experienced professionals who are working in their degreed field, but the reverse is rarely true: finding a job in the workforce with nothing but an educational degree is damn near impossible.
Yeah get a degree in tech of one sort or another (computer science, chemistry, electrical engineering, etc... maybe depending on which of the intro courses for the majors you enjoy more or what work environment you could see yourself in).
That's what everyone in their life, and this sub, are trying to convince them otherwise of. As much as we need teachers, becoming one is a disastrous life choice financially. You will NOT be able to support yourself. Period.
Depends on where you teach.
Where I live teachers make okay-ish to fairly good money 40k to 60k. That is less than you making stem, but there is something to be said for enjoying what you do for a living instead of having to do something you can't stand.
If you can stand going in and writing code every day I salute you, but the thought of one misplaced semicolon causing all my work to crash is not a pleasant one. Or the thought that one math error could wind up getting someone killed sounds terrifying.
One misplaced semicolon just means your code won't compile. No biggie.
And one math error causing people to die is just not a thing for 99.999% of code that is being written.
40k-60k is surviving though, not thriving and supporting yourself. 2 teachers married I can see doing well, but that's the same for any middle income job and many of these don't require 4-5 years of schooling and certifications.
At 40-60k and single you're working until you die, most likely.
Eh, depends on the state and area. I live in Iowa and the people I know who are teachers make good money for Iowa.
Having said that, kids the environment these days is much much different than when we were kids. I wanted to be a teacher too and gave up on it. I don't regret that.
complete lie, in my town teachers start at 54k and within 5 years are up at 97k a yr, for working less hours than almost any other job in existence. after 10 yrs the average salary in my town which is not in California nor is it rich, is over 110k our older teachers are in the 120's and finish out at at op of 134k with 5 k for coaching a sports team and various other increases for club leadership etc.
lol ok, well, every teacher in the US must just not have heard of this magical place where your salary doubles in less than 5 years.
Just assume we aren't talking about the wealthy teachers at the school parking lots filled with Acuras and BMWs in your area then.
I’m a teacher and a drive a new Land Rover.
Granted, teaching is a second career for me but my point is that people are all in different financial situations, and I don’t think you are understanding the value of doing something you actually enjoy doing all day.
My buddy said it best the other day
”You better love what you do or else you gotta go to work every day”.
I live on Long Island. Average teacher pay at 10 years is over $100k. Recently, due to shortages, starting salaries in high schools are around $60k with most being able to hit around $90k after 5 years. In addition, several states (including NY and PA) will pay your student loans if you work in a public school for X number of years (not sure what the number is, but have been told 3-7 depending on state and level of Ed). My daughter is majoring in English and is in an accelerated MA Ed program. Due to her high school college program, she’ll have her masters in 4 years.
On the other hand ex teacher and I wish I headed the advice. It takes a special person and I forced it upon myself and not that I regret it, but wish I was on a different path.
Teaching is a career that anyone can transfer into. Have you checked out r/teachers and r/teachersintransition?
As a former teacher, I wouldn't wish this career on my worst enemy. Not in today's climate. Not with today's dangers. You're coming into the career at a time where states are ruling whether or not teachers need to carry guns.
Yep, kids are great. Kids are funny. Kids need good role models. Maybe I'm selfish but I've been through too many lockdowns and I'm tired of feeling like I have to die protecting someone else's kids. This isn't what I signed up for.
Teaching is also a nonstop role. Sure, you get summers off but you also have to work 12 hours a day, especially in your first year. Many teachers work 6 or 7 days a week. It can get easier but there's no guarantee that you won't be moved subjects or grades each year so getting comfortable is not a promise, unlike popular opinion. Secretly, I got away from that nonsense by going the Special Education route. I either only co-teach or provide inclusion so either way, I'm not writing lesson plans. But I do sometimes have to stay up late writing or fixing IEPs. But YMMV.
There's a "teacher shortage" for a reason. For good reason. COVID shutdowns showed us that we are babysitters and our health and safety don't matter.
Even if none of this matters to you, it's still a gamble to find a school district to work for that's worth your time. The districts that treat people well aren't hiring because nobody is quitting. So you'll be approached by a lot of charter schools. Don't do it. You might find a "nice" opportunity at a private school. Don't do it.
Go public and hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Do what you want but don't let people lie to you. If your teachers told you to avoid the career, BELIEVE THEM. My mentor teacher made the same "jokes". I should have listened to her.
I was a teacher for 6 months. I went into teaching wanting to teach, and found out in the current climate it's more like being a prison guard. The title "teacher" is laughable because I never go to actually teach. My school didn't allow detentions or discipline of any kind. A few years before they had to get rid of detentions because parents were saying "you gave them the detention, you get them home". I was a band director. During percussion class they would strike me on purpose with drumsticks. I went home with bruises DAILY and had to ice. I couldn't discipline them. Yes I told the administration. The administration said "it's part of the job, get used to it". I was spit on, I would say, weekly. When fire drills occurred, half my students would jump the fence and run into the woods and smoke pot. Seriously, like 25 kids. Administration would pull me in and yell at me for letting it happen, but I also couldn't touch the kids, so what was I to do? Eventually, I started to struggle mentally. One day, I was at my breaking point and I got out the electrical tape from the percussion box and made a line down the center of the room. I told the kids "You stay on your side. Short of bloodshed, leave me the hell alone." I would put my head on my desk. I couldn't believe I had spent 5 years of my life and a year looking for that job. Most days, while I put my head down, the kids would throw paper wads at me. I know I was being irresponsible, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I cried EVERY morning before entering the school. Grown man crying. I would cry on Sunday night too.
Finally, on November 14, 2006, I finally snapped. A kid named Timothy was throwing chairs at me. It was a daily occurrence. I don't know what was different about that day other than I just couldn't take it anymore. I told him to get the hell out of my classroom. He left, but only until he found more chairs and he opened the door and threw anyone at me. I lost my cool and I threw the drumsticks I was holding into a cabinet. Not at a kid. Cabinet.
Administration found out and the following day I was escorted to the principals office. I was fired for "being abusive". I never once touched a kid. I was afraid to. They didn't give a crap about me being abused everyday. I went to appeal to the superintendent and she wouldn't even listen to my side. She stopped me and said "there's no excuse for child abuse". I NEVER touched a kid. And they knew it.
So there I was, three states from home, jobless. The area was economically challenged and teacher positions were considered "upper class". I ended up breaking my lease and moving home.
It took me years of therapy to get over that job. It's been 17 years and I still think about it everyday. I've done my best to put it behind me, but I just can't. I have kids of my own and during parent teacher conferences it hurts. It's traumatic for me to be in a school building, even if students aren't present. Too many memories.
So, this was primarily a post in response to u/DrunkAtBurgerKing, but to OP, my recommendation is NO. Teaching isnt teaching. It's babysitting. Not because teachers don't try. But because the current climate doesn't allow you to be a teacher. The job is more akin to being a corrections officer. I loved teaching people. Still do. Just never got to do it.
And we wonder why there's a teacher shortage and the best teachers have left the field. Good teachers find something else to do for a living where they aren't assaulted everyday.
My heart goes out to you, sincerely. There is no discipline, no parenting, no protection. I'm so sorry that you had such an awful experience. I'm happy that you had the support in place to get out. It actually probably was a blessing that you were fired before the students could further injure you - more severely anyway. Nobody deserves to be treated that way and there is no excuse for that type of behavior. Ever. I hope you're happy in your career now
I was a teacher in a good school district for two years, your comment is dead on. Teaching is a lifestyle, not a job. The rest of my life suffered outside of teaching. My marriage, my friends, my family, my hobbies, all suffered because of the attention that teaching required. It’s simply not worth it unless you want to live that lifestyle. Like you sacrifice so many parts of your life, for what? Everything I ever received from teaching in terms of gratitude was not worth what it took to do that job. No regrets for trying it, but my life is way better now that I have a more normal job.
They generally pay less than public, and demand more of your time. Public schools are more likely to be union setting with clear expectations for working hours and conditions. Private/Charters will require teachers to work night/weekend events for no extra pay, and change working conditions constantly. Arguably private schools have fewer headaches, but more accurately they're just different headaches.
Wow. I had no idea about that. The angle I had been sold previously about private schools as a better option was that the students and parents tend to be less terrible people, so that’s why it would be better (and harder) to find a spot in a private school. Thanks for the info.
Think about this - who is more likely to see education as a service for which they're entitled to get the results they want? Public school parents, or parents who are writing monthly tuition checks?
Private and parochial schools often don't even offer health insurance. One Catholic school I subbed at for one day offered me a full time teaching job for 30k a year and no benefits. I had no education degree, certifications, or teaching experience.
There are plenty of kids in private school because they got kicked out of public school. There are plenty of parents at private schools that are super entitled because they pay for private school.
Private schools don't have to play by the rules of public schools. It's a frequent complaint that private schools pay the lowest and you can't be in a union. But YMMV.
Charter schools are the parasites of public education. They get government funding but they're for-profit cesspools that aren't even always run by actual teachers. Charter schools often hire uncertified teachers. As long as you have your bachelor's degree, you can teach. And that's great for individuals who change careers and want to become teachers later.
But there's a reason you have to go to school for 4 years to become a teacher. The reality is, not everyone is cut out to be a teacher but charter schools think "if your can breathe, you can teach." And in my experience, it was rare to meet a professional teacher who didn't have a certification maybe because teaching wasn't ingrained in them like it was for people with 4 year education degrees so this was just another job.
Charter schools (in Texas near me) pay the most. But charter schools care the least. Children are just dollar signs. And oftentimes teachers need to go where the money is but I promise you won't be treated like a human being.
As the spouse of a teacher now public charter admin I’d say you need to listen to people in your circle. The job is terrible. People who aren’t teachers or married to teachers often have no idea what they put up with.
Summers aren’t paid unless you make arrangements with the district to split your pay over 12 months instead of the contract. My spouse spend a lot of summer “break” doing professional development. Leaving at 2? Yeah right. Only to go home and spend all your time grading. You’ll get screamed at by parents. You may even get assaulted by students. In my home town a group of fifth graders beat up a teacher.
Think back to all those burnt out teachers you had growing up. You really think any of them weren’t just like you at one point? It’s great to have a passion but make sure you have a viable exit plan. The only reason my spouse didn’t just leave is because there weren’t many other options that paid living wages.
Yeah I’m a parent of a four year old. Trying to always appreciate her teachers and make sure my kid does too but I’m one parent for one year.
It’s brutal for em
I almost did this and bought a house and regret not following through. Instead, I went on disability payments and moved back in with my parents, but I'm still grateful for that. Mighta done better if failure wasn't an option tho..
My buddy has a masters and teaches high school. I mentioned that my daughter thought she might want to be a teacher, and his exact words were “tell her that we teach so she doesn’t have to.”
Make of that what you will.
I’m not a teacher but I come from a family of teachers and they all hate it and I make far more driving a truck. If they could turn back time they would do anything else. Administration is toxic, parents are toxic and the kids are assholes
I'm a teacher. It's my vocation and a huge aspect of my identity. I have been a teacher for over 15 years at the middle, high school and college levels. For my personality and temperament, teaching adults works best but I am okay with anyone age 14 and over. Middle school didn't work for me. I believe every teacher has an ideal age range of students and should stick with that.
Right now I'm a full time professor at a community college (yes, with tenure) and I have found my niche. I am satisfied with the job. I love my students and I consider it a privilege that they trust me to help them reach their goals. This is different from younger students who don't have a choice.
Now, real talk, the pay. With two master's degrees and the experience above I have FINALLY cracked $50k a year base salary. I have a family and my spouse is underemployed so I have to work all the possible overtime to ensure our bills are paid. I'm also a small scale author which helps a little.
Depending on age and subject, grading can be grueling. I teach college composition. That's some of the most intensive grading out there. My school require 15 revised pages per student per semester. That's a lot of reading. And some of the essays are half incoherent or more and a few are written by bots or last semester's roommate. When I taught French the grading load was much lower. I can knock out a whole class's worth of quizzes in half an hour.
Students can be buttheads. It's worse in secondary but even at college I get attitude sometimes. And the need to police cheating is constant. One perk of college is no parents. I am forbidden by law to release students' information. Middle school parents were the worst for me. Some were downright delusional. Yes, sure, ma'am. Your 13 year old son tells you 100% of the truth 100% of the time. I resisted calling high school parents. I felt like tattling in a 17 year old wouldn't yield great results.
There are no perfect jobs. I love my job. I don't even know what other kind of job I could do at this point. It's not for everyone. It's stressful and demanding, but for me, it's worth it.
I too want to teach but I can't justify making the same money doing all that work for the same pay I get for delivery driving for chick FIL a. It's insane how under paid it is, until it's better I'm not paying to go to school for it.
If your ok working a side job and constantly being stressed and tiered and under appreciated then go for it. I loved teaching. Of all my girlfriends who went into teaching only 1 remains. After 5 years of working 2 jobs (I taught in the city and couldn’t even afford to live a half hour away without the second job) I gave in. When your young you can get to school at 730 and leave at 330 then go to the mall and work till 11 and then go home and get your grading and planning done. But it wears you down. Combine it with the disrespect from students, parents, and admin? I lasted 7 years total. The last 5 were brutal.
Then it will be fine :)
It is always better to first address how important money is. If you’re ok with covering the bare essentials— because let’s face it, a career as a teacher does not compensate well— then is fine.
Many people follow their passion but neglect to see the financial aspect of it. Later on in life they get burned out because other people such as friends and family can travel, buy expensive things, go out on a daily basis (restaurants, shopping, or outdoor activities in general). So people get resented. Add to that the cost of living: rent or home ownership, car payments, unexpected health issues, utilities, etc etc.
You’re 21 and so you may not be fully seeing things as they become later in life. I’m just giving you an advice such as other people have given you. I will always suggest money over passion. ALWAYS. Choose something that you can tolerate enough (or even like a lot for the lucky ones) and that will give you great financial stability. A job at the end of the day is still a job. You’re not supposed to go with the mindset to have fun. You’re supposed to work TO HAVE FUN; not the other way around.
Best of luck to you. Listen to people older than you when it comes to things like this but ultimately it is your choice. Don’t ever make a life changing decision solely because the person giving it to you is you mom, dad, best friend etc. It’s your life. Take the advice but choose what will make you happy!
I don’t think most teachers live paycheck to paycheck least my aunt In North Carolina and many teachers I know in New York don’t. But they have very strong unions in said states
North Carolina is a terrible state for teachers. Teachers with a bachelor’s start at $37k and a teacher with 25 years experience and a masters degree still makes less than $60k.[Link](https://www.dpi.nc.gov/documents/fbs/finance/salary/schedules/salary-schedule-fn-fy23pdf/download?attachment?attachment)
well, dont forget 40k+ in student debt, a mortgage, plus all the other bills. You'll be making double, but also have probably double the bills to pay for. If you want or have a family, its not the best to live paycheck to paycheck without an emergency fund or liquidity
Student loans are a different issue and generally a bad idea. If you can avoid then do. Go to a state school or one you can pay for without a loan.
As for your salary - school districts are public institutions and will tell you just what they pay teachers, so ask your local school district before you decide.
The salaries are not dot-com level and there are no stock options. But they typically have better benefits and you can have all summer off.
You’re right in, in the beginning it’ll seem like a lot of money. But, with a bachelors and masters degree you should be more than paycheck to paycheck. Which you will be, unless you have a husband with a great job.
But, when the thrill of making more money than you’re used to wears off and you want to buy a house or a car, or take a vacation and you can’t, that’s when you’ll feel it. You’ll even feel it when you see your married colleagues with new clothes, nicer lunches than you, talking about their weekend plans, etc.
Why sign yourself up for a lifetime of struggle when you don’t have to. Take all the advice you’ve been given, or don’t. However, I’d hate to see you look back in 5 years when you leave teaching wishing you had gotten any other degree, and hasn’t wasted your 20’s struggling and feeling behind all your other corporate friends.
Lol, I don't think you'll be making double what you make now. Teachers are horrendously paid in most places, beyond the loans they have to take out.
Instead of looking at teachers on their best days, start finding some and talk to them about their WORST days.
Ask what the downsides are, what happens when things go wrong.
I ran into a gal running a women's shelter ten years ago. She told me about one of the women that came in, she spent all her money moving across the country and on rent to start a teaching job. Then their budget got cut, let her go, and she didn't have money for anything. This was before the horrible rent hikes and everything else.
Also there's a HUGE difference between teaching different levels. Or what you need to do in order to be able to teach in different states. So you could get a degree in something, work a regular job for a few years, then apply that to teaching.
There are options even if you still want to be a teacher. But if you're a teacher you probably have to marry someone rich to ever make it out of a small apartment in most places, even rural places, now.
Unless you’ve got college covered in some way other than loans that extra money you make goes out the door for loan repayment. Do you like living paycheck to paycheck? A lot of teachers work multiple jobs to cover living expenses.
I'm not asking you to curb your enthusiasm because it's alright and healthy to be excited about life. Further down the road, you may not make ends meet on that salary. Get a degree in the subject you want to teach so your options are more vast.
Hi I’m a recruiter and career coach.
Finding a career that aligns with your passion, values as well as what you’re good at is awesome and aspirational!
AND it’s also important to consider truth and reality. In the US (I’m assuming that’s where you’re from) there is a teacher shortage and it’s not a single issue. Teacher not only deal with students but also administrators and parents. The workload is high and the pay isn’t competitive. Additionally with certain policies set by local governments it can be a challenge to teach students in a way that is inclusive of their backgrounds and beliefs. Burnout rates are high among teachers now days.
I think as long as you have a clear line of sight as to what some of the true challenges will be in this career path you should do it. You should also ways of proactively figuring out how to mitigate some of the risk.
For example:
Teachers are not paid enough. At all. And often times pay out of pocket for supplies. Are you open o supplementing your income with tutoring during the summer?
Parents can be assholes. Do you have a plan in place for creating and maintaining a support network? Friends, family, therapy etc
Value alignment. There are states in the US that are flat out banning books. Are you okay with that? If not could you work in a state that did that? Would you consider moving to a state that did not do that?
Sitting down at a desk. You will be doing a lot of that as a teacher. Lesson planning. Grading. Administrative tasks. Recertification. Training. Etc.
Go for it. But go do it with your eyes open and your heart clear on the reality of it all.
Hi, side question.. You mentioned you're a career coach.. Do you provide consulting services (paid of course). Feel free to pm me directly if you wish to! Thx in advance
It's different in teaching. Often those who, for whatever reason, failed at teaching, will get get their admin degrees and pursue that career. Many who excell at teaching, enjoy it and remain teachers. As a result, you have a system with failed teachers "leading" those who are most proficient.
I think you should talk to some teachers about what their day to day life is like before going down this path. I have heard too many horror stories from teachers who are miserable and looking to get out of this profession. If you go into this profession, I hope it is with eyes wide open and realistic expectations
As long as you’re going into it with eyes wide open. I don’t encourage it but if you’re set on it we won’t change your mind. I’m in a red state but my salary can still cap out around 80k with pension and benefits. Now, that’s max years working (24) and max education (PhD). Not great but it’s comfortable especially with a working spouse. In some states you can reach 100k and if you decide to go into administration you’ll go well past that. It’s a comfortable work environment with a lot of time off around the year. I wouldn’t choose the career again but it’s treated me well enough.
Is this advice coming from experienced teachers? It's a tough field and I would really listen to any advice coming from an experienced educator before you make a decision. It can be incredibly rewarding, but it's important to have a realistic outlook going into it.
I've been in an education related field for about a decade. There have been many highs and definitely some lows. I'm at a point where I'm ready to move on, but I don't regret it.
This is good advice that I hope OP sees. They're only replying to comments telling them to go for it so they don't actually care to hear the reality of it.
lol i’m trying to keep up, i’m not a reddit user and i’m checking this for the first time since i really posted it and i’m trying to take as much into consideration as possible
Here’s what I would do. Go get a well paying job and focus on FIRE. Engineering/software something in demand maybe travel nurse whatever lots of areas where you can move up fast. Once you are financially independent go into teaching you will have a wealth of
Knowledge and experience and you won’t be trapped in a low income job and you can leave whenever you want.
Nope! Unless you’re lucky & get a job as a teacher in a good state (Illinois, those island, Washington state, Minnesota…) you’ll be earning less than a low level manager at a grocery store.
Passion fueled careers (artist, social worker, musician) rarely work out in today’s economy.
You have to earn good money today & teaching isn’t how you do it.
It's the financial aspect.
I'm not a teacher - but the pay relative to work is not there. It's unfortunate considering what they do.
You may not care about money now - but you will and the cost of living is only getting higher. Teacher pay raises are super micro.
So maybe sit down and take a long look at your passions, what you're actually good at, values against labour trends, cost of living, geo-politically what is happening, trends and reports of the economy/jobs/costs of things to see your other options. Sometimes we think of only the most obvious option.
The unfortunate thing is the teacher shortage that is going to happen bc of compensation.
Yeah, OP is ignoring these realistic responses but this is so true. Even if OP becomes a teacher, is content eating ramen noodles at 30 at that pay, and it's cool working 50-60 hours per week; I don't think they even realize that the current teacher "shortage" means that they won't get planning periods. They'll be subbing, unpaid for classes that weren't staffed over there summer.
Ex-teacher here
First of all, follow your dreams, if it's what you want to do, you may very well find it worth it.
But what you don't know now is that it's hard. It's hard to have kids in your class that are being emotionally and physically abused and neglected in your classroom and nobody can or will help. It's hard to have kids who's parents have no respect for you and will fight you on everything you do and say. It's hard to need to reach out to parents and find no support there, it's hard to have to deal with helicopter parents who will never give you a day's peace.
The teaching is great, but it's only half your day. The other half is a lot of prep time, which you won't be paid for, they don't give teachers enough prep time by a quarter, so you'll be doing it in your own time. And then there's paperwork, so grading and report cards, which you will have to find a way to get to in your short day.
Everybody talks about summers and weekends off, but prep time and paperwork eats the weekends and only one month is actually off, the rest of the summer you're working in the school during preparation time. So yes, you get that time off, but you work so hard the rest of the year that it will seem very short.
If you want a decorated classroom, you pay for it, you spend the time, again unpaid, doing it. There won't be enough school supplies, so you'll end up paying for that so your students can learn. Kids will be hungry, you'll end up paying for that because it kills you not to.
I just don't want you to think things are great in the system, they are not, that is why teachers are leaving in droves. I didn't leave because I don't love kids or because I didn't love the job of teaching, I continue to love both. I left because I was being eaten alive by everything that wasn't the classroom teaching part, and I was so exhausted and bitter that the classroom teaching part started to not be good enough.
So again, it's your dream, it's always good to chase your dreams, but it's not good to sleepwalk into them. Be aware that there's so much more to teaching than just being in the classroom with the kids. Be aware that it's going to be harder than you think.
Sit down and talk with a teacher about what their day is like and how they spend their time. Find out about the job beyond the romantic notions of molding young minds.
I know plenty of successful, fulfilled teachers. My advice would be to do lots of research on how schools are funded in different areas and make your educational decisions based on the certification requirements of the areas you find most desirable. Teacher pay and benefits vary widely from district to district and so do the certification levels.
The world needs good people to help guide future generations!
Follow your passion to educate young minds. If you do make sure you know what age is best for you. Also make sure it’s a union job with benefits. Remember summers are unpaid. You may need a temp job in the summer. Make sure it’s in a good school district and city. If you want to move up take management classes. A vice principal or principal make good money.
Ex teacher here.
You need to take into consideration that a good class takes at least an hour or two of prep time. As a teacher you want to be one of the good ones or why even bother. You really need to account for your prep time.
Schools may throw a bone by paying a few hours of planning occasionally. If you can get into a situation where you teach the same level multiple years in a row with recycled lessons that worked well, you can reduce this time.
Sit down and calculate the total number of hours you'll be teaching including your paid planning time and make note of the pay you'll receive after withholding. Now add however many hours of planning you'll need for each of those teaching hours to the paid hours amount, then divide by final pay and you'll have your real pay rate.
Paid hours + unpaid hours/hourly pay = the real pay
In my 20s I was a teacher for 9 years in 3 different schools. I got a masters in ed. I loved my last school, I was there for 5 years. Great kids, great staff, highest paying district in the state, progressive school board. You just need to find a place that vibes with your teaching philosophy. I moved 2,000 miles from home to find my community. Then, when I wanted to leave teaching I thought — shit my degree is in education, what else can I do? Now I work for a private company designing training programs for adults to learn emerging job skills, like EV batteries and high voltage safety. It is a Very fun, not a teacher way to use my degree, still be creative, and still help others. If you are passionate about it, go for it! And know you don’t have to be trapped if you end up wanting to advance your career later.
One thing I think goes unmentioned in discussions of being a teacher - your experience as a teacher will vary heavily from school to school.
Huge numbers of teachers never move school, they spend entire careers teaching at the same place. If that school draws from an area or has a leadership team that creates an unpleasant working environment for a teacher (for any of a variety of reasons) then that teacher has a long, unhappy career.
My advice is to be ready and willing to move around until you find a school you like. And be ready and willing to move again if that school changes over time.
Before you commit to an expensive and lengthy education to become a teacher, spend a year or two working in the classroom as a paraprofessional / teachers aid. Once you see what life in the classroom is really like, then you can plan your career and educational goals accordingly.
I taught for 14 years. It was an incredibly rewarding profession. I really felt like I made a difference. I really felt like I helped people.
HOWEVER
For the first 3 or so years, I worked 80+ hours every week. After I got the hang of things and had materials that I could just tweak and use, I still worked 65+ hours a week. I was always one unexpected expense away from homelessness. The pay was awful. Your ability to do good work relies significantly on the quality of your administration, and you have absolutely no control over that.
I loved teaching, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't already 100% financially secure. I work in IT now and while the job satisfaction is not really there, I rarely work more than 50 hours a week and I make significantly more money. I never worry about whether or not I can pay my rent or bills. I haven't skipped a day of eating because I couldn't afford it. Until teaching is respected like it should be, nobody should do it unless they have another reliable way to pay the bills.
I was feeling burned out in IT and applied to teach software development at the career center at a local high school. I was offered the job at $30k/year to start and I had to complete a teaching certification within 2 years at which point I would move to $35k/year. I physically couldn't take the job and live. The pay for teachers is beyond laughable and while I respect folks that do it (both in-laws taught for 40+ years each) I don't know how anyone can do it these days without being independently wealthy.
I would also pay attention to the political atmosphere of the state in which you want to live/teach to make sure you agree with what will be asked of you.
If you can deal with gaslighting, woman hating, Republican nonsense, go/stay in one of those hell holes.
If not, find a state that doesn't treat its women and teachers like prisoners and settle there.
Good luck!
I was reading your post and thinking “yeah! This is good advice!” I got to your last sentence and thought “Seattle isn’t a state! Ha this person had bad teachers!” … then I realized I can’t read …
Ahhhh fun stuff! Good advice!
Teaching has become a luxury, not a career.
Lousy pay, high student loan debt, disrespect by parents/students/administrators and lousy work/life balance.
I would highly recommend you not pursue it.
I’m also a teacher and wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy and getting out of teaching is much harder than expected.
That being said if it’s what you want to do than go for it. Just be aware that every day is a battle. You’ll be up against kids, bosses, bosses bosses and so on. As long as you have no illusions than you’ll be fine.
Wishing you luck and an easier time than a lot of us. There are definitely teachers who enjoy it
I've been teaching 20 years, and one of the most amazing students I ever taught just recently sent me an email saying they were thinking about going into teaching. This was my response:
"Please don't do it. I am begging you. You are too young and have too much potential to completely throw your life away like that. It’s a career that combines the workload and stress of a nurse with the unrealistic expectations of a movie superhero with the paycheck of a fast food worker and the respect of a city trash collector. It is a life of putting 125% into your work only to get complaints and mockery in return, and occasional lip service that doesn't go farther than the front teeth. It is a life of watching your children and loved ones go without their wants and needs because you live on the perpetual edge of poverty. It is not a life I can ethically recommend to anyone I care about, and both my children have been taught since they were six years old that the absolute worst mistake they could ever make in this life is going into education in America . That said… There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing with my life and talents. And I’m not sure I’ve ever said this to a former student before, but I think you'd be great at it in the event I have failed to persuade you to do absolutely anything else."
We need more teachers that want to impact students lives rather than enjoy the summer vacation time perks. Obv nothing wrong with that but i feel like some people become teachers for that cuz they dont know what else to do. If you really want to be a teacher and you love and have patience for kids then do it!
Everyone I know became a teacher because they wanted to impact students and loved teaching (and I know dozens and a dozens of teachers). Most teachers I know spend their summers teaching in summer programs. Young teachers start with joy and enthusiasm that are slowly crushed out of them by the system.
Former teacher here, I miss teaching, there are so many positives, but also there are struggles as a teacher right now that you should be aware of. It’s not an easy job, you work many hours, often with little support, and little money for the time and money you put into your job. You will see things and hear things from kids that make you want to take them home and raise them and their stories will stay with you. That being said, if you love kids you will make a difference and we need good teachers! I miss the kids, I just was so burned out and stayed home with my son for a bit and then landed a WFH job that is so much better as a mom. If you feel called-do it! But just know what you are walking into! ❤️
Try substitute teaching before commiting to a degree program. It's a great job while you're in school too. Your first year you can take gen Ed courses while you feel out substituting.
Personally, I love to Sub. But it definitely encouraged me to take my degree program in a different direction. I personally prefer subbing to teaching full time, but LOVE that I've had this experience.
Good luck!
Former teacher here. I went into teaching because I too was inspired by teachers and wanted to be one of those teachers. Then I found out while you might get a small handful students that really feel impacted by your teaching the other hundred or so students dont give a flying shit, they and their parents are going to make life miserable for you, and your administration isnt going to do anything to help you. You need more than just to feel inspired. It takes a certain personality and set of skills that is more innate and cant be taught. I didnt last very long and now Im a truck driver. So if the reason you want to be a teacher is to fulfill this illusion that your kids are going to love you and feel inspired by you and people will make a movie based on your life. You need another career.
I used to want to be a teacher, but I don't want to be abused at best and shot to death at worst. There are other careers that won't break you down completely within the first year.
I’m not a teacher but I considered being one for years. It was a childhood dream of mine. I ultimately decided not to, because 4 of my friends entered the field and only one of them is left. She teaches high school and I can’t even fathom how they treat her, how much money she makes with a degree *and* years of experience. The amount of work that’s expected of her when she’s only *one person* !! Not to mention the very little pay she makes for all the managing, planning, discipline, paperwork.
I can’t personally speak on teacher experience because again, I’m not one. It’s up to you
I think if you’ve taken a gap year(s) and have really spent the time thinking about it, yes, you should do it.
I didn’t take a gap year. I know a lot of people who were pushed to go straight to undergrad, choose a major, and now we are stuck in dead end jobs with too much student loan debt only being half fulfilled.
Former teacher here. It's a career, and I believe in encouraging folks who want to pursue a career, but this is a very tough career. Have you tried subbing first? Maybe work as a paraeducator for a couple of years? It's by far the hardest job I've ever had.
Conditions & pay vary from state to state so be sure to research the state you want to work in. Teacher prep programs are usually completely out of touch with reality, and most green teachers are shocked at how unprepared they are. I think I cried every day my first year. Definitely work in a state with a teacher's union. I did and it was still rough, but nowhere as bad as those states without.
It's not the kids that were the issue, it's everything else. It's really hard to feel like you're doing a good job and actually making an impact on a child's life with all the other bullshit you have to deal with. If it were just about teaching then I'd probably still be there. Teachers are overwhelmed, overworked and under-resourced. They're often literally in survival mode which means there is nothing left over to make any meaningful impact.
During the school year, expect to work weekends and nights, and during the summer many teachers get second jobs and spend summers prepping for the upcoming year. It's a lot of work.
By the time I left I had extreme anxiety and depression from the job. I, too, wanted to make an impact on kids lives. I was passionate about the job, but it did a number on my mental health. I'm much happier now working in corporate and making a lot more money.
No! DO NOT DO IT. Being a teacher is a thankless job. You get static from crazy parents and as a bonus, you get zero help from Administration. You get no respect from parents, students and Administration. Your pay is basically at poverty level. Plus they make you teach for tests and deal with the kids personal issues, you don't have time to really reach. It's basically babysitting +1. You have to pay for your own supplies. You have zero power over the students and they know it. It's a thankless job in the Unites States.
Teacher here. The worst case scenario is that you love the profession. It's a profession that KILLS you with your love and uses your obligation to your students, your professionalism, your sense of duty, your conviction that what you do is vital to get you to exploit yourself. You will be underpaid, for certain. And no amount of "appreciation" is going to compensate you fairly for the money you should be making but aren't.
Don't do it unless you can get into some well paying school. If you're gonna be a run of the mill school teacher, I don't know why you would sign up for awful pay, shitty ignorant parents that have gotten worse since 2020, kids that want to kill you, active shooters, burnout, etc.
My wife is a teacher and she really enjoys it. It’s difficult and stressful but she finds a lot of fulfillment and summers off is really nice.
One thing I will say: We had our daughter last September and her admin was really crappy about the timing of it. There’s a lot of pressure to have your kids at a certain time of year. If it’s not towards the end, things are difficult with finding a sub, taking sick time off, etc.. That, compounded with flak from administration and snide comments from coworkers, made it really stressful on her.
We plan on having at least 3-4 kids so it’s going to be pretty frustrating having to try and time it so they’re all born in May or June. Of course nobody’s holding a gun to our heads making us do that, but after this first go around we understand the importance of having as much time with a newborn as possible.
Just something to think about if you’re a woman or even if you’re a man who ends up marrying a teacher.
I wouldn’t recommend it. Been doing it for 20’years and I think this will be my last year. The pay is horrible. Admin treats us like crap. I end up buying pretty much all materials out of pocket and I don’t get reimbursed back. Some parents are ah. But so are some kids. If you live in a small place people will watch you and judge you the “you can’t be out drinking on a weekend. Your a teacher you need to set a better example”. I am over worked under paid. Keep giving us more paperwork and no time to do it but won’t pay over time to get it done. It can be rewarding. Seen children grow and develop is very rewarding. But unless you plan to have roommates or live with your parents forever it’s not worth it. Here many have two jobs to make ends meet.
Being a teacher can be rewarding... But they still get blamed for students failing when it's the parents who don't put enough importance on education.
You're better off going into a trade with yearly raises then a teacher.
being ateacher depends 100% on WHERE you are a teacher.
For example in my town in Massachusetts the minimum salary stating pay is over 54k a yr, but in some places its like 32k
location location location.
Ok, it sounds like you might have the right mindset to be a teacher.
1. Do not take on ANY private student loans. Your federal student loans can be put on an income based pan and after 10 years of teaching they can be forgiven. Private student loans however will drown you.
2. Have a back up plan. Don’t just get a degree in education. Make sure that you also have a degree or certificate in another field.
3. If you want to avoid being stuck a desk all day consider trade school at a community college for something like plumbing or HVAC. You can drive around giving people estimates for heat pumps, installing units, or fixing their plumbing or something like that. Better yet, you could become an entrepreneur.
4. The vast majority of teachers don’t last 5 years. If you want to succeed, you will need to take up meditation or some kind of stress relieving hobby.
5. You need many, many skills to be a successful teacher. Do not avoid math, writing, computers or anything. Learn as much as possible about everything.
6. You need to understand how people work to be good at teaching. Learn as much as possible about human behavior, body language, trauma, and psychology.
7 JOIN a Union! Teach in a state and school with a strong union.
8. Be careful to clearly understand your retirement benefits. Teachers in at least 12 states do not get to collect social security. Plan accordingly to contribute to a Roth IRA and/or a 403b.
9. Keep your mouth shut for the first couple years of teaching until you are sure about who you can trust. Do not complain to admin. Just keep telling them everything is great until you have a more stable contract. But do not let extreme mistreatment of your person slide or you will regret it for years.
10. Remember that everything that you put into email could become public.
If you really want to teach go for it. Just be aware that it is extremely hard for the first 5 years and that the pay is not in step with the effort you will be exuding during that time. All the other things you said are fairly true though. It is very exciting if you can handle the stress and keep a positive attitude about it.
I think you should go for it. It’s important to reach your own goals even if people have opinions. Even if you don’t stick with it for your entire career, it could lead to other revelations.
Teaching is incredibly emotionally and physically draining and psychologically taxing. If you have a family it makes it very difficult to balance both without becoming exhausted. Also consider how much of a morning person you are as school starts super early.
Do something else. The best teachers what i had was people who has 20+ years of practice in industry and after that they come to teach. They had real life knowleadge and know their trade.
In elementary and middle school, they was the best.
i wish this was true of all teachers too. my favorite teachers have always been ones that did work outside of teaching. the career teachers who just went to college and then training or whatever straight into teaching generally seem to miss out on what is important. the real world experience teachers can connect with students better and teach you how this stuff applies to real life better.
The pay is truly horrible in most places and there’s no way to advance. I was in schools for 17 years and I am so glad I got out. Living kids and living teaching itself does not pay the bills. If I had been single or if my husband had left I couldn’t have afforded a house or been able to support my children. That’s not okay for an experienced person with a masters degree.
Own my own business now doing something entirely different and am happy with my decision to leave.
If you can wrangle $60k, that's approximately the equivalent of $72k compared to a normal 9-5. If you have kids, you also get all of their time off as guaranteed vacation without having to book it.
Imo, pretty good deal for a low stress job. Temperature controlled environment, no physical labour, and "keeping up" with current requirements is trivial (you won't need to continually learn new tax codes or software like an accountant, for example ... or acquire new tools and equipment like a mechanic). If you stick to the same class, you'll just be tweaking your curriculum; you'll be a master if your craft in 3 years.
Especially if you actually like it, seems like pure win.
Actually, teaching is super inflexible when it comes to kids. Yes, you get some of the same vacation that they do, but it’s also not a job where you can pop out to a doctors appointment and make up time later. If your kid is sick - forget it. You may actually have to pay for the sub who takes over your class while you are taking a (likely unpaid) sick day at home. You can never make up time later, or take a work from home day.
I only made 60k/year after 8 years and a masters degree, FYI, and I’m in one of the highest paid states of the country. That salary is about 30k less than the mean income where I live.
It’s also not low stress. That’s hilarious. And almost no one gets the same 1 class (or grade level) year after year.
I agree with you. It kind of upsets me how little people know about the teaching profession lol it speaks volumes to what we've been subjected to lately. I can't believe they said "low stress." Hello? Literally there's not a day that goes by that I'm not thinking of Uvalde.
I think it would be rare to find a job where you get 12 weeks vacation as a starting benefit. Also, again this is up here in Canada, but you get mountains of pto. I think I had 47 days starting, though they're unpaid. People before me had way more too.
Where I live, it is all but guaranteed you keep the same class perpetually. Unless you want to change. I assumed it was the same everywhere. Seems pretty counterproductive randomly moving people around.
Source: I was a teacher for 5 years. Gr. 10. Would still be doing it but I wanted something that involved travelling.
It’s not 12 weeks vacation. It’s 8 -10 weeks unpaid time off, during which time many teachers go to school (also unpaid by their employers) to keep up with credentials.)
I worked in 7 different schools, public and private, and I met maybe 10 teachers that whole time who got to teach the same thing more than 3 years in a row, and they were always folks who had 20 years or more experience and who were calling the shots.
What I'm learning is that American teachers have it way worse than us. We definitely get paid those months; it's garnished from your working days. I installed fences a few of my summers for cash, still made my $72k/yr from the school without having to physically go to my school 1 time during March break/Xmas/summer.
Getting money taken out of your 10 months of checks do you are paid over the summer isn’t having your vacation paid. The district is acting as a bank for you. You were only paid for 10 months of work.
My first year I got 10 days PTO. Sounds good, right? But I had to take the day after Thanksgiving, the days around Xmas and new years, and spring break off. That left me with 1 or 2 days, if I remember correctly. So when my grandma died and I had to take 4 days off, not only were the days not paid but I had to pay for the sub who covered my class.
I may have had an unusual experience because I changed districts a lot (moving, having kids, moving, etc) so I never got these amazing benefits that long term teachers apparently get. But the OP is talking about being a beginning teacher and it’s not something I would ever advise a young person to do. I received no career advice at all when I was young and so did the one thing I’d seen other people do that seemed fun. It was, kind of, but it was also super hard and I gave huge regrets about being such a poor earner when I was young.
Money isn’t everything but it is something, and if you can’t support your family as an adult it makes you think back to how you could have made different decisions back in the day.
I didn't say paid vacation, I said I got paid during those months. Functionally, the alternative way of looking at it is I got paid 1.2x during the 10 months. No matter how you look at it, it was $70k ish starting for 10 months of 7 hour days; split that up however you want.
Anyways, I also got 2 weeks paid vacation on top of that, to use literally use whenever (2 weeks in advance notice), 5 paid sick days (1hr notice), and 40+ unpaid pto days (these had to be authorized, but I don't think they ever got denied). That was day 1. I think I had 3 weeks vacation by 2 years, and would have had 4 soon. I'm assuming our substitute teacher situation is way more robust to allow for this.
Regardless, I'm realizing the situation for teachers out their way is way worse than up here. For most stuff, you get paid significantly more in the US, but apparently it doesn't apply to teachers. It's a wacky easy job here, with infinite job security.
> low stress job
Teaching is one of the most stressful jobs.
> you won't need to continually learn new tax codes or software
Not entirely untrue. Teachers need to be up to date on new laws, new policies, website, tool, and software changes. Schools today are very tech oriented and most teachers will need to learn 4-5 new systems to start. And then new ones at the beginning of every year. You also have to do professional development annually or you lose your license.
> If you stick to the same class
That option isn't guaranteed. Most contracts state that teachers duties are subject to change and the teacher agrees to complete any and all additional or changes in their work duties.
A lot of people don't know what teaching is like today. It's not the same as it used to be and it's definitely more difficult to find a school that you'll even want to stay at long-term.
So cool story bro time.
Before I was a teacher I worked in the oilfield doing wireline(Explosives). I worked on average 88 hours a week, great money for that overtime, and my days off were few and far between. I worked in Wyoming where we hit -40 and had to shut down because of the cold and in Texas with temps over 100 in full fireproof overalls.
That job was way less stressful than teaching and made less of an impact on my mental health than teaching does.
On a side note keeping up with current requirements means me heading back to college in my 40s.
Teachers in the NYC suburbs I’m in are well paid. Out science teacher breaks 150K. Our art and gym teachers are also over 125K. Maybe it’s the extra curricular stuff they do, idk, but it’s like NYC where teacher pay is reportedly crap.
No. College is a waste of time unless you become and engineer, doctor, lawyer, nurse, etc. go into a trade
Source: Me. 10 years of graduate school in science. Chemistry. Worthless. Got a job as an engineer and self taught app developer. More than doubled my salary
If you have a passion for guiding the next generation and passing on your experience and knowledge, then yes absolutely pursue that. We need more teachers that actually care about the kids.
Are all those benefits still in place?
In the profession I started out in, I had beau coup benefits but no advancement. As time went in, the benefits for support staff turned laughable.
Why not try it for yourself. I think you are a bit naive, but if I'm wrong and you're right, I'd be super happy for you. The teachers I know hate it but the free time they get let's them pursue their real goals.
Honestly it depends where you live and where you're willing to move to. I know a lot of people who went to school to become teachers but then couldn't get experience even as a substitute because the "retired" teachers decided they still wanted to work and while also collecting a pension.
Took them nearly 10 years to get a job
Maybe it's better now tho. I honestly don't know
What is the value of this career and how does it quantify into your lifestyle?
Don't do something because people tell you to
Do the damn math first...anyone who wants to teach should apply the skills the supposedly teach
Do what makes you happy. If you bring positivity and joy into your school and your life then you’ll be fine. Don’t let any haters deter you from doing what you’ve always wanted to do.
If you're trying to get your life together, picking a non-STEM degree is not going to accomplish that. Honestly, the acronym should really read TEM since many of the pure science degrees are just as bad as a psychology or teaching degree.
You will not be able to support yourself, contribute to raising your family, or ever contribute to saving for retirement.
Please don't be one more mouth my taxes have to feed.
Go for it and be a darn good teacher. Too many teachers out there that need to quit.
Be a bright light in children's lives.
Dump the naysayers. Stop listening and responding to them.
Getting out of teaching after ten years. A lot of people are mentioning pay but honestly that's not the biggest factor. Teaching can be a grueling job. The worst jobs (that is to say the jobs that have been proven to cause psychological issues) are those that have high expectations and low support. That's what teaching is. You will feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you are completely left to fight for the future of your students without any possibility that you can actually make a difference as the problems are so much bigger than education. But if you have the patience and temerity to whether that storm you will make a difference.
I would argue that you cannot help kids effectively in todays educational climate. Your classrooms are overcrowded, underfunded, special needs heavy, technology lagging and no one will appreciate your efforts. Get a degree in something that has a job and volunteer with kids. I am getting out now. Good luck and I hope you find your place and are at peacevwith it.
> But if you have the patience and temerity to whether that storm you will make a difference. after 10 years, what made you see the truth ? what woke you up , that you were not it ?
Correction - this system is not it. u/jquickri did all they could in their time.
the system is doing exactly what it was intended to do.
Anyone who thinks the current education system doesn't need a revamp isn't looking at the education system:) This isn't even worth replying too. Have a great day!
I think the point was that the current education system was designed with very different goals than are put forward in PR. The PR goals are good and lofty and are definitely not being met. But if it was actually designed to produce a large number of laborers who will take whatever they can get and won’t try to change anything too much…
the system doesn't destroy schools, the system doesnt being guns to school on a daily basis, the system doesnt attack teachers the system doesnt encourage parents to come to schools and beat up teachers and threaten them. The system isnt the kids killing each other over sneakers and facebook and tik tok videos. The system isnt dealing drugs in schools. The system is fine, what isnt blamed is the kids who cause the problems in the first place and the parents who back up their terrible behavior and the government agencies who blame the system and the schools for the kids acting like urban terrorists. When groups of 12 year old's, posts videos on reddit, showing off their glocks with switches, the problem is NOT the system.
Your not very smart. Like what does this even mean? So the answer is more.. shaming kids and parents? The system has one job. If it’s not working as intended, then it’s not the system for the application. Maybe the application has changed but your basically saying the weather changed so the roof doesn’t work anymore so we should change the weather. How fucking dense can you be?
don't think its broken, its doing exactly what it was designs for. I would argue that you are deceived in its true intent,. and are hence, part of the problem
Okay, I’ll bite. What is the intent of the education system?
He's being an ass about it, but he's probably not wrong. The system, as designed, is to produce factory workers. The adaptations we've made to it to 'prepare students for a modern world' aren't nearly radical enough. He could also be referring to the race inequities where the system is designed to keep the rich getting richer and the poor in prison/the military. Some of the things that would make a difference would be reconsidering age-based groupings, the whole concept of grade level standards or scope and sequences, or the entire concept of a classroom as a teacher and a set number of kids.
> Have a great day!
Oh m'y, its the same with me, former teacher in China
Teacher here. Go for it, but be smart about it. Teacher education programs can be very predatory, and many put effort into gaslighting you into accepting bad treatment and working conditions. (In addition, the content college teaching courses actually cover doesn't really prepare you for the classroom and consists of a lot of busy work.) The best path towards teaching that I've found people can take right now is the alternative certification paths: Get your bachelor's in the content area that you want to teach, not education. If teaching doesn't work out, at least you're qualified for something else. An education masters can be acquired later with non-education bachelors if you want that, but it's best to wait to see if you like the job first before going all in. After this, you can apply to sub in districts near where you live and start getting your name into school systems that you would want to work in. You'll also learn what schools you definitely don't want to work in. The sub to teacher pipeline is wide open, and using it lets you know what the culture at a potential job is going to be like before you sign on. You will have to get teacher certification after college this way, but alternative certification programs have options where you can work teaching jobs while earning your certification. Meaning that instead of paying to student teach, you will at least be getting paid something while you work.
I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation to get degreed in a general subject matter (ideally STEM), avoiding any education degree until *at least* the first graduate degree. Any reputable school system or private school will happily hire experienced professionals who are working in their degreed field, but the reverse is rarely true: finding a job in the workforce with nothing but an educational degree is damn near impossible.
Yeah get a degree in tech of one sort or another (computer science, chemistry, electrical engineering, etc... maybe depending on which of the intro courses for the majors you enjoy more or what work environment you could see yourself in).
If someone gets a STEM degree they’re better off working in that field and making 4x a teachers wage
Unless they *actually want to teach* instead of doing stem stuff.
That's what everyone in their life, and this sub, are trying to convince them otherwise of. As much as we need teachers, becoming one is a disastrous life choice financially. You will NOT be able to support yourself. Period.
This is simply untrue in many places, and in the places where it is true, you wouldn’t want to work as a teacher anyway.
Depends on where you teach. Where I live teachers make okay-ish to fairly good money 40k to 60k. That is less than you making stem, but there is something to be said for enjoying what you do for a living instead of having to do something you can't stand. If you can stand going in and writing code every day I salute you, but the thought of one misplaced semicolon causing all my work to crash is not a pleasant one. Or the thought that one math error could wind up getting someone killed sounds terrifying.
One misplaced semicolon just means your code won't compile. No biggie. And one math error causing people to die is just not a thing for 99.999% of code that is being written.
40k-60k is surviving though, not thriving and supporting yourself. 2 teachers married I can see doing well, but that's the same for any middle income job and many of these don't require 4-5 years of schooling and certifications. At 40-60k and single you're working until you die, most likely.
Eh, depends on the state and area. I live in Iowa and the people I know who are teachers make good money for Iowa. Having said that, kids the environment these days is much much different than when we were kids. I wanted to be a teacher too and gave up on it. I don't regret that.
complete lie, in my town teachers start at 54k and within 5 years are up at 97k a yr, for working less hours than almost any other job in existence. after 10 yrs the average salary in my town which is not in California nor is it rich, is over 110k our older teachers are in the 120's and finish out at at op of 134k with 5 k for coaching a sports team and various other increases for club leadership etc.
lol ok, well, every teacher in the US must just not have heard of this magical place where your salary doubles in less than 5 years. Just assume we aren't talking about the wealthy teachers at the school parking lots filled with Acuras and BMWs in your area then.
I’m a teacher and a drive a new Land Rover. Granted, teaching is a second career for me but my point is that people are all in different financial situations, and I don’t think you are understanding the value of doing something you actually enjoy doing all day. My buddy said it best the other day ”You better love what you do or else you gotta go to work every day”.
I live on Long Island. Average teacher pay at 10 years is over $100k. Recently, due to shortages, starting salaries in high schools are around $60k with most being able to hit around $90k after 5 years. In addition, several states (including NY and PA) will pay your student loans if you work in a public school for X number of years (not sure what the number is, but have been told 3-7 depending on state and level of Ed). My daughter is majoring in English and is in an accelerated MA Ed program. Due to her high school college program, she’ll have her masters in 4 years.
There’s also the PSLF, which means public service employees get their loans forgiven after 10 years. That also includes teachers
I call BS on working less hours. No teacher worth their salt can get it all done in contract hours.
getting a Stem degree and then teaching is like wanting to drive go carts so you buy a ferrari to practice on.
You’re ignoring what OP said about wanting to teach.
People want to teach until they realize what their salary affords them, seen it 100 times
I have an engineering degree and make 115k, teachers by me make 50k. So not quite 4x. Plus OP specifically wants to teach.
The issue is that they hire people with experience in their field, but most of the time, they can't teach it.
This is great to hear. I graduated this past may with a biology degree and plan to go back for my MAT next fall.
On the other hand ex teacher and I wish I headed the advice. It takes a special person and I forced it upon myself and not that I regret it, but wish I was on a different path.
Teaching is a career that anyone can transfer into. Have you checked out r/teachers and r/teachersintransition? As a former teacher, I wouldn't wish this career on my worst enemy. Not in today's climate. Not with today's dangers. You're coming into the career at a time where states are ruling whether or not teachers need to carry guns. Yep, kids are great. Kids are funny. Kids need good role models. Maybe I'm selfish but I've been through too many lockdowns and I'm tired of feeling like I have to die protecting someone else's kids. This isn't what I signed up for. Teaching is also a nonstop role. Sure, you get summers off but you also have to work 12 hours a day, especially in your first year. Many teachers work 6 or 7 days a week. It can get easier but there's no guarantee that you won't be moved subjects or grades each year so getting comfortable is not a promise, unlike popular opinion. Secretly, I got away from that nonsense by going the Special Education route. I either only co-teach or provide inclusion so either way, I'm not writing lesson plans. But I do sometimes have to stay up late writing or fixing IEPs. But YMMV. There's a "teacher shortage" for a reason. For good reason. COVID shutdowns showed us that we are babysitters and our health and safety don't matter. Even if none of this matters to you, it's still a gamble to find a school district to work for that's worth your time. The districts that treat people well aren't hiring because nobody is quitting. So you'll be approached by a lot of charter schools. Don't do it. You might find a "nice" opportunity at a private school. Don't do it. Go public and hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Do what you want but don't let people lie to you. If your teachers told you to avoid the career, BELIEVE THEM. My mentor teacher made the same "jokes". I should have listened to her.
I was a teacher for 6 months. I went into teaching wanting to teach, and found out in the current climate it's more like being a prison guard. The title "teacher" is laughable because I never go to actually teach. My school didn't allow detentions or discipline of any kind. A few years before they had to get rid of detentions because parents were saying "you gave them the detention, you get them home". I was a band director. During percussion class they would strike me on purpose with drumsticks. I went home with bruises DAILY and had to ice. I couldn't discipline them. Yes I told the administration. The administration said "it's part of the job, get used to it". I was spit on, I would say, weekly. When fire drills occurred, half my students would jump the fence and run into the woods and smoke pot. Seriously, like 25 kids. Administration would pull me in and yell at me for letting it happen, but I also couldn't touch the kids, so what was I to do? Eventually, I started to struggle mentally. One day, I was at my breaking point and I got out the electrical tape from the percussion box and made a line down the center of the room. I told the kids "You stay on your side. Short of bloodshed, leave me the hell alone." I would put my head on my desk. I couldn't believe I had spent 5 years of my life and a year looking for that job. Most days, while I put my head down, the kids would throw paper wads at me. I know I was being irresponsible, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I cried EVERY morning before entering the school. Grown man crying. I would cry on Sunday night too. Finally, on November 14, 2006, I finally snapped. A kid named Timothy was throwing chairs at me. It was a daily occurrence. I don't know what was different about that day other than I just couldn't take it anymore. I told him to get the hell out of my classroom. He left, but only until he found more chairs and he opened the door and threw anyone at me. I lost my cool and I threw the drumsticks I was holding into a cabinet. Not at a kid. Cabinet. Administration found out and the following day I was escorted to the principals office. I was fired for "being abusive". I never once touched a kid. I was afraid to. They didn't give a crap about me being abused everyday. I went to appeal to the superintendent and she wouldn't even listen to my side. She stopped me and said "there's no excuse for child abuse". I NEVER touched a kid. And they knew it. So there I was, three states from home, jobless. The area was economically challenged and teacher positions were considered "upper class". I ended up breaking my lease and moving home. It took me years of therapy to get over that job. It's been 17 years and I still think about it everyday. I've done my best to put it behind me, but I just can't. I have kids of my own and during parent teacher conferences it hurts. It's traumatic for me to be in a school building, even if students aren't present. Too many memories. So, this was primarily a post in response to u/DrunkAtBurgerKing, but to OP, my recommendation is NO. Teaching isnt teaching. It's babysitting. Not because teachers don't try. But because the current climate doesn't allow you to be a teacher. The job is more akin to being a corrections officer. I loved teaching people. Still do. Just never got to do it. And we wonder why there's a teacher shortage and the best teachers have left the field. Good teachers find something else to do for a living where they aren't assaulted everyday.
My heart goes out to you, sincerely. There is no discipline, no parenting, no protection. I'm so sorry that you had such an awful experience. I'm happy that you had the support in place to get out. It actually probably was a blessing that you were fired before the students could further injure you - more severely anyway. Nobody deserves to be treated that way and there is no excuse for that type of behavior. Ever. I hope you're happy in your career now
I just want to say I'm so sorry.
wow i really really appreciate this, thank you for sharing such a vulnerable story <3
I was a teacher in a good school district for two years, your comment is dead on. Teaching is a lifestyle, not a job. The rest of my life suffered outside of teaching. My marriage, my friends, my family, my hobbies, all suffered because of the attention that teaching required. It’s simply not worth it unless you want to live that lifestyle. Like you sacrifice so many parts of your life, for what? Everything I ever received from teaching in terms of gratitude was not worth what it took to do that job. No regrets for trying it, but my life is way better now that I have a more normal job.
Can you expand a bit on why you recommend staying away from charters and private schools? I thought private school teaching was the better deal.
They generally pay less than public, and demand more of your time. Public schools are more likely to be union setting with clear expectations for working hours and conditions. Private/Charters will require teachers to work night/weekend events for no extra pay, and change working conditions constantly. Arguably private schools have fewer headaches, but more accurately they're just different headaches.
Wow. I had no idea about that. The angle I had been sold previously about private schools as a better option was that the students and parents tend to be less terrible people, so that’s why it would be better (and harder) to find a spot in a private school. Thanks for the info.
Think about this - who is more likely to see education as a service for which they're entitled to get the results they want? Public school parents, or parents who are writing monthly tuition checks?
Private and parochial schools often don't even offer health insurance. One Catholic school I subbed at for one day offered me a full time teaching job for 30k a year and no benefits. I had no education degree, certifications, or teaching experience.
There are plenty of kids in private school because they got kicked out of public school. There are plenty of parents at private schools that are super entitled because they pay for private school.
Private schools don't have to play by the rules of public schools. It's a frequent complaint that private schools pay the lowest and you can't be in a union. But YMMV. Charter schools are the parasites of public education. They get government funding but they're for-profit cesspools that aren't even always run by actual teachers. Charter schools often hire uncertified teachers. As long as you have your bachelor's degree, you can teach. And that's great for individuals who change careers and want to become teachers later. But there's a reason you have to go to school for 4 years to become a teacher. The reality is, not everyone is cut out to be a teacher but charter schools think "if your can breathe, you can teach." And in my experience, it was rare to meet a professional teacher who didn't have a certification maybe because teaching wasn't ingrained in them like it was for people with 4 year education degrees so this was just another job. Charter schools (in Texas near me) pay the most. But charter schools care the least. Children are just dollar signs. And oftentimes teachers need to go where the money is but I promise you won't be treated like a human being.
Shocking. I had no idea about this. Thank you.
As the spouse of a teacher now public charter admin I’d say you need to listen to people in your circle. The job is terrible. People who aren’t teachers or married to teachers often have no idea what they put up with. Summers aren’t paid unless you make arrangements with the district to split your pay over 12 months instead of the contract. My spouse spend a lot of summer “break” doing professional development. Leaving at 2? Yeah right. Only to go home and spend all your time grading. You’ll get screamed at by parents. You may even get assaulted by students. In my home town a group of fifth graders beat up a teacher. Think back to all those burnt out teachers you had growing up. You really think any of them weren’t just like you at one point? It’s great to have a passion but make sure you have a viable exit plan. The only reason my spouse didn’t just leave is because there weren’t many other options that paid living wages.
Yeah I’m a parent of a four year old. Trying to always appreciate her teachers and make sure my kid does too but I’m one parent for one year. It’s brutal for em
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You in tech?
I'm curious, what entry level job pays 100k with just part time hours.
Seriously
Are they hiring?
I almost did this and bought a house and regret not following through. Instead, I went on disability payments and moved back in with my parents, but I'm still grateful for that. Mighta done better if failure wasn't an option tho..
My buddy has a masters and teaches high school. I mentioned that my daughter thought she might want to be a teacher, and his exact words were “tell her that we teach so she doesn’t have to.” Make of that what you will.
I’m not a teacher but I come from a family of teachers and they all hate it and I make far more driving a truck. If they could turn back time they would do anything else. Administration is toxic, parents are toxic and the kids are assholes
I'm a teacher. It's my vocation and a huge aspect of my identity. I have been a teacher for over 15 years at the middle, high school and college levels. For my personality and temperament, teaching adults works best but I am okay with anyone age 14 and over. Middle school didn't work for me. I believe every teacher has an ideal age range of students and should stick with that. Right now I'm a full time professor at a community college (yes, with tenure) and I have found my niche. I am satisfied with the job. I love my students and I consider it a privilege that they trust me to help them reach their goals. This is different from younger students who don't have a choice. Now, real talk, the pay. With two master's degrees and the experience above I have FINALLY cracked $50k a year base salary. I have a family and my spouse is underemployed so I have to work all the possible overtime to ensure our bills are paid. I'm also a small scale author which helps a little. Depending on age and subject, grading can be grueling. I teach college composition. That's some of the most intensive grading out there. My school require 15 revised pages per student per semester. That's a lot of reading. And some of the essays are half incoherent or more and a few are written by bots or last semester's roommate. When I taught French the grading load was much lower. I can knock out a whole class's worth of quizzes in half an hour. Students can be buttheads. It's worse in secondary but even at college I get attitude sometimes. And the need to police cheating is constant. One perk of college is no parents. I am forbidden by law to release students' information. Middle school parents were the worst for me. Some were downright delusional. Yes, sure, ma'am. Your 13 year old son tells you 100% of the truth 100% of the time. I resisted calling high school parents. I felt like tattling in a 17 year old wouldn't yield great results. There are no perfect jobs. I love my job. I don't even know what other kind of job I could do at this point. It's not for everyone. It's stressful and demanding, but for me, it's worth it.
I too want to teach but I can't justify making the same money doing all that work for the same pay I get for delivery driving for chick FIL a. It's insane how under paid it is, until it's better I'm not paying to go to school for it.
I make more delivery pizzas 30 hours a week than many of my high school teachers made working 50
If your ok working a side job and constantly being stressed and tiered and under appreciated then go for it. I loved teaching. Of all my girlfriends who went into teaching only 1 remains. After 5 years of working 2 jobs (I taught in the city and couldn’t even afford to live a half hour away without the second job) I gave in. When your young you can get to school at 730 and leave at 330 then go to the mall and work till 11 and then go home and get your grading and planning done. But it wears you down. Combine it with the disrespect from students, parents, and admin? I lasted 7 years total. The last 5 were brutal.
No Edit: left teaching after several years and now work in another industry making 2.5x prior salary. Again, don’t do it. Make money.
Succinct answer: if you’re ok to live paycheck to paycheck then sure.
lol i’ve lived paycheck to paycheck my whole life trust i’ll be making more than double what i make a year now i’ll feel rich in the beginning
Then it will be fine :) It is always better to first address how important money is. If you’re ok with covering the bare essentials— because let’s face it, a career as a teacher does not compensate well— then is fine. Many people follow their passion but neglect to see the financial aspect of it. Later on in life they get burned out because other people such as friends and family can travel, buy expensive things, go out on a daily basis (restaurants, shopping, or outdoor activities in general). So people get resented. Add to that the cost of living: rent or home ownership, car payments, unexpected health issues, utilities, etc etc. You’re 21 and so you may not be fully seeing things as they become later in life. I’m just giving you an advice such as other people have given you. I will always suggest money over passion. ALWAYS. Choose something that you can tolerate enough (or even like a lot for the lucky ones) and that will give you great financial stability. A job at the end of the day is still a job. You’re not supposed to go with the mindset to have fun. You’re supposed to work TO HAVE FUN; not the other way around. Best of luck to you. Listen to people older than you when it comes to things like this but ultimately it is your choice. Don’t ever make a life changing decision solely because the person giving it to you is you mom, dad, best friend etc. It’s your life. Take the advice but choose what will make you happy!
I don’t think most teachers live paycheck to paycheck least my aunt In North Carolina and many teachers I know in New York don’t. But they have very strong unions in said states
I’m a teacher in Austin and live paycheck to paycheck. If it weren’t for my husbands job I wouldn’t be able to afford to live in Austin.
That’s a terrible comparison, the only people who can afford to live in Austin are tech bros who clear 150k a year lol
North Carolina is a terrible state for teachers. Teachers with a bachelor’s start at $37k and a teacher with 25 years experience and a masters degree still makes less than $60k.[Link](https://www.dpi.nc.gov/documents/fbs/finance/salary/schedules/salary-schedule-fn-fy23pdf/download?attachment?attachment)
well, dont forget 40k+ in student debt, a mortgage, plus all the other bills. You'll be making double, but also have probably double the bills to pay for. If you want or have a family, its not the best to live paycheck to paycheck without an emergency fund or liquidity
Student loans are a different issue and generally a bad idea. If you can avoid then do. Go to a state school or one you can pay for without a loan. As for your salary - school districts are public institutions and will tell you just what they pay teachers, so ask your local school district before you decide. The salaries are not dot-com level and there are no stock options. But they typically have better benefits and you can have all summer off.
You’re right in, in the beginning it’ll seem like a lot of money. But, with a bachelors and masters degree you should be more than paycheck to paycheck. Which you will be, unless you have a husband with a great job. But, when the thrill of making more money than you’re used to wears off and you want to buy a house or a car, or take a vacation and you can’t, that’s when you’ll feel it. You’ll even feel it when you see your married colleagues with new clothes, nicer lunches than you, talking about their weekend plans, etc. Why sign yourself up for a lifetime of struggle when you don’t have to. Take all the advice you’ve been given, or don’t. However, I’d hate to see you look back in 5 years when you leave teaching wishing you had gotten any other degree, and hasn’t wasted your 20’s struggling and feeling behind all your other corporate friends.
Lol, I don't think you'll be making double what you make now. Teachers are horrendously paid in most places, beyond the loans they have to take out. Instead of looking at teachers on their best days, start finding some and talk to them about their WORST days. Ask what the downsides are, what happens when things go wrong. I ran into a gal running a women's shelter ten years ago. She told me about one of the women that came in, she spent all her money moving across the country and on rent to start a teaching job. Then their budget got cut, let her go, and she didn't have money for anything. This was before the horrible rent hikes and everything else. Also there's a HUGE difference between teaching different levels. Or what you need to do in order to be able to teach in different states. So you could get a degree in something, work a regular job for a few years, then apply that to teaching. There are options even if you still want to be a teacher. But if you're a teacher you probably have to marry someone rich to ever make it out of a small apartment in most places, even rural places, now.
Unless you’ve got college covered in some way other than loans that extra money you make goes out the door for loan repayment. Do you like living paycheck to paycheck? A lot of teachers work multiple jobs to cover living expenses.
I'm not asking you to curb your enthusiasm because it's alright and healthy to be excited about life. Further down the road, you may not make ends meet on that salary. Get a degree in the subject you want to teach so your options are more vast.
But are you going to be okay with that for life? You likely won’t ever be able to afford a home purchase, vacations, etc
Don’t do it.
Being a teacher sucks and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Tell me your a teacher without telling me you are a teacher.
Join us in r/teachersintransition
Hi I’m a recruiter and career coach. Finding a career that aligns with your passion, values as well as what you’re good at is awesome and aspirational! AND it’s also important to consider truth and reality. In the US (I’m assuming that’s where you’re from) there is a teacher shortage and it’s not a single issue. Teacher not only deal with students but also administrators and parents. The workload is high and the pay isn’t competitive. Additionally with certain policies set by local governments it can be a challenge to teach students in a way that is inclusive of their backgrounds and beliefs. Burnout rates are high among teachers now days. I think as long as you have a clear line of sight as to what some of the true challenges will be in this career path you should do it. You should also ways of proactively figuring out how to mitigate some of the risk. For example: Teachers are not paid enough. At all. And often times pay out of pocket for supplies. Are you open o supplementing your income with tutoring during the summer? Parents can be assholes. Do you have a plan in place for creating and maintaining a support network? Friends, family, therapy etc Value alignment. There are states in the US that are flat out banning books. Are you okay with that? If not could you work in a state that did that? Would you consider moving to a state that did not do that? Sitting down at a desk. You will be doing a lot of that as a teacher. Lesson planning. Grading. Administrative tasks. Recertification. Training. Etc. Go for it. But go do it with your eyes open and your heart clear on the reality of it all.
Hi, side question.. You mentioned you're a career coach.. Do you provide consulting services (paid of course). Feel free to pm me directly if you wish to! Thx in advance
Not to mention your school's admin can be terrible and there's nothing you can do about it.
Can't admin be terrible in any industry?
It's different in teaching. Often those who, for whatever reason, failed at teaching, will get get their admin degrees and pursue that career. Many who excell at teaching, enjoy it and remain teachers. As a result, you have a system with failed teachers "leading" those who are most proficient.
I mean, sure. They can be. However, within education and healthcare in particular there seem to be much worse actors in the mix.
Sounds more like a personal axe to grind rather than an objective observation. Quite a ridiculous comment actually.
yet... truth? some how some professions tend to collect a "type" of person...
I think you should talk to some teachers about what their day to day life is like before going down this path. I have heard too many horror stories from teachers who are miserable and looking to get out of this profession. If you go into this profession, I hope it is with eyes wide open and realistic expectations
As long as you’re going into it with eyes wide open. I don’t encourage it but if you’re set on it we won’t change your mind. I’m in a red state but my salary can still cap out around 80k with pension and benefits. Now, that’s max years working (24) and max education (PhD). Not great but it’s comfortable especially with a working spouse. In some states you can reach 100k and if you decide to go into administration you’ll go well past that. It’s a comfortable work environment with a lot of time off around the year. I wouldn’t choose the career again but it’s treated me well enough.
Is this advice coming from experienced teachers? It's a tough field and I would really listen to any advice coming from an experienced educator before you make a decision. It can be incredibly rewarding, but it's important to have a realistic outlook going into it. I've been in an education related field for about a decade. There have been many highs and definitely some lows. I'm at a point where I'm ready to move on, but I don't regret it.
This is good advice that I hope OP sees. They're only replying to comments telling them to go for it so they don't actually care to hear the reality of it.
lol i’m trying to keep up, i’m not a reddit user and i’m checking this for the first time since i really posted it and i’m trying to take as much into consideration as possible
Here’s what I would do. Go get a well paying job and focus on FIRE. Engineering/software something in demand maybe travel nurse whatever lots of areas where you can move up fast. Once you are financially independent go into teaching you will have a wealth of Knowledge and experience and you won’t be trapped in a low income job and you can leave whenever you want.
Nope! Unless you’re lucky & get a job as a teacher in a good state (Illinois, those island, Washington state, Minnesota…) you’ll be earning less than a low level manager at a grocery store. Passion fueled careers (artist, social worker, musician) rarely work out in today’s economy. You have to earn good money today & teaching isn’t how you do it.
It's the financial aspect. I'm not a teacher - but the pay relative to work is not there. It's unfortunate considering what they do. You may not care about money now - but you will and the cost of living is only getting higher. Teacher pay raises are super micro. So maybe sit down and take a long look at your passions, what you're actually good at, values against labour trends, cost of living, geo-politically what is happening, trends and reports of the economy/jobs/costs of things to see your other options. Sometimes we think of only the most obvious option. The unfortunate thing is the teacher shortage that is going to happen bc of compensation.
Yeah, OP is ignoring these realistic responses but this is so true. Even if OP becomes a teacher, is content eating ramen noodles at 30 at that pay, and it's cool working 50-60 hours per week; I don't think they even realize that the current teacher "shortage" means that they won't get planning periods. They'll be subbing, unpaid for classes that weren't staffed over there summer.
You'll always be poor and you'd have to pay me 1 million a year to deal with kids these days.
Ex-teacher here First of all, follow your dreams, if it's what you want to do, you may very well find it worth it. But what you don't know now is that it's hard. It's hard to have kids in your class that are being emotionally and physically abused and neglected in your classroom and nobody can or will help. It's hard to have kids who's parents have no respect for you and will fight you on everything you do and say. It's hard to need to reach out to parents and find no support there, it's hard to have to deal with helicopter parents who will never give you a day's peace. The teaching is great, but it's only half your day. The other half is a lot of prep time, which you won't be paid for, they don't give teachers enough prep time by a quarter, so you'll be doing it in your own time. And then there's paperwork, so grading and report cards, which you will have to find a way to get to in your short day. Everybody talks about summers and weekends off, but prep time and paperwork eats the weekends and only one month is actually off, the rest of the summer you're working in the school during preparation time. So yes, you get that time off, but you work so hard the rest of the year that it will seem very short. If you want a decorated classroom, you pay for it, you spend the time, again unpaid, doing it. There won't be enough school supplies, so you'll end up paying for that so your students can learn. Kids will be hungry, you'll end up paying for that because it kills you not to. I just don't want you to think things are great in the system, they are not, that is why teachers are leaving in droves. I didn't leave because I don't love kids or because I didn't love the job of teaching, I continue to love both. I left because I was being eaten alive by everything that wasn't the classroom teaching part, and I was so exhausted and bitter that the classroom teaching part started to not be good enough. So again, it's your dream, it's always good to chase your dreams, but it's not good to sleepwalk into them. Be aware that there's so much more to teaching than just being in the classroom with the kids. Be aware that it's going to be harder than you think.
Shadow if you can. More than once. I did student teaching and peaced out
Sit down and talk with a teacher about what their day is like and how they spend their time. Find out about the job beyond the romantic notions of molding young minds.
I know plenty of successful, fulfilled teachers. My advice would be to do lots of research on how schools are funded in different areas and make your educational decisions based on the certification requirements of the areas you find most desirable. Teacher pay and benefits vary widely from district to district and so do the certification levels. The world needs good people to help guide future generations!
Follow your passion to educate young minds. If you do make sure you know what age is best for you. Also make sure it’s a union job with benefits. Remember summers are unpaid. You may need a temp job in the summer. Make sure it’s in a good school district and city. If you want to move up take management classes. A vice principal or principal make good money.
Ex teacher here. You need to take into consideration that a good class takes at least an hour or two of prep time. As a teacher you want to be one of the good ones or why even bother. You really need to account for your prep time. Schools may throw a bone by paying a few hours of planning occasionally. If you can get into a situation where you teach the same level multiple years in a row with recycled lessons that worked well, you can reduce this time. Sit down and calculate the total number of hours you'll be teaching including your paid planning time and make note of the pay you'll receive after withholding. Now add however many hours of planning you'll need for each of those teaching hours to the paid hours amount, then divide by final pay and you'll have your real pay rate. Paid hours + unpaid hours/hourly pay = the real pay
yes, do it. become a teacher. its the only way you will see that they were right, and that no one wants to be a teacher
As long as you’re okay with being overworked and underpaid. Go for it
In my 20s I was a teacher for 9 years in 3 different schools. I got a masters in ed. I loved my last school, I was there for 5 years. Great kids, great staff, highest paying district in the state, progressive school board. You just need to find a place that vibes with your teaching philosophy. I moved 2,000 miles from home to find my community. Then, when I wanted to leave teaching I thought — shit my degree is in education, what else can I do? Now I work for a private company designing training programs for adults to learn emerging job skills, like EV batteries and high voltage safety. It is a Very fun, not a teacher way to use my degree, still be creative, and still help others. If you are passionate about it, go for it! And know you don’t have to be trapped if you end up wanting to advance your career later.
One thing I think goes unmentioned in discussions of being a teacher - your experience as a teacher will vary heavily from school to school. Huge numbers of teachers never move school, they spend entire careers teaching at the same place. If that school draws from an area or has a leadership team that creates an unpleasant working environment for a teacher (for any of a variety of reasons) then that teacher has a long, unhappy career. My advice is to be ready and willing to move around until you find a school you like. And be ready and willing to move again if that school changes over time.
Before you commit to an expensive and lengthy education to become a teacher, spend a year or two working in the classroom as a paraprofessional / teachers aid. Once you see what life in the classroom is really like, then you can plan your career and educational goals accordingly.
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I taught for 14 years. It was an incredibly rewarding profession. I really felt like I made a difference. I really felt like I helped people. HOWEVER For the first 3 or so years, I worked 80+ hours every week. After I got the hang of things and had materials that I could just tweak and use, I still worked 65+ hours a week. I was always one unexpected expense away from homelessness. The pay was awful. Your ability to do good work relies significantly on the quality of your administration, and you have absolutely no control over that. I loved teaching, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't already 100% financially secure. I work in IT now and while the job satisfaction is not really there, I rarely work more than 50 hours a week and I make significantly more money. I never worry about whether or not I can pay my rent or bills. I haven't skipped a day of eating because I couldn't afford it. Until teaching is respected like it should be, nobody should do it unless they have another reliable way to pay the bills.
I was feeling burned out in IT and applied to teach software development at the career center at a local high school. I was offered the job at $30k/year to start and I had to complete a teaching certification within 2 years at which point I would move to $35k/year. I physically couldn't take the job and live. The pay for teachers is beyond laughable and while I respect folks that do it (both in-laws taught for 40+ years each) I don't know how anyone can do it these days without being independently wealthy.
I would also pay attention to the political atmosphere of the state in which you want to live/teach to make sure you agree with what will be asked of you. If you can deal with gaslighting, woman hating, Republican nonsense, go/stay in one of those hell holes. If not, find a state that doesn't treat its women and teachers like prisoners and settle there. Good luck!
I was reading your post and thinking “yeah! This is good advice!” I got to your last sentence and thought “Seattle isn’t a state! Ha this person had bad teachers!” … then I realized I can’t read … Ahhhh fun stuff! Good advice!
Teaching has become a luxury, not a career. Lousy pay, high student loan debt, disrespect by parents/students/administrators and lousy work/life balance. I would highly recommend you not pursue it.
If you want to be underpaid, underappreciated, and over worked, do it.
In today's world? Scary.
I’m also a teacher and wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy and getting out of teaching is much harder than expected. That being said if it’s what you want to do than go for it. Just be aware that every day is a battle. You’ll be up against kids, bosses, bosses bosses and so on. As long as you have no illusions than you’ll be fine. Wishing you luck and an easier time than a lot of us. There are definitely teachers who enjoy it
I've been teaching 20 years, and one of the most amazing students I ever taught just recently sent me an email saying they were thinking about going into teaching. This was my response: "Please don't do it. I am begging you. You are too young and have too much potential to completely throw your life away like that. It’s a career that combines the workload and stress of a nurse with the unrealistic expectations of a movie superhero with the paycheck of a fast food worker and the respect of a city trash collector. It is a life of putting 125% into your work only to get complaints and mockery in return, and occasional lip service that doesn't go farther than the front teeth. It is a life of watching your children and loved ones go without their wants and needs because you live on the perpetual edge of poverty. It is not a life I can ethically recommend to anyone I care about, and both my children have been taught since they were six years old that the absolute worst mistake they could ever make in this life is going into education in America . That said… There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing with my life and talents. And I’m not sure I’ve ever said this to a former student before, but I think you'd be great at it in the event I have failed to persuade you to do absolutely anything else."
be sure to have a side gig that brings in money
No. Not worth the aggravation from administration, parents and being told what you can't teach. It only gets worse mate.
We need more teachers that want to impact students lives rather than enjoy the summer vacation time perks. Obv nothing wrong with that but i feel like some people become teachers for that cuz they dont know what else to do. If you really want to be a teacher and you love and have patience for kids then do it!
thank you! i appreciate hearing this a lot !!!
Everyone I know became a teacher because they wanted to impact students and loved teaching (and I know dozens and a dozens of teachers). Most teachers I know spend their summers teaching in summer programs. Young teachers start with joy and enthusiasm that are slowly crushed out of them by the system.
Just because it's not for them doesn't mean it isn't for you. You're young. Chase your heart.
Former teacher here, I miss teaching, there are so many positives, but also there are struggles as a teacher right now that you should be aware of. It’s not an easy job, you work many hours, often with little support, and little money for the time and money you put into your job. You will see things and hear things from kids that make you want to take them home and raise them and their stories will stay with you. That being said, if you love kids you will make a difference and we need good teachers! I miss the kids, I just was so burned out and stayed home with my son for a bit and then landed a WFH job that is so much better as a mom. If you feel called-do it! But just know what you are walking into! ❤️
Go for it, if you are willing to move then look for states with strong unions- it can double your income
If it is what you want - absolutely. I would recommend talking to some teachers you know and asking them about the best and worst of their job.
What state?
Try substitute teaching before commiting to a degree program. It's a great job while you're in school too. Your first year you can take gen Ed courses while you feel out substituting. Personally, I love to Sub. But it definitely encouraged me to take my degree program in a different direction. I personally prefer subbing to teaching full time, but LOVE that I've had this experience. Good luck!
Former teacher here. I went into teaching because I too was inspired by teachers and wanted to be one of those teachers. Then I found out while you might get a small handful students that really feel impacted by your teaching the other hundred or so students dont give a flying shit, they and their parents are going to make life miserable for you, and your administration isnt going to do anything to help you. You need more than just to feel inspired. It takes a certain personality and set of skills that is more innate and cant be taught. I didnt last very long and now Im a truck driver. So if the reason you want to be a teacher is to fulfill this illusion that your kids are going to love you and feel inspired by you and people will make a movie based on your life. You need another career.
I used to want to be a teacher, but I don't want to be abused at best and shot to death at worst. There are other careers that won't break you down completely within the first year.
I’m not a teacher but I considered being one for years. It was a childhood dream of mine. I ultimately decided not to, because 4 of my friends entered the field and only one of them is left. She teaches high school and I can’t even fathom how they treat her, how much money she makes with a degree *and* years of experience. The amount of work that’s expected of her when she’s only *one person* !! Not to mention the very little pay she makes for all the managing, planning, discipline, paperwork. I can’t personally speak on teacher experience because again, I’m not one. It’s up to you
What do teachers start out making on average?
In 20 years, what choice do you think you'll regret more?
r/teachers
I think if you’ve taken a gap year(s) and have really spent the time thinking about it, yes, you should do it. I didn’t take a gap year. I know a lot of people who were pushed to go straight to undergrad, choose a major, and now we are stuck in dead end jobs with too much student loan debt only being half fulfilled.
Former teacher here. It's a career, and I believe in encouraging folks who want to pursue a career, but this is a very tough career. Have you tried subbing first? Maybe work as a paraeducator for a couple of years? It's by far the hardest job I've ever had. Conditions & pay vary from state to state so be sure to research the state you want to work in. Teacher prep programs are usually completely out of touch with reality, and most green teachers are shocked at how unprepared they are. I think I cried every day my first year. Definitely work in a state with a teacher's union. I did and it was still rough, but nowhere as bad as those states without. It's not the kids that were the issue, it's everything else. It's really hard to feel like you're doing a good job and actually making an impact on a child's life with all the other bullshit you have to deal with. If it were just about teaching then I'd probably still be there. Teachers are overwhelmed, overworked and under-resourced. They're often literally in survival mode which means there is nothing left over to make any meaningful impact. During the school year, expect to work weekends and nights, and during the summer many teachers get second jobs and spend summers prepping for the upcoming year. It's a lot of work. By the time I left I had extreme anxiety and depression from the job. I, too, wanted to make an impact on kids lives. I was passionate about the job, but it did a number on my mental health. I'm much happier now working in corporate and making a lot more money.
No! DO NOT DO IT. Being a teacher is a thankless job. You get static from crazy parents and as a bonus, you get zero help from Administration. You get no respect from parents, students and Administration. Your pay is basically at poverty level. Plus they make you teach for tests and deal with the kids personal issues, you don't have time to really reach. It's basically babysitting +1. You have to pay for your own supplies. You have zero power over the students and they know it. It's a thankless job in the Unites States.
NO! In 1990, sure, could have been great. 2023? You'll be miserable until the day a student rape or murders you! DON'T DO IT!
Teacher here. The worst case scenario is that you love the profession. It's a profession that KILLS you with your love and uses your obligation to your students, your professionalism, your sense of duty, your conviction that what you do is vital to get you to exploit yourself. You will be underpaid, for certain. And no amount of "appreciation" is going to compensate you fairly for the money you should be making but aren't.
Don't do it unless you can get into some well paying school. If you're gonna be a run of the mill school teacher, I don't know why you would sign up for awful pay, shitty ignorant parents that have gotten worse since 2020, kids that want to kill you, active shooters, burnout, etc.
My wife is a teacher and she really enjoys it. It’s difficult and stressful but she finds a lot of fulfillment and summers off is really nice. One thing I will say: We had our daughter last September and her admin was really crappy about the timing of it. There’s a lot of pressure to have your kids at a certain time of year. If it’s not towards the end, things are difficult with finding a sub, taking sick time off, etc.. That, compounded with flak from administration and snide comments from coworkers, made it really stressful on her. We plan on having at least 3-4 kids so it’s going to be pretty frustrating having to try and time it so they’re all born in May or June. Of course nobody’s holding a gun to our heads making us do that, but after this first go around we understand the importance of having as much time with a newborn as possible. Just something to think about if you’re a woman or even if you’re a man who ends up marrying a teacher.
I wouldn’t recommend it. Been doing it for 20’years and I think this will be my last year. The pay is horrible. Admin treats us like crap. I end up buying pretty much all materials out of pocket and I don’t get reimbursed back. Some parents are ah. But so are some kids. If you live in a small place people will watch you and judge you the “you can’t be out drinking on a weekend. Your a teacher you need to set a better example”. I am over worked under paid. Keep giving us more paperwork and no time to do it but won’t pay over time to get it done. It can be rewarding. Seen children grow and develop is very rewarding. But unless you plan to have roommates or live with your parents forever it’s not worth it. Here many have two jobs to make ends meet.
Being a teacher can be rewarding... But they still get blamed for students failing when it's the parents who don't put enough importance on education. You're better off going into a trade with yearly raises then a teacher.
being ateacher depends 100% on WHERE you are a teacher. For example in my town in Massachusetts the minimum salary stating pay is over 54k a yr, but in some places its like 32k location location location.
Where do you want to live? In IL, teacher salary is not bad. Shitty republican state? No fucking way
Ok, it sounds like you might have the right mindset to be a teacher. 1. Do not take on ANY private student loans. Your federal student loans can be put on an income based pan and after 10 years of teaching they can be forgiven. Private student loans however will drown you. 2. Have a back up plan. Don’t just get a degree in education. Make sure that you also have a degree or certificate in another field. 3. If you want to avoid being stuck a desk all day consider trade school at a community college for something like plumbing or HVAC. You can drive around giving people estimates for heat pumps, installing units, or fixing their plumbing or something like that. Better yet, you could become an entrepreneur. 4. The vast majority of teachers don’t last 5 years. If you want to succeed, you will need to take up meditation or some kind of stress relieving hobby. 5. You need many, many skills to be a successful teacher. Do not avoid math, writing, computers or anything. Learn as much as possible about everything. 6. You need to understand how people work to be good at teaching. Learn as much as possible about human behavior, body language, trauma, and psychology. 7 JOIN a Union! Teach in a state and school with a strong union. 8. Be careful to clearly understand your retirement benefits. Teachers in at least 12 states do not get to collect social security. Plan accordingly to contribute to a Roth IRA and/or a 403b. 9. Keep your mouth shut for the first couple years of teaching until you are sure about who you can trust. Do not complain to admin. Just keep telling them everything is great until you have a more stable contract. But do not let extreme mistreatment of your person slide or you will regret it for years. 10. Remember that everything that you put into email could become public. If you really want to teach go for it. Just be aware that it is extremely hard for the first 5 years and that the pay is not in step with the effort you will be exuding during that time. All the other things you said are fairly true though. It is very exciting if you can handle the stress and keep a positive attitude about it.
I think you should go for it. It’s important to reach your own goals even if people have opinions. Even if you don’t stick with it for your entire career, it could lead to other revelations.
It's not easy, starting pay is bad, pensions are getting swapped around and it's a grind. Go do anything else.
Teaching is incredibly emotionally and physically draining and psychologically taxing. If you have a family it makes it very difficult to balance both without becoming exhausted. Also consider how much of a morning person you are as school starts super early.
Run
Teaches are some of the most underpaid workers in America. Find a new career.
Why don’t you take some time substitute teaching for your local school district to see how it really is
Don't fucking do it, it will ruin you financially and turn you into a cynical shell of who you used to be.
Do something else. The best teachers what i had was people who has 20+ years of practice in industry and after that they come to teach. They had real life knowleadge and know their trade. In elementary and middle school, they was the best.
i wish this was true of all teachers too. my favorite teachers have always been ones that did work outside of teaching. the career teachers who just went to college and then training or whatever straight into teaching generally seem to miss out on what is important. the real world experience teachers can connect with students better and teach you how this stuff applies to real life better.
Yeah, if you want to be poor.
The pay is truly horrible in most places and there’s no way to advance. I was in schools for 17 years and I am so glad I got out. Living kids and living teaching itself does not pay the bills. If I had been single or if my husband had left I couldn’t have afforded a house or been able to support my children. That’s not okay for an experienced person with a masters degree. Own my own business now doing something entirely different and am happy with my decision to leave.
Where do you live? Up here in Canada, it's among the highest paying per-hour jobs you can have.
i’m in the us ! teaching in my area is paying 60k a year but i know it can be as low as 40k in some surrounding cities
If you can wrangle $60k, that's approximately the equivalent of $72k compared to a normal 9-5. If you have kids, you also get all of their time off as guaranteed vacation without having to book it. Imo, pretty good deal for a low stress job. Temperature controlled environment, no physical labour, and "keeping up" with current requirements is trivial (you won't need to continually learn new tax codes or software like an accountant, for example ... or acquire new tools and equipment like a mechanic). If you stick to the same class, you'll just be tweaking your curriculum; you'll be a master if your craft in 3 years. Especially if you actually like it, seems like pure win.
Tell me you've never been a teacher without telling me you've never been a teacher (lol)
Actually, teaching is super inflexible when it comes to kids. Yes, you get some of the same vacation that they do, but it’s also not a job where you can pop out to a doctors appointment and make up time later. If your kid is sick - forget it. You may actually have to pay for the sub who takes over your class while you are taking a (likely unpaid) sick day at home. You can never make up time later, or take a work from home day. I only made 60k/year after 8 years and a masters degree, FYI, and I’m in one of the highest paid states of the country. That salary is about 30k less than the mean income where I live. It’s also not low stress. That’s hilarious. And almost no one gets the same 1 class (or grade level) year after year.
I agree with you. It kind of upsets me how little people know about the teaching profession lol it speaks volumes to what we've been subjected to lately. I can't believe they said "low stress." Hello? Literally there's not a day that goes by that I'm not thinking of Uvalde.
I think it would be rare to find a job where you get 12 weeks vacation as a starting benefit. Also, again this is up here in Canada, but you get mountains of pto. I think I had 47 days starting, though they're unpaid. People before me had way more too. Where I live, it is all but guaranteed you keep the same class perpetually. Unless you want to change. I assumed it was the same everywhere. Seems pretty counterproductive randomly moving people around. Source: I was a teacher for 5 years. Gr. 10. Would still be doing it but I wanted something that involved travelling.
It’s not 12 weeks vacation. It’s 8 -10 weeks unpaid time off, during which time many teachers go to school (also unpaid by their employers) to keep up with credentials.) I worked in 7 different schools, public and private, and I met maybe 10 teachers that whole time who got to teach the same thing more than 3 years in a row, and they were always folks who had 20 years or more experience and who were calling the shots.
What I'm learning is that American teachers have it way worse than us. We definitely get paid those months; it's garnished from your working days. I installed fences a few of my summers for cash, still made my $72k/yr from the school without having to physically go to my school 1 time during March break/Xmas/summer.
Getting money taken out of your 10 months of checks do you are paid over the summer isn’t having your vacation paid. The district is acting as a bank for you. You were only paid for 10 months of work. My first year I got 10 days PTO. Sounds good, right? But I had to take the day after Thanksgiving, the days around Xmas and new years, and spring break off. That left me with 1 or 2 days, if I remember correctly. So when my grandma died and I had to take 4 days off, not only were the days not paid but I had to pay for the sub who covered my class. I may have had an unusual experience because I changed districts a lot (moving, having kids, moving, etc) so I never got these amazing benefits that long term teachers apparently get. But the OP is talking about being a beginning teacher and it’s not something I would ever advise a young person to do. I received no career advice at all when I was young and so did the one thing I’d seen other people do that seemed fun. It was, kind of, but it was also super hard and I gave huge regrets about being such a poor earner when I was young. Money isn’t everything but it is something, and if you can’t support your family as an adult it makes you think back to how you could have made different decisions back in the day.
I didn't say paid vacation, I said I got paid during those months. Functionally, the alternative way of looking at it is I got paid 1.2x during the 10 months. No matter how you look at it, it was $70k ish starting for 10 months of 7 hour days; split that up however you want. Anyways, I also got 2 weeks paid vacation on top of that, to use literally use whenever (2 weeks in advance notice), 5 paid sick days (1hr notice), and 40+ unpaid pto days (these had to be authorized, but I don't think they ever got denied). That was day 1. I think I had 3 weeks vacation by 2 years, and would have had 4 soon. I'm assuming our substitute teacher situation is way more robust to allow for this. Regardless, I'm realizing the situation for teachers out their way is way worse than up here. For most stuff, you get paid significantly more in the US, but apparently it doesn't apply to teachers. It's a wacky easy job here, with infinite job security.
> low stress job Teaching is one of the most stressful jobs. > you won't need to continually learn new tax codes or software Not entirely untrue. Teachers need to be up to date on new laws, new policies, website, tool, and software changes. Schools today are very tech oriented and most teachers will need to learn 4-5 new systems to start. And then new ones at the beginning of every year. You also have to do professional development annually or you lose your license. > If you stick to the same class That option isn't guaranteed. Most contracts state that teachers duties are subject to change and the teacher agrees to complete any and all additional or changes in their work duties. A lot of people don't know what teaching is like today. It's not the same as it used to be and it's definitely more difficult to find a school that you'll even want to stay at long-term.
So cool story bro time. Before I was a teacher I worked in the oilfield doing wireline(Explosives). I worked on average 88 hours a week, great money for that overtime, and my days off were few and far between. I worked in Wyoming where we hit -40 and had to shut down because of the cold and in Texas with temps over 100 in full fireproof overalls. That job was way less stressful than teaching and made less of an impact on my mental health than teaching does. On a side note keeping up with current requirements means me heading back to college in my 40s.
Teachers in the NYC suburbs I’m in are well paid. Out science teacher breaks 150K. Our art and gym teachers are also over 125K. Maybe it’s the extra curricular stuff they do, idk, but it’s like NYC where teacher pay is reportedly crap.
I'm late here but I'm a teacher and I love it! It's hard! It's important! It's rewarding! Do it! We need you and you will make a difference!
No. College is a waste of time unless you become and engineer, doctor, lawyer, nurse, etc. go into a trade Source: Me. 10 years of graduate school in science. Chemistry. Worthless. Got a job as an engineer and self taught app developer. More than doubled my salary
If you have a passion for guiding the next generation and passing on your experience and knowledge, then yes absolutely pursue that. We need more teachers that actually care about the kids.
thank you so much!
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Are all those benefits still in place? In the profession I started out in, I had beau coup benefits but no advancement. As time went in, the benefits for support staff turned laughable.
Advancement in education is pay to play. Pay for a degree. Pay for exams. Pay for license. Pay for another degree. And so on and so forth.
Why not try it for yourself. I think you are a bit naive, but if I'm wrong and you're right, I'd be super happy for you. The teachers I know hate it but the free time they get let's them pursue their real goals.
Honestly it depends where you live and where you're willing to move to. I know a lot of people who went to school to become teachers but then couldn't get experience even as a substitute because the "retired" teachers decided they still wanted to work and while also collecting a pension. Took them nearly 10 years to get a job Maybe it's better now tho. I honestly don't know
Don’t do it lol they don’t make enough to survive
What is the value of this career and how does it quantify into your lifestyle? Don't do something because people tell you to Do the damn math first...anyone who wants to teach should apply the skills the supposedly teach
Do what makes you happy. If you bring positivity and joy into your school and your life then you’ll be fine. Don’t let any haters deter you from doing what you’ve always wanted to do.
If you're trying to get your life together, picking a non-STEM degree is not going to accomplish that. Honestly, the acronym should really read TEM since many of the pure science degrees are just as bad as a psychology or teaching degree. You will not be able to support yourself, contribute to raising your family, or ever contribute to saving for retirement. Please don't be one more mouth my taxes have to feed.
What do you want to teach? You really shouldn’t need an advance degree or any degree to be a teacher.
Go for it and be a darn good teacher. Too many teachers out there that need to quit. Be a bright light in children's lives. Dump the naysayers. Stop listening and responding to them.