A conversation w/ daryn re: being a teacher

[Isura]

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i like the professor angle, but that involves getting a phd.. a daunting task

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Daunting but rewarding in many ways (even if you never work as a prof afterwords).

[Sooga]

When I first started teaching, I planned on getting a Master's degree or PH.D. and teaching at least at a community college, but now that I've taught high school for 3 years, I don't know if I want to do that... college seems so much more impersonal, and harder to really get to know the students. Plus in high school, teachers can still play a fairly big role in influencing a student's life, whereas by the time someone gets to college, they usually have a good idea about where their life is headed.

[chas19]

I teach in a public school and enjoy it a great deal. Most of the positives and negatives have been addressed -- doing something meaningful in life vs. making money boils it down pretty good. Vacation, however, is something of a double edged sword. Summers off (2 months not 3) is great, however, the time of your vactions will always be choosen by someone else and these will coincide with times when many other people are also on vacation. Picking a few off peak days to visit Vegas, Disneyland, whatever is not an option, nor is taking long weekends unless they're national holidays. I'm not complaining, it's still lots of vacation time, just pointing out an often over looked fact.
Hot co-workers? Meh. Maybe in elementary schools.

[IndieMatty]

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i guess it depends what grade, most of my friends became teachers and though all of them got into it for all of the right reasons and continue to be in it for the right reasons they all say the spoiled, bratty or uncontrollable kids sometimes ruin the experience.

teachers are freaks, you are correct with that.

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Yeah, type of school, location, grade level, all this stuff can contribute to very different teaching experiences. I have friends who have taught younger/older, public/private, etc., and their experiences vary widely.

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My father was a teacher for 25 years, my brother teaches in the same school. I think the only thing that has kept me from that path is the fact that I want to do something different.

It's not a bad life, although my pop had to have a second job. Poker would substitute nicely.

[daryn]

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You don't get to pick your schools either, and many teaching systems have you basically with no benefits for a long time and shuffled around to the worst, most dangerous and hopeless schools for a long time, too.

If you could pick your school and stay stuck in it, it would be a lot better than having to work one day or week in one place, one in the next, and spend your first few years in babysitting warehouses where the kids are all hopeless and nobody cares.

Especially here in California, where a major, sometimes pretty much only qualification for being a teacher in the past has been the ability to speak Spanish. You aren't necessarily getting a lot of well trained and hopefully passably smart teachers to mingle with, or cute ones.

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this is massachusetts where people are generally smarter and you have to have a masters degree to teach

Article: How I Joined Teach for America—and Got Sued for $20 Million

Good times, good times.

[KaneKungFu123]

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You don't get to pick your schools either, and many teaching systems have you basically with no benefits for a long time and shuffled around to the worst, most dangerous and hopeless schools for a long time, too.

If you could pick your school and stay stuck in it, it would be a lot better than having to work one day or week in one place, one in the next, and spend your first few years in babysitting warehouses where the kids are all hopeless and nobody cares.

Especially here in California, where a major, sometimes pretty much only qualification for being a teacher in the past has been the ability to speak Spanish. You aren't necessarily getting a lot of well trained and hopefully passably smart teachers to mingle with, or cute ones.

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this is massachusetts where people are generally smarter and you have to have a masters degree to teach

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you need a masters degree to teach highschool math?

[KDawgCometh]

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You don't get to pick your schools either, and many teaching systems have you basically with no benefits for a long time and shuffled around to the worst, most dangerous and hopeless schools for a long time, too.

If you could pick your school and stay stuck in it, it would be a lot better than having to work one day or week in one place, one in the next, and spend your first few years in babysitting warehouses where the kids are all hopeless and nobody cares.

Especially here in California, where a major, sometimes pretty much only qualification for being a teacher in the past has been the ability to speak Spanish. You aren't necessarily getting a lot of well trained and hopefully passably smart teachers to mingle with, or cute ones.

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this is massachusetts where people are generally smarter and you have to have a masters degree to teach

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which means more time to have fun in college before you hit the real world.

Teaching a great profession, and if I had more patience with groups of people, I'd try to get into it. College is the way to go though. THe ones that want to be at class will be, and teh ones who don't will be skipping it. You will also get to bang legal age girls, and be that cool guy they hooked up with. No attachments, no worries

[daryn]

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You don't get to pick your schools either, and many teaching systems have you basically with no benefits for a long time and shuffled around to the worst, most dangerous and hopeless schools for a long time, too.

If you could pick your school and stay stuck in it, it would be a lot better than having to work one day or week in one place, one in the next, and spend your first few years in babysitting warehouses where the kids are all hopeless and nobody cares.

Especially here in California, where a major, sometimes pretty much only qualification for being a teacher in the past has been the ability to speak Spanish. You aren't necessarily getting a lot of well trained and hopefully passably smart teachers to mingle with, or cute ones.

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this is massachusetts where people are generally smarter and you have to have a masters degree to teach

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you need a masters degree to teach highschool math?

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yes

Daryn, you're mistaken. In Massachusetts (I taught at Weymouth and Brookline HS before selling out and joining the financial world) you don't need a masters to start teaching. You need to *start* the process of getting a masters within five years of starting teaching. Thus, you can just start taking classes during your fifth year and not get your masters until your eighth year, I believe.

IMHO, you will not gain the intangible benefits if you don't put time into it. You can do it working from maybe 7am-6pm 5 days a week, 180 days a year. That's not awful, but you can't do it half-assed. PM me if you have specific questions.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure that as a first year teaching in Weymouth making 33k/year, I had the highest total salary in the district. And I also think that we graduated from the same college, if you're seriously thinking about this, PM me.