Thinking About a Mid-Career Transition in Teaching
August 5, 2024 12:06 PM Subscribe
I am at precisely the middle-point of my working life, and have been thinking of becoming a teacher. Have you done this transition mid-career, or has someone you know done it? How did it go?
I would make this switch because:
I admire the profession, I dislike working in front of the Internet all day in an office job, and I want my work to be more meaningfully connected to the city I live in. There is a good public school teacher's union where I live, and you can't beat the benefits--I would love to have the stability of a defined benefit retirement plan, instead of a dumb 401k. (I already work for the school district, but just two years into it I don't think that is much of a factor vis a vis the pension.)
I also really have a desire to be a "thing," to have a profession with an identifiable skillset. I've worked my whole career in organized labor, non-profit, and more recently (2 years) public sector employment, and while the work has been often meaningful, I'm just as often acting as a desk jockey wishing he was doing any other conceivable thing. (Other public sector jobs, i.e. County employment, would be more remunerative than teaching but I think most things I'm qualified for would make me miserable, and I'm terrible at civil service exams.)
The most obvious tradeoff here is:
that I'd be trading a modest but guaranteed retirement income and retirement health plan for an immediate loss of about 35% of my annual income. (Annual income would be back at its current level in about 12 years according to my read of the union contract.) Teacher benefits are generous, but so are my current benefits, so it's not like the cash value of health care and retirement year after year are wildly better than my current situation. I would be able to begin teaching via a school district internship program, so I would not have to earn my credential via two years of schooling while earning a very low income. I'd just start teaching at the bottom of the pay scale. I have sufficient retirement savings at this point that I have a strong foundation to be able to weather a lower-paying job, but it would kill forever the dream of owning a home where I live (Los Angeles), but that dream is already mostly dead anyway.
The major unknown is job satisfaction.
I'd probably teach middle or high school. I like kids, but don't have any of my own, and have no idea how classroom management day in and day out would work for me in real life. The big x factor for me is just whether I would enjoy the job, and whether I'd ultimately resent the loss of income. But I'm a person who has a difficult time making decisions or assessing how I'm likely to respond to any given hypothetical future scenario.
I know a lot of people struggle with working in a public school setting with economically disadvantaged kids and occasional violence on campus/in the classroom and families in rough circumstances and so on, but I'm not particularly worried about that part, for myself. I don't think those aspects of the job would put me off of it, ultimately.
I know I wouldn't have to do the job for the full 20-25 working years that remain for me, but at the same time that is sort of the idea in maybe making this transition.
I would make this switch because:
I admire the profession, I dislike working in front of the Internet all day in an office job, and I want my work to be more meaningfully connected to the city I live in. There is a good public school teacher's union where I live, and you can't beat the benefits--I would love to have the stability of a defined benefit retirement plan, instead of a dumb 401k. (I already work for the school district, but just two years into it I don't think that is much of a factor vis a vis the pension.)
I also really have a desire to be a "thing," to have a profession with an identifiable skillset. I've worked my whole career in organized labor, non-profit, and more recently (2 years) public sector employment, and while the work has been often meaningful, I'm just as often acting as a desk jockey wishing he was doing any other conceivable thing. (Other public sector jobs, i.e. County employment, would be more remunerative than teaching but I think most things I'm qualified for would make me miserable, and I'm terrible at civil service exams.)
The most obvious tradeoff here is:
that I'd be trading a modest but guaranteed retirement income and retirement health plan for an immediate loss of about 35% of my annual income. (Annual income would be back at its current level in about 12 years according to my read of the union contract.) Teacher benefits are generous, but so are my current benefits, so it's not like the cash value of health care and retirement year after year are wildly better than my current situation. I would be able to begin teaching via a school district internship program, so I would not have to earn my credential via two years of schooling while earning a very low income. I'd just start teaching at the bottom of the pay scale. I have sufficient retirement savings at this point that I have a strong foundation to be able to weather a lower-paying job, but it would kill forever the dream of owning a home where I live (Los Angeles), but that dream is already mostly dead anyway.
The major unknown is job satisfaction.
I'd probably teach middle or high school. I like kids, but don't have any of my own, and have no idea how classroom management day in and day out would work for me in real life. The big x factor for me is just whether I would enjoy the job, and whether I'd ultimately resent the loss of income. But I'm a person who has a difficult time making decisions or assessing how I'm likely to respond to any given hypothetical future scenario.
I know a lot of people struggle with working in a public school setting with economically disadvantaged kids and occasional violence on campus/in the classroom and families in rough circumstances and so on, but I'm not particularly worried about that part, for myself. I don't think those aspects of the job would put me off of it, ultimately.
I know I wouldn't have to do the job for the full 20-25 working years that remain for me, but at the same time that is sort of the idea in maybe making this transition.
I am not a teacher and do not have personal experience with this.
I have, however, read that the summer vacation is not nearly all it's cracked up to be. Your job doesn't end when you close the classroom door, you have to do curriculum development and a bunch of stuff you might not think of.
posted by Alensin at 12:38 PM on August 5
I have, however, read that the summer vacation is not nearly all it's cracked up to be. Your job doesn't end when you close the classroom door, you have to do curriculum development and a bunch of stuff you might not think of.
posted by Alensin at 12:38 PM on August 5
Best answer: Find a way to go and spend a couple of weeks in a classroom in some kind of work experience role. I considered making this career change, and two weeks in the classroom helping out as a volunteer assistant was enough to make me realise quite emphatically that I would not enjoy it.
I was really surprised, genuinely thought I’d love it but turns out I’m not made for it. It actually didn’t even take two weeks to realise it - I knew in the first week and dragged myself along for the second week. I just don’t have the patience or aptitude to explain things to people with a much lower level of understanding than me.
Hopefully you’ll do it and love it, but if you don’t, you’ve saved yourself a lot of time and trouble.
posted by penguin pie at 12:50 PM on August 5 [12 favorites]
I was really surprised, genuinely thought I’d love it but turns out I’m not made for it. It actually didn’t even take two weeks to realise it - I knew in the first week and dragged myself along for the second week. I just don’t have the patience or aptitude to explain things to people with a much lower level of understanding than me.
Hopefully you’ll do it and love it, but if you don’t, you’ve saved yourself a lot of time and trouble.
posted by penguin pie at 12:50 PM on August 5 [12 favorites]
Based on your 401k, you're in the US. So my assumption is that your current job has very little vacation time (compared to other countries). So I understand the appeal of longer (than typical American) vacation time.
But you also get that vacation time at the most expensive travel time of the year. So that might be a factor.
I love my job as a teacher, but I teach in Canada with lots of professional autonomy. I understand that that is not the case in many US jurisdictions. You might find watching teachers talk about their American classroom experiences to be helpful.
Can you take a sabbatical from your job to intern in a school? Trial by fire is very illuminating.
posted by Sauter Vaguely at 12:55 PM on August 5
But you also get that vacation time at the most expensive travel time of the year. So that might be a factor.
I love my job as a teacher, but I teach in Canada with lots of professional autonomy. I understand that that is not the case in many US jurisdictions. You might find watching teachers talk about their American classroom experiences to be helpful.
Can you take a sabbatical from your job to intern in a school? Trial by fire is very illuminating.
posted by Sauter Vaguely at 12:55 PM on August 5
My wife is a teacher - public middle school for years (GA and NJ), homeschooling and coops, and now in a small parochial school.
The classroom management stuff takes up way more time than people think. There is a definite method to it and mastery of the subject matter alone won't be enough to be an effective teacher. The middle school years are particularly...well weird's not the right word, but the kids are beginning to go through enormous changes in the transition zone between grade school and high school.
In her current role the school hired a science teacher with no classroom experience and he went about 2 years before returning to his former profession. In fairness, I think this was his plan all along but the kids had his number straight out of the gate in terms of his inexperience with classroom management.
The public schools in our area (and I expect elsewhere) are extremely focused on testing outcomes and all of the attendant stuff that comes along with them. This is what the schools tend to optimize for, which is natural, but you've only got X days to get Y amount of material covered, so you've got calendar pressures there as well. On the other hand, our state will also aggressively recruit and train teachers w/o prior experience in needed subject areas (STEM for the most part, naturally). Signing bonuses and certification requirements are getting waived to get folks on the job. New hires will have 2 years to complete the required coursework for certification, can be completed in evenings, etc. So this is as good a time as any to make the jump as far as I'm concerned.
Education is a truly wonderful profession and there's never a want for good teachers, but it's also a job that has been romanticized a fair bit in most media portrayals. If you want to get a sense of what teachers face daily, teacher Reels are frequently spot-on hilarious.
Good luck and Godspeed!
posted by jquinby at 12:56 PM on August 5 [3 favorites]
The classroom management stuff takes up way more time than people think. There is a definite method to it and mastery of the subject matter alone won't be enough to be an effective teacher. The middle school years are particularly...well weird's not the right word, but the kids are beginning to go through enormous changes in the transition zone between grade school and high school.
In her current role the school hired a science teacher with no classroom experience and he went about 2 years before returning to his former profession. In fairness, I think this was his plan all along but the kids had his number straight out of the gate in terms of his inexperience with classroom management.
The public schools in our area (and I expect elsewhere) are extremely focused on testing outcomes and all of the attendant stuff that comes along with them. This is what the schools tend to optimize for, which is natural, but you've only got X days to get Y amount of material covered, so you've got calendar pressures there as well. On the other hand, our state will also aggressively recruit and train teachers w/o prior experience in needed subject areas (STEM for the most part, naturally). Signing bonuses and certification requirements are getting waived to get folks on the job. New hires will have 2 years to complete the required coursework for certification, can be completed in evenings, etc. So this is as good a time as any to make the jump as far as I'm concerned.
Education is a truly wonderful profession and there's never a want for good teachers, but it's also a job that has been romanticized a fair bit in most media portrayals. If you want to get a sense of what teachers face daily, teacher Reels are frequently spot-on hilarious.
Good luck and Godspeed!
posted by jquinby at 12:56 PM on August 5 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I went back to school to get certified to teach almost 15 years ago, when I was in my late 30s. The classwork was a mix of interesting and obvious, with a lot of huge gaps I was told "you really need to learn this by doing and develop your own personal style--there's no book that can teach you classroom management, for instance."
I did my student teaching in a public middle school, and for me it was indeed classroom management that I couldn't pull off. I couldn't figure out how to motivate the students who didn't want to learn, and I found that if I focused too much on the students who did want to learn, I got accused of racial bias. I felt like there wasn't enough support from the school or the teaching program, and I felt like I was failing the kids.
One advantage that young teachers fresh out of college have, is that they have no lives and they can focus everything on the job. Their brains are also much more plastic and they have more energy than older folks. They're also maybe more willing to be bad at something in order to get good at it, while I felt like I was betraying the students I had by depriving them of a better teacher than I could be.
Of course, your mileage may vary, but I found it extremely hard to feel responsible for a whole bunch of tweens who mostly really didn't like me and some of whom purposefully undermined me at every opportunity. Not that I took it personally, they're just kids, but I felt like it made it impossible to do the job effectively.
posted by rikschell at 12:59 PM on August 5 [3 favorites]
I did my student teaching in a public middle school, and for me it was indeed classroom management that I couldn't pull off. I couldn't figure out how to motivate the students who didn't want to learn, and I found that if I focused too much on the students who did want to learn, I got accused of racial bias. I felt like there wasn't enough support from the school or the teaching program, and I felt like I was failing the kids.
One advantage that young teachers fresh out of college have, is that they have no lives and they can focus everything on the job. Their brains are also much more plastic and they have more energy than older folks. They're also maybe more willing to be bad at something in order to get good at it, while I felt like I was betraying the students I had by depriving them of a better teacher than I could be.
Of course, your mileage may vary, but I found it extremely hard to feel responsible for a whole bunch of tweens who mostly really didn't like me and some of whom purposefully undermined me at every opportunity. Not that I took it personally, they're just kids, but I felt like it made it impossible to do the job effectively.
posted by rikschell at 12:59 PM on August 5 [3 favorites]
I changed my career from software engineer to teacher. After working full-time for the most part of thirty years, I started teaching part-time. Then my contract ended and I left that company, while my school gave me more hours, but I stayed part-time until I finally retired from everything after teaching (mostly) ESL for fifteen years.
I always tell people I made more money as a programmer, but teaching was more rewarding. And now I say, I sure miss having students, but I don't at all miss the work involved in being a teacher.
Back when I was a student I figured if I had to teach, it would only be high-school Physics. However, no way would I consider trying to manage a classroom of today's kids, even though they were always bugging me to sub there, once I became a teacher. No, I taught adults, who were mostly new immigrants. Instead of something STEM-y, I realized I had been correcting co-workers' writing for years; and had a fantasy of escaping W's America by teaching English abroad, but never realized that dream.
If you have a degree you can probably teach too, right away; but you're going to have to take some classes in order to get your credential. (They can probably give you something 'provisional' until you complete these courses.) I completed a Teaching English as a Second Language course to get a certificate, while I was still working in software, which was enough to get me a class; but I still had to take several more courses about Teaching in order to get my Credential.
As for Summer Vacation they always offered some Summer School which they called Enrichment. I taught that for a while, early on; but didn't like the compressed schedule. So in 2008 I said "No" and went on a months-long Around-the-World trip, instead.
Hope this inspires you - Good Luck!
posted by Rash at 1:01 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
I always tell people I made more money as a programmer, but teaching was more rewarding. And now I say, I sure miss having students, but I don't at all miss the work involved in being a teacher.
Back when I was a student I figured if I had to teach, it would only be high-school Physics. However, no way would I consider trying to manage a classroom of today's kids, even though they were always bugging me to sub there, once I became a teacher. No, I taught adults, who were mostly new immigrants. Instead of something STEM-y, I realized I had been correcting co-workers' writing for years; and had a fantasy of escaping W's America by teaching English abroad, but never realized that dream.
If you have a degree you can probably teach too, right away; but you're going to have to take some classes in order to get your credential. (They can probably give you something 'provisional' until you complete these courses.) I completed a Teaching English as a Second Language course to get a certificate, while I was still working in software, which was enough to get me a class; but I still had to take several more courses about Teaching in order to get my Credential.
As for Summer Vacation they always offered some Summer School which they called Enrichment. I taught that for a while, early on; but didn't like the compressed schedule. So in 2008 I said "No" and went on a months-long Around-the-World trip, instead.
Hope this inspires you - Good Luck!
posted by Rash at 1:01 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
Best answer: My mom made a similar midlife transition, also in LA Unified through the DI program. She was so, so, so busy those first few years but it ended up being a great career through retirement.
I sometimes think about becoming a teacher. For me, what gives me pause is the total inflexibility. If you're late, or have any sort of emergency, it's a huge deal. I think this would be a very difficult transition for me having spent decades in office jobs where most of the time nobody cares when I show up and even if I do have a situation where I need to be on time for something the only real consequence is that someone is mad at me. Not "these fourth graders were found roaming the streets!"
What my mom liked most was the autonomy. She was king in her classroom, with a lot of latitude to spend time and energy as she saw fit, with only occasional check-ins with the principal. She'd always hated the office work "boss is constantly breathing down my neck" vibe and as a teacher she liked that she was trusted to be a professional and get her work done. This changed for the worse in the years she was in the profession, with a lot more testing and surveillance.
I'm not up on what the current DI program is like, but in the 90s when my mom did it a lot of people didn't complete it. I think if you can survive the difficult apprenticeship years while you're in the program without hating teaching, you'll be okay in the job long term. I'd give it a shot. Worst case, you learn something about yourself and have to find another job.
posted by potrzebie at 1:15 PM on August 5
I sometimes think about becoming a teacher. For me, what gives me pause is the total inflexibility. If you're late, or have any sort of emergency, it's a huge deal. I think this would be a very difficult transition for me having spent decades in office jobs where most of the time nobody cares when I show up and even if I do have a situation where I need to be on time for something the only real consequence is that someone is mad at me. Not "these fourth graders were found roaming the streets!"
What my mom liked most was the autonomy. She was king in her classroom, with a lot of latitude to spend time and energy as she saw fit, with only occasional check-ins with the principal. She'd always hated the office work "boss is constantly breathing down my neck" vibe and as a teacher she liked that she was trusted to be a professional and get her work done. This changed for the worse in the years she was in the profession, with a lot more testing and surveillance.
I'm not up on what the current DI program is like, but in the 90s when my mom did it a lot of people didn't complete it. I think if you can survive the difficult apprenticeship years while you're in the program without hating teaching, you'll be okay in the job long term. I'd give it a shot. Worst case, you learn something about yourself and have to find another job.
posted by potrzebie at 1:15 PM on August 5
If you can sit down with some seasoned teachers in your district, they can give you very specific information about things like
-Paychecks being spread across twelve months to make up for the gap in summer. My department does not do this and it is a colossal drag to have no income over the summer.
-The likelihood of being hired for summer school, if you want to work in the summer.
-How much work they take home.
-What continuing education requirements are.
-The general parent culture in your area. Are you prepared for parents to email you at 10:30 p.m., demanding the day’s homework, then call you screaming—yes, literally screaming—the next day if you don’t respond?
-What kind of support can you expect from administrators? In my experience, this can be a very mixed bag.
-What kind of supports are in place for special education? Some places are pushing students into classrooms with absolutely inadequate support, setting the student up to fail when they’re overwhelmed in the general education setting. Do teachers receive deescalation training?
-How big are classes? Is there a cap?
posted by corey flood at 1:20 PM on August 5 [5 favorites]
-Paychecks being spread across twelve months to make up for the gap in summer. My department does not do this and it is a colossal drag to have no income over the summer.
-The likelihood of being hired for summer school, if you want to work in the summer.
-How much work they take home.
-What continuing education requirements are.
-The general parent culture in your area. Are you prepared for parents to email you at 10:30 p.m., demanding the day’s homework, then call you screaming—yes, literally screaming—the next day if you don’t respond?
-What kind of support can you expect from administrators? In my experience, this can be a very mixed bag.
-What kind of supports are in place for special education? Some places are pushing students into classrooms with absolutely inadequate support, setting the student up to fail when they’re overwhelmed in the general education setting. Do teachers receive deescalation training?
-How big are classes? Is there a cap?
posted by corey flood at 1:20 PM on August 5 [5 favorites]
To add to the long list of things you need to consider, look closely at the details of your teacher pension, how Social Security works, and your existing investment growth forecasts.
I was just reading today a post elsewhere from someone who switched into teaching mid-way through their career and in doing so worked somewhere that didn't pay into Social Security. Now they wanted out of teaching, but (1) hadn't been growing their 401K, (2) had lower estimated Social Security payments than they could have had, and (3) hadn't served long enough as a teacher to reach the maximum pension payout. They were in a bind, and trying to figure out how to retire.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:33 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
I was just reading today a post elsewhere from someone who switched into teaching mid-way through their career and in doing so worked somewhere that didn't pay into Social Security. Now they wanted out of teaching, but (1) hadn't been growing their 401K, (2) had lower estimated Social Security payments than they could have had, and (3) hadn't served long enough as a teacher to reach the maximum pension payout. They were in a bind, and trying to figure out how to retire.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:33 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Yes, in Los Angeles I'd stop paying into Social Security and would vest in the pension after five years. I think I would have the option of also contributing to a 403b which is similar to a 401k.
posted by kensington314 at 1:34 PM on August 5
posted by kensington314 at 1:34 PM on August 5
Best answer: I left teaching in 2022 after ten years, and I cannot in good conscience recommend anyone go into this field. Obviously I'm someone who left, so I have a specific perspective. Absolutely look into all of corey flood's questions (talk to TEACHERS at the school, not admin; don't let admin pick the teachers you talk to). A lot of things that were getting weird or bad before covid have just totally collapsed since then.
I know a lot of people struggle with working in a public school setting with economically disadvantaged kids and occasional violence on campus/in the classroom and families in rough circumstances and so on, but I'm not particularly worried about that part, for myself.
Maybe! I would have thought that about myself, having spent my whole prior working life dealing with the public, but I was wrong. Teachers have a huge amount of secondhand trauma. It's really hard to hear a second-grader tell you about watching their cousin get murdered. And don't forget the bonus moral injury -- you have no way of getting students the services they need, you know the school/district is doing wrong by many of them, and you are totally powerless to do anything about it.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 1:39 PM on August 5 [4 favorites]
I know a lot of people struggle with working in a public school setting with economically disadvantaged kids and occasional violence on campus/in the classroom and families in rough circumstances and so on, but I'm not particularly worried about that part, for myself.
Maybe! I would have thought that about myself, having spent my whole prior working life dealing with the public, but I was wrong. Teachers have a huge amount of secondhand trauma. It's really hard to hear a second-grader tell you about watching their cousin get murdered. And don't forget the bonus moral injury -- you have no way of getting students the services they need, you know the school/district is doing wrong by many of them, and you are totally powerless to do anything about it.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 1:39 PM on August 5 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I had a friend that switched to teaching from being a translator. They were looking for more stable work, better benefits, and something with some career growth trajectory. Pay is actually pretty good around here, you start about median household income for the county and go up from there. In our state, the fastest/easiest option is to go into special education, and you still need to get a masters degree in teaching, which you can finish in 18 months.
Friend lasted about 4 years in elementary special education. Left due to parents causing all sorts of problems and administration being entirely unreasonable. YMMV, but friend is now in software and loves the flexibility and respect.
Things to consider:
-If you have medical issues, you'll need to get appointments after work or on weekends. Friend had something like 2 personal days and 3 illness days per school year, and was discouraged from using more than half (days get credited to your pension when you retire). You don't really get vacation time outside of the school breaks.
-In an office if someone is a jerk or assaults you, you can report them to HR. In a school, the kids were violent, the parents were rude, and it was all her problem.
-In special education, the wins are few and far between. This was demoralizing for my friend, who had to triage her kids each year and decide which one or two she'd have time to help. Helping one of them involved getting them sent to a residential corrections center, but between the child's behavior and parents she felt it was the best option.
-I have volunteered in middle and high schools for decades, the kids really aren't alright coming out of covid. They are way less engaged and kinda dumb for their age (I am not a teacher, I run a workshop on my profession). I expect this is harder on teachers than it was 5 years ago. But you could be part of the effort to catch these kids up!
posted by Narrow Harbor at 1:57 PM on August 5 [2 favorites]
Friend lasted about 4 years in elementary special education. Left due to parents causing all sorts of problems and administration being entirely unreasonable. YMMV, but friend is now in software and loves the flexibility and respect.
Things to consider:
-If you have medical issues, you'll need to get appointments after work or on weekends. Friend had something like 2 personal days and 3 illness days per school year, and was discouraged from using more than half (days get credited to your pension when you retire). You don't really get vacation time outside of the school breaks.
-In an office if someone is a jerk or assaults you, you can report them to HR. In a school, the kids were violent, the parents were rude, and it was all her problem.
-In special education, the wins are few and far between. This was demoralizing for my friend, who had to triage her kids each year and decide which one or two she'd have time to help. Helping one of them involved getting them sent to a residential corrections center, but between the child's behavior and parents she felt it was the best option.
-I have volunteered in middle and high schools for decades, the kids really aren't alright coming out of covid. They are way less engaged and kinda dumb for their age (I am not a teacher, I run a workshop on my profession). I expect this is harder on teachers than it was 5 years ago. But you could be part of the effort to catch these kids up!
posted by Narrow Harbor at 1:57 PM on August 5 [2 favorites]
Go see if you can be a substitute teacher one day a week or for some chunk of time, and that will give you some usable data as well.
posted by Vatnesine at 2:14 PM on August 5 [2 favorites]
posted by Vatnesine at 2:14 PM on August 5 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I agree that you have to try to see what it's like first before taking the plunge - how you respond to teaching and classroom management is somewhat hard to predict. I'd also try to get experience (even if you can just shadow a teacher for a day) in several different types of schools. I know you say you think you won't mind "occasional violence" but I once taught in an after school program (so just 2hrs a day) where if I could get through a session with nobody punching or hitting each other, I considered it a success. I learned then that I wasn't cut out for that sort of setting.
posted by coffeecat at 3:14 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
posted by coffeecat at 3:14 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
Go to r/teachers and just spend some time reading. Get the unfiltered complaints, for balance.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 3:52 PM on August 5 [2 favorites]
posted by wellifyouinsist at 3:52 PM on August 5 [2 favorites]
People's comments above are worth thinking about, especially Corey flood's. I taught first in public right out of college then private since then. I also took time off and worked at the public library and now am a librarian rather than a classroom teacher. What subjects can you teach? Teaching is SO MUCH WORK especially if you need to develop your own curriculum. I could never teach middle
But some love it. You have to wake up incredibly early and as someone mentioned above you cannot be late. Sometimes you get very little prep time during the day or even much of a lunch break. I would definitely visit schools as mentioned above. Personally I would never go into teaching now. Could you volunteer w kids instead?
posted by bookworm4125 at 3:59 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
But some love it. You have to wake up incredibly early and as someone mentioned above you cannot be late. Sometimes you get very little prep time during the day or even much of a lunch break. I would definitely visit schools as mentioned above. Personally I would never go into teaching now. Could you volunteer w kids instead?
posted by bookworm4125 at 3:59 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
You write, "I have no idea how classroom management day in and day out would work for me in real life."
As others here have noted, classroom management is EVERYTHING to your success and satisfaction. Have you searched metafilter for similar questions? you can find many useful perspective in this particular career change.
posted by TDIpod at 6:21 PM on August 5
As others here have noted, classroom management is EVERYTHING to your success and satisfaction. Have you searched metafilter for similar questions? you can find many useful perspective in this particular career change.
posted by TDIpod at 6:21 PM on August 5
Best answer: I worked in software development for 10 years. Then I switched to teaching bc the thought of spending my entire life in an office filled me with existential dread. I’ve been teaching high school for 10 years and in general, I really enjoy it. As with any job, there are pros and cons, which others have covered fairly well here.
Definitely recommend getting some sub or volunteer experience to see if you’re a good match for teaching. The experience can be radically different depending on the student demographics as well as the specific school’s admin and department you end up in.
Teaching is a calling. It can be immensely fulfilling, but it’s often thankless, and it’s also the hardest and most consuming job I’ve ever had, especially in the first 2-3 years. Ultimately it’s about forging relationships with young people and guiding them through a transformative time in their lives. The actual content is secondary.
Sometimes you might only make a difference to 5 out of the 25 kids in your classroom. But it *matters* to these kids that I am in the classroom with them. It never mattered whether I was in my cubicle or not.
The world needs good, caring teachers. I could go on and on but I won’t. Feel free to message me if you have more questions.
posted by gnutron at 6:31 PM on August 5 [2 favorites]
Definitely recommend getting some sub or volunteer experience to see if you’re a good match for teaching. The experience can be radically different depending on the student demographics as well as the specific school’s admin and department you end up in.
Teaching is a calling. It can be immensely fulfilling, but it’s often thankless, and it’s also the hardest and most consuming job I’ve ever had, especially in the first 2-3 years. Ultimately it’s about forging relationships with young people and guiding them through a transformative time in their lives. The actual content is secondary.
Sometimes you might only make a difference to 5 out of the 25 kids in your classroom. But it *matters* to these kids that I am in the classroom with them. It never mattered whether I was in my cubicle or not.
The world needs good, caring teachers. I could go on and on but I won’t. Feel free to message me if you have more questions.
posted by gnutron at 6:31 PM on August 5 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I did it! I'm going into my 4th year teaching in September. I started the transition around age 35. Before that, I worked in different industries and never quite found something that aligned with my interests, skill set, or values, which lead to many years of dissatisfaction and stress over my job situation. So, since I had always had the idea to teach ESL in the back of my head, I decided to pursue it. I talked with a teacher friend about their experience. I then started substitute teaching and tutoring English online to gain experience and to see if I really liked it before I made the decision to go back to school to get certified. I got a job tutoring at a public school and applied to graduate school to get my certification and eventually got a full-time teaching job. I'm about to finish my Master's degree (my state requires teachers to get them).
I'm so glad I had opportunities to try out the career before I made the sacrifice of going back to school (my teacher certification program + Master's took a long time and cost about $30K), because I had a really good idea of what the job entailed and was able to confirm that it was a good fit for me in order to keep going. It's really great that you're able to do an internship program while working. If there's any possible way you could get classroom experience before quitting your current job, I would really recommend it. It is just hard to get a feel for what it would be like without that experience. Personally, I love teaching and working in a school, but I also REALLY disliked most of my previous jobs in comparison, so I was grateful for a change of environment. You might, however, find that you don't like it and it would be better to know before you commit to it.
Regarding summers off - definitely a major perk! The time can be great to relax, travel, and reconnect with family and friends. However, I have found it hard sometimes tricky to connect with people because everyone else does not necessarily have the summer off, or they are busy with their own plans.
posted by I_carried_a_watermelon at 8:23 PM on August 5
I'm so glad I had opportunities to try out the career before I made the sacrifice of going back to school (my teacher certification program + Master's took a long time and cost about $30K), because I had a really good idea of what the job entailed and was able to confirm that it was a good fit for me in order to keep going. It's really great that you're able to do an internship program while working. If there's any possible way you could get classroom experience before quitting your current job, I would really recommend it. It is just hard to get a feel for what it would be like without that experience. Personally, I love teaching and working in a school, but I also REALLY disliked most of my previous jobs in comparison, so I was grateful for a change of environment. You might, however, find that you don't like it and it would be better to know before you commit to it.
Regarding summers off - definitely a major perk! The time can be great to relax, travel, and reconnect with family and friends. However, I have found it hard sometimes tricky to connect with people because everyone else does not necessarily have the summer off, or they are busy with their own plans.
posted by I_carried_a_watermelon at 8:23 PM on August 5
Here is an earlier Q on the green from 10 yrs ago that has a similar discussion.....
posted by TDIpod at 8:24 PM on August 5
posted by TDIpod at 8:24 PM on August 5
Don't do it! Teaching is a young person's game. I tried to switch from a government office job to school librarian from age 29 - 32. I finally got a school library job after 4 summers of applying and interviewing. School districts are loathe to hire people without teaching experience. Then, when you do get hired, you start at step 1, because non-teaching service doesn't count as service credit for setting your salary, and step 1 sucks because the teachers in the power positions in the union have been there a long time, so they negotiate higher salaries for themselves while leaving entry level low. I loved working in my high school, but I can make so much more money and deal with fewer hoops to maintain employment outside of public schools. I didn't even get to enjoy summer vacation or most of the breaks because I was doing summer school and coaching to make extra income. Again, I loved the kids, especially the troublemakers, I found it much more fulfilling than pushing papers in an office, but at the end of the day, I needed more money and less BS.
posted by DEiBnL13 at 8:59 PM on August 5
posted by DEiBnL13 at 8:59 PM on August 5
Because there was a suggestion that you visit r/teachers, I think I should add the context that the subreddit seems to have become a space dominated by complaints and venting about the worst aspects of teaching. I don't have the rosiest view of the profession (as you'll see below), but it isn't as bad as you'd think based on what you'll see there.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of different factors that make it hard for me to recommend teaching as a profession these days. I would not encourage my kid to be a teacher, for example. We are underpaid, overworked, drowned in paperwork, and managed by people who's top concerns are avoiding litigation, chasing buzzworthy pedagogical trends, and checking boxes on state and federal compliance forms rather than making differences in the lives of students.
The suggestion that you spend time as a substitute teacher first is a really good idea. I would very much not recommend that you leave a stable job and take a significant pay cut without learning much, much more about what teaching is really like from personal experience.
posted by Chuck Barris at 9:05 PM on August 5
Unfortunately, there are a lot of different factors that make it hard for me to recommend teaching as a profession these days. I would not encourage my kid to be a teacher, for example. We are underpaid, overworked, drowned in paperwork, and managed by people who's top concerns are avoiding litigation, chasing buzzworthy pedagogical trends, and checking boxes on state and federal compliance forms rather than making differences in the lives of students.
The suggestion that you spend time as a substitute teacher first is a really good idea. I would very much not recommend that you leave a stable job and take a significant pay cut without learning much, much more about what teaching is really like from personal experience.
posted by Chuck Barris at 9:05 PM on August 5
Best answer: From the opposite perspective: I am a teacher, my partner was a teacher for about 15 years and is now a software engineer. I do quite like my job, and having the summers is nice because I can spend quite a lot of time with my children, though the actual time off is ever diminishing, particularly as my roles become more senior. My partner is happy to be out, and sometimes I envy him. He does make more money, and though he has less leave, the rhythm of his work is much less intense. He has 1000% less extra out of hours crap to do than I do, and the structure and pace of some of those evening things like after hours, relentless parent teacher interviews would never fly in a corporate environment. It is fun working with kids for the most part, but a supportive admin is a must and I do think launching straight into it, while financially understandable, does sound like the kind of model that probably partly accounts for the masses of people who drop out in the first year. The practice of effective pedagogy is very complex, and developing the interpersonal, organisational and intellectual skills to do it all well takes significant amounts of time (I'm still learning a lot, 19 years in).
posted by jojobobo at 1:43 AM on August 6 [1 favorite]
posted by jojobobo at 1:43 AM on August 6 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Canadian (Ontario) teacher here currently 1/2 way through summer vacay who made the switch from software into high school teaching in my mid-forties in 2007. I am in an extremely privileged position. I teach at an Arts school where about 2/3 of the students auditioned in one way or another to get in. They feel lucky to be there rather than feeling like they're in teen jail.
The first five years were very difficult until I had (a) fleshed out and developed my lessons for the subjects I was teaching and (b) learned how much I could improvise and could therefore start to ease off on the lesson prep.
I really like the job. I really like the back and forth with kids. I like 95% of the kids who are in my class. That's key. If the kids know you like them then they're willing to connect. If they're willing to connect, they are way more willing to learn. And if they aren't willing to learn they will still be pleasant to work around. I like that every day is different. When the bell goes, whatever else was on my mind disappears and I am on.
Before the pandemic I used to remark that I wouldn't quit if I won the lottery - just go down to a part-time timetable. In any other job before teaching I would absolutely have quit the next day if I won the lottery. Things aren't as good post-pandemic. In the name of student welfare, admin at the school board level has decided that students should be held less formally accountable for meeting their learning expectations. The responsibility has shifted a lot more on to teachers. Absent institutional predictability, the number of daily (hourly!) decisions we've had to make about whether Johnny has sufficiently demonstrated their learning or what they need to do to demonstrate it has increased a lot. I am, additionally, increasingly required to log and communicate these decisions (and possibly negotiate them) to admin and parents. Ironically, this means I have less time to spend on building and maintaining the rapport with students that is the foundation of effective teaching. It's definitely harder.
All that said, this can be a great profession. I don't regret making the decision to switch. I think it's made me a better parent with my own kids as well.
posted by kaymac at 8:10 AM on August 7
The first five years were very difficult until I had (a) fleshed out and developed my lessons for the subjects I was teaching and (b) learned how much I could improvise and could therefore start to ease off on the lesson prep.
I really like the job. I really like the back and forth with kids. I like 95% of the kids who are in my class. That's key. If the kids know you like them then they're willing to connect. If they're willing to connect, they are way more willing to learn. And if they aren't willing to learn they will still be pleasant to work around. I like that every day is different. When the bell goes, whatever else was on my mind disappears and I am on.
Before the pandemic I used to remark that I wouldn't quit if I won the lottery - just go down to a part-time timetable. In any other job before teaching I would absolutely have quit the next day if I won the lottery. Things aren't as good post-pandemic. In the name of student welfare, admin at the school board level has decided that students should be held less formally accountable for meeting their learning expectations. The responsibility has shifted a lot more on to teachers. Absent institutional predictability, the number of daily (hourly!) decisions we've had to make about whether Johnny has sufficiently demonstrated their learning or what they need to do to demonstrate it has increased a lot. I am, additionally, increasingly required to log and communicate these decisions (and possibly negotiate them) to admin and parents. Ironically, this means I have less time to spend on building and maintaining the rapport with students that is the foundation of effective teaching. It's definitely harder.
All that said, this can be a great profession. I don't regret making the decision to switch. I think it's made me a better parent with my own kids as well.
posted by kaymac at 8:10 AM on August 7
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posted by kensington314 at 12:13 PM on August 5