teachers and educators, why?

qclabrat

qclabrat

Well-Known Member
I just have a few minutes to start this thread, so more to come. Looking for a career change. What's the outlook for a mid 40s guy looking to get into the education world? I really think I'm done with the corporate world and see no point to what I do day in and out. Pay is a concern as my kids are still school age but would likely supplement by consulting on the side. The last couple years, I've found an interest in education and feel it full fills a gap I'm not getting at work.
 
I thought about being a science teacher years ago. But as I followed my son through middle and high school, I lost interest. Glad I stayed put.
 
Both of my parents were teachers and were able to retire at 55. Even though they loved it, they say the profession has changed and would discourage anyone who was considering it. In fact, my wife left teaching last year after 17 years because NJ's pension is a mess and can't be counted on. Add to that the fact that administrations and school boards continually resist increasing salaries and try to reduce benefits. It does depend on the school district you're in, but in general, I'd steer clear. At your age, your salary expectations would be much greater than a prospective teacher coming out of college. Most districts would be more inclined to hire the recent graduate. If you like teaching, want to feel like you're making a difference, you could do some tutoring or volunteer work. Alternatively, maybe pursue a career in corporate training. When you don't like what you're doing, it's very tempting to want to go where the grass is greener. It's good you're researching. Be thorough. Good luck.
 
My wife only lasted ten years as a teacher before becoming too fed up and discouraged and burning out. Her biggest problem was that she cared too much to half ass it. I feel like teaching would be a pretty cush job for me, because I would totally care less and wing it.
 
i'm finishing up a degree in chemistry education and FYI if you don't have a background in education you should do/know a couple of things...
  • Look and see how much school you will need to go back a do before you can teach. I thought, "well i've got a bachelors of fine arts degree in graphic design and animation, how much more school could i possibly need to do to teach high school chemistry?"
    • The answer is 6 years for me. 6 years for a new bachelors in chemistry and a masters in education. not an easy thing to do when you have adult bills and an adult life.
    • Between all 3 degrees, including summer sessions, I just registered for classes for the 28th and final time.
  • Being interested in education is a lot different then actually teaching. Find a school that will let you observe a real classroom for a couple of weeks and see if this is actually something you want to do before you slam down the time and cash for more education. Memories of your own schooling are not a realistic view of what a modern class room looks like.
    • Talk to some teachers and see how they feel about dealing with parents and administration. It can be an aspect of the job which forces some to quit.
  • Choose your subject wisely. From friends that are in the job market right now, history and english teachers have a much more difficult time finding work. I have a friend that applied to all of the schools in a 50 mile radius of his house for English teaching jobs. There were 2 jobs available in that radius. 4500 people applied for one of them. he delivers mail now - not a bad job, just not what he wants to be doing.
  • The amount of money required to become a teacher once you already have a career is substantial.
    • Along with the cost of tuition, you need to factor in the amount of money you are loosing by not being at work, the amount of money you are loosing by not getting raises and promotions, travel time and expense, time spent studying at home, etc. My SUNY New Paltz, in-state education to retrain to be a teacher has cost me an estimated $500,000-$550,000 not including studying/home work time. That is a lot of money. No matter where I teach, I will never be able to recoup those losses.
  • Finally, understand that being a good teacher requires an immense amount of work. the idea that the work day starts and ends with the bells is completely far-fetched. I have been working with veteran teachers (20+ years) for over a year now and none of them finish work before 6pm and they start their day at 630 am. Yes, you get summers off from school but that time is needed to develop new lesson plans, take required continuing education classes, etc.
I'm not writing this to scare you off, if you want to do it, then do it. These are just some of the things that I wish I had been told before I went back to school. It certainly would not have changed my mind and I'm extremely happy with the education I have earned, but I don't have a job as a public school teacher yet (i'm finishing up my student teaching) so all of that could change. I am however a college professor (after my bachelors degree in chemistry, SUNY New Paltz hired me to teach organic chemistry labs while I am working on my masters degree) and I will tell you that it is by far the most rewarding job I have ever had.
 
tutoring. people will spend a ridiculous amount of $$ on tutors....
anything from basic coursework, to advanced second language. cash too.

i looked into substitute teaching, not enough $$ to justify getting out of bed - while some do it, it is more
for people starting out in teaching.

might be fun to teach a couple nights a week at the community college.

any chance you can do what you do as an independent contractor for multiple companies on a per diem?
rather than being part of the corporate rat race, you go in, do a job, go home. ??
 
pearl said:
be a gym teacher. wear sweatpants and play tag all day
Click to expand...

In my high school, the football coaches had the gym teacher market cornered. And the one football coach was our freshmen history teacher, and he would just read out of the book and give us tests made by the book publisher. This is what I base my opinion on how easy teaching could be if you give zero fucks. I would give a few, but I would still phone it in and have summers off.
 
I just happened to see this.

I've been a teacher for 11 years - after doing environmental consulting for 5 years. I teach high school Earth Science and Environmental Science - my degrees (BS and MS) are in Geology. I was alternate route.

Science (especially bio, chem, and physics) is in demand in the high school level. But teaching isn't for everyone. Especially at the high school level.

Being a sub is not teaching. Don't let someone tell you otherwise.

I'm not going to deny that there is a lot of political BS between the district and State. I will NOT be able to retire at 55 and I have no idea if I will have a pension, even though we now pay into it.

Yes, you have summers off - but you aren't getting a paycheck, contrary to what many people think. So most teachers work (including myself).
 
Jim poses an excellent point here. Pretty much any job, including teaching, becomes much easier when you don't give a shit. For me and the teachers I have observed, this is not an option. If I am going to spend my time doing a job, any job, I'm going to do my best to do it well.
 
Yeah, my wife was working 12-14 hour days during the week. She was at a private school which came with additional headaches, including the administration telling her to change grades because of parent donations and other such nonsense. She became jaded pretty quickly.

Robin said:
Yes, you have summers off - but you aren't getting a paycheck, contrary to what many people think. So most teachers work (including myself).
Click to expand...

My wife had the option of getting a paycheck year round which she took, although she also had various part time summer jobs. She would have gone crazy and exploded if she didn't get summers off with all the BS she had to deal with during the year.
 
I enjoy my job as a Math teacher for 13 years but that enjoyment is getting less and less. The amount of BS associated with the job is increasing while the benefits are consistently decreasing. It sounded like a good idea when I was coming out of college but I would advise others to explore other options. I've spent many mornings online figuring out what else I could be doing...
 
the more i think about tutoring, the more i like it. 1 on 1, so they can't get distracted (sort of)
HS is out around 2pm - at least parochial. lower grades they are home around 4 - basically a 2-6 job
add a few hour on saturday, when needed. then find some other stuff to fill in from 10-2, maybe look at flexjobs.com
 
greeek32 said:
i'm finishing up a degree in chemistry education and FYI if you don't have a background in education you should do/know a couple of things...
  • Look and see how much school you will need to go back a do before you can teach. I thought, "well i've got a bachelors of fine arts degree in graphic design and animation, how much more school could i possibly need to do to teach high school chemistry?"
    • The answer is 6 years for me. 6 years for a new bachelors in chemistry and a masters in education. not an easy thing to do when you have adult bills and an adult life.
    • Between all 3 degrees, including summer sessions, I just registered for classes for the 28th and final time.
  • Being interested in education is a lot different then actually teaching. Find a school that will let you observe a real classroom for a couple of weeks and see if this is actually something you want to do before you slam down the time and cash for more education. Memories of your own schooling are not a realistic view of what a modern class room looks like.
    • Talk to some teachers and see how they feel about dealing with parents and administration. It can be an aspect of the job which forces some to quit.
  • Choose your subject wisely. From friends that are in the job market right now, history and english teachers have a much more difficult time finding work. I have a friend that applied to all of the schools in a 50 mile radius of his house for English teaching jobs. There were 2 jobs available in that radius. 4500 people applied for one of them. he delivers mail now - not a bad job, just not what he wants to be doing.
  • The amount of money required to become a teacher once you already have a career is substantial.
    • Along with the cost of tuition, you need to factor in the amount of money you are loosing by not being at work, the amount of money you are loosing by not getting raises and promotions, travel time and expense, time spent studying at home, etc. My SUNY New Paltz, in-state education to retrain to be a teacher has cost me an estimated $500,000-$550,000 not including studying/home work time. That is a lot of money. No matter where I teach, I will never be able to recoup those losses.
  • Finally, understand that being a good teacher requires an immense amount of work. the idea that the work day starts and ends with the bells is completely far-fetched. I have been working with veteran teachers (20+ years) for over a year now and none of them finish work before 6pm and they start their day at 630 am. Yes, you get summers off from school but that time is needed to develop new lesson plans, take required continuing education classes, etc.
I'm not writing this to scare you off, if you want to do it, then do it. These are just some of the things that I wish I had been told before I went back to school. It certainly would not have changed my mind and I'm extremely happy with the education I have earned, but I don't have a job as a public school teacher yet (i'm finishing up my student teaching) so all of that could change. I am however a college professor (after my bachelors degree in chemistry, SUNY New Paltz hired me to teach organic chemistry labs while I am working on my masters degree) and I will tell you that it is by far the most rewarding job I have ever had.
Click to expand...
this is the feedback I'm looking for, thanks for spending the time to post
first of all, I mentioned educator in the title, so the traditional teacher route is not really my goal. Having volunteered for a few years for an education foundation, I have no plans to work in the public sector, btwn the federal/state requirements, it must be difficult for teachers to develop lesson plans which really enrich and prepare students.

This won't be an abrupt change, I'm seeing this more of a 5/6 year plan after my last one goes off to college. With the extra time, I'll have opportunities to take risks where I would not have with them at home. I'll likely find myself in at least one more company, but I'd like to move in a direction which get me closer to goal. For example, this summer, I'm working on developing science/engineering based extra curricular activities for private and charter schools in depressed neighborhoods in near me. I've already purchased 25 Makey Makey's and looking for Arduinos and Raspberry Pis next. Starting a new 501 is a pain, I'm currently looking to partner with another to minimize start up stress, though finding one with common goals is tough.

Coincidentally I have an undergrad degree in Chemistry and Earth Science from another SUNY school, and also taught General Chem labs at the school and summers at the community college. The experience was okay, but teaching general chem lab isn't really teaching, some where btwn show n tell and baby sitting.
 
Not specific to teaching so my apologies, but every time I ponder "the career thing" and read how other people are feeling about their own jobs I inevitably draw the conclusion that X job will suck after Y years. Does that mean a change is not worth it? Who knows...depends on how much effort you need to put into that change.

Oddly related, my wife and I were leaving the house yesterday as the mail man was in the neighborhood and she said "it must suck to be a mail man". I asked why, and she said due to crappy weather etc. I found it interesting because I always figured it's probably nice to be a mailman and outside all day and it's probably nicer more days than not. But only the mailman knows if the sunny days offset the cold and rainy ones.
 
fidodie said:
tutoring. people will spend a ridiculous amount of $$ on tutors....
anything from basic coursework, to advanced second language. cash too.

i looked into substitute teaching, not enough $$ to justify getting out of bed - while some do it, it is more
for people starting out in teaching.

might be fun to teach a couple nights a week at the community college.

any chance you can do what you do as an independent contractor for multiple companies on a per diem?
rather than being part of the corporate rat race, you go in, do a job, go home. ??
Click to expand...

teaching community college is a plan B, but a distant second choice, university level teaching is pretty difficult to get into, I have a friend who is very successful CPA going that route now, after his kids grow up, I has a plan to be a part time professor
 
JimN said:
In my high school, the football coaches had the gym teacher market cornered. And the one football coach was our freshmen history teacher, and he would just read out of the book and give us tests made by the book publisher. This is what I base my opinion on how easy teaching could be if you give zero fucks. I would give a few, but I would still phone it in and have summers off.
Click to expand...
this is getting harder to do unless you are a winning coach, from my experience the best HS coaches were the shittiest teachers
 
Robin said:
I just happened to see this.

I've been a teacher for 11 years - after doing environmental consulting for 5 years. I teach high school Earth Science and Environmental Science - my degrees (BS and MS) are in Geology. I was alternate route.

Science (especially bio, chem, and physics) is in demand in the high school level. But teaching isn't for everyone. Especially at the high school level.

Being a sub is not teaching. Don't let someone tell you otherwise.

I'm not going to deny that there is a lot of political BS between the district and State. I will NOT be able to retire at 55 and I have no idea if I will have a pension, even though we now pay into it.

Yes, you have summers off - but you aren't getting a paycheck, contrary to what many people think. So most teachers work (including myself).
Click to expand...
though your corporate experience was relatively short what drove you to teaching? any regrets or decisions you would have in hindsight changed?

the science/engineering side is where I'd like to land as well, though the curriculum poorly integrates the science and math disciplines today and traditional education structure really puts kids off to be interested in those fields. There is a correlation that the majority of graduate students in the Rutgers engineering programs are from overseas.
 
qclabrat said:
though your corporate experience was relatively short what drove you to teaching? any regrets or decisions you would have in hindsight changed?

the science/engineering side is where I'd like to land as well, though the curriculum poorly integrates the science and math disciplines today and traditional education structure really puts kids off to be interested in those fields. There is a correlation that the majority of graduate students in the Rutgers engineering programs are from overseas.
Click to expand...

I thought about becoming a teacher while in undergrad. But I had a passion to work for the EPA - and had a free/full ride for my MS, so I went that route.

I was a government contractor doing Hazmat work and clean-up. I saw a lot of sketchy stuff and didn't morally agree with how things really went down. I didn't know about alternate route until I moved back to NJ/after working for 5 years, and then went back for my teaching degree.

I have no regrets going into teaching but I'm grateful I have experience/another degree should I change my mind. There are a few things I miss from working in the private sector (vacations when YOU want to take them) but I've had some really great experiences teaching.
 
xc62701 said:
I enjoy my job as a Math teacher for 13 years but that enjoyment is getting less and less. The amount of BS associated with the job is increasing while the benefits are consistently decreasing. It sounded like a good idea when I was coming out of college but I would advise others to explore other options. I've spent many mornings online figuring out what else I could be doing...
Click to expand...
I'm not surprised, the math and english teachers are really held to a different standard, as its the only subjects you start and end with. My neighbor is a math teacher at the HS and she can't wait to get out either. Tutoring as @fidodie mentioned is in high demand for math and would usually free up your AMs for riding, now that's a perk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom