im looking for the job with the most amount of vacation time. helping kids is a great bonus. what are the real world pros and cons about teaching?

 

Congressmen have a lot of vacation. College professors have to teach 12-20 hours/week.

 

Be a PE teacher! They just stand around and give commands to students.

 

college prof would be the best, but requires more schooling and you have to do research/get grant funding

 

You want lots of time off? I'd say join the auto-worker's union. Have a little patience and you'll have tonnnnns of time off on the next strike.

 

What's your education level, Happy?

 

Teacher = accidental politician

Good luck with that.

 

tell that to my mom ;-). She wanted to be a PE teacher since age 10 and she is really, really good at it. Teaching also isnt the best pay, but it is very fundamental to society, and I have even thought about being a History/economic teacher; however, I don't feel its the best for me. Teaching is cool though I will say!

 

To be a teacher you'll need to go to school get at least your BA and a teaching credential. To obtain a credential you'll need to go to school for another year or so, then depending on what you want to teach, Elementary School, Secondary, you might need to take a test. And/OR decide if you want a credential in a single or multiple subject.

Also during your schooling on becoming a teacher you'll have to student teach. Usually the first semester is class observation and the second is actual teaching. Then when you're finished you'll get your credential!

Now you have to find a job. If it's English or Math then there's no problem finding one, if its anything else, like history, science and PE; those are the hard ones to get.

And when you do get a job you'll still be reviewed your first year and I'm pretty sure after that you'll get "tenure". Every few years you'll have to get "certificated" again, but it's not that bad.

However:


Depending where you teach you'll have to do some discipline. Some places are worse than others. And if you lose control of a class in the beginning, prepare for a horrible year.

Depending on what you teach you'll have lots of grading to do. (Outside of work, at home)

Depending on where you teach funding may suffer. Its not like a business so some things you'd might expect, IT guys may be understaffed or non existent.

Some people say that teaching is a 12 month job condensed into 9.

Lastly I've noticed trends toward more and more in-services and trainings and focus on "benchmarked" performance rather than actual teaching.

Pros:

Usually good pay 45k-65k+ the higher your degree the more money you make. If you get your PHD online, which a lot do, you can get the costs covered by your district (sometimes) and you'll get a raise when your done.

Raises are good, and consistent every year, but not merit based (in public school)

Great vacation time and benefits.


I would suggest only become a teacher if you have it in you.

If you're on the fence about it, don't do it.

Be a substitute first to get your feet wet.

http://www.teachcalifornia.org

BTW I'm not a teacher. I was strongly thinking about being one and did tons of research. I currently work and have worked at a public High School in a classified Library position for almost 3 years. I talk to teachers everyday and I am usually involved in most of their meetings/budgets etc...

If you have any questions you can PM me.

 

I taught for 6 years.

I left, fundamentally, because I got "Governated."

If you're in it for the long vacations, don't bother. I wound up working the summers to bridge the extra income I needed in order to really buy a home.*

Even if I weren't working through the summer, I'd have been working on my Master's in a summer program. Finding said summer program that was approved by the State was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Lastly, I had the most gross contempt for about 75% of the people I was working with. They loved kids, but had absolutely no regard for themselves as professionals. They acted like they were slaves, and behaved accordingly. Most (not all) of my administrators were not only blindingly incompetent, but had zero clue about what was really being asked of them by the district office. The two good administrators I worked under made the job bearable.

Underneath the entire system is a layer of politicians with agendas that have very little to do with supporting young people and/or improving the opportunities for the population.

If the road to Hell is indeed paved with good intentions, welcome to The Interstate System.

*most of the teacher homebuyer programs allowed you to live in the house, but the equity was the state's/county's/city's. F-that; I'll take my chances on a 40-year mortgage.