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Teachers in my area do okay to start, but will take many years and more degrees to be great. Overall, bennies are fantastic, the hours are long......most of the public thinks when the kids get out, that is the end of your workday and don't realize you still have many hours at home to correct papers and plan the next day.
My daughter is a music teacher. She starts just before 7 a.m. School gets out at 2:30 or 3 p.m. She is there for half an hour to an hour after the kids leave (if she does not need to stay after). At lunch she has to rotate to playground duty, so sometimes her lunch is 5 minutes. After school she often has activities she has to sty for. Parent meetings, band boosters, choir field trips, performances, parades. then she goes home and does 2-3 hours of work preparing for next day, grading, filling out reports, studying new techniques, lining up guest speakers, finding affordable instruments.
The winter,spring and summer breaks are nice, but she has to stay after the kids are gone and start before they come back (a week before after the summer). When any of these breaks start, she needs to spend the first day or two mostly sleeping. She is completely exhausted.
For the most part, she cannot be sick or take vacation or take a day off to go to the doctor or get her car fixed. She cannot be late to work. She cannot be in a bad mood. She is on point all day every day. On weekends, she mostly sleeps and works or studies up on new teaching methods, new developments in child psychology etc. She does get a little time on weekends sometimes.
At one place, they needed someone to teach (math or science - I forget which). She was tol you are now a (math or science) teacher. She teaches special ed classes (music) even though she never had any special ed training. She is expected to cross teach, meaning include math history and science lessons with her music instruction. All of this requires extra work to learn what is needed.
Her "classroom" is a stage. Supplies and decorations she mostly has to buy herself. The budget for this is not enough and at previous positions, there was no budget for this. Before this job, she also had to buy cleaning supplies and clean/sanitize the chairs and other things so the students would not make each other sick. She gets sick a lot. Every germ known to man is coughed on her each year. She has been punched, spit on, vomited on, and had to clean pee or vomit off the floor. One kid brought lice to school and she had to be inspected for lice (luckily no infestation).
Everyone is always second guessing everything she does - parents, other teachers, administrators, observers. Everyone expects her to turn kids who cannot even read music into devas in one year. Teachers are treated with suspicion by administration and parents. More like criminals than like professionals.
She is paid $44,000 a year. That is a big increase from her first job that paid $32,000. She is in her fourth year teaching. She was elected special area teacher of the year for the county she worked in he first two years. She is a good, dedicated teacher. $60,000 a year at her age is impossible. She may make that much after 15 or more years.
He boyfriend after teaching for 6 years, grew tired of the lack of respect, low pay, terrible benefits, and crazy demands no advancement and took a job as a Walgreen's assistant manager trainee. He works 8 hour days. In a few months he will be an assistant manager and make the same as his teacher pay. In a year or two, he will be a manager and make considerably more than his teacher pay. In five years he will likely be an are manage and make more than a teacher ever can.
She goes off my health insurance coverage this year. By comparison, her school health insurance is terrible. She will have to pay a lot more than the amount of any raise she will get. She gets a net pay cut starting in 2018.
She has $40,000 in student loan debt. The payments take all of her spending money and will for the foreseeable future.
You do not teach for the money, you teach for love of kids, or because you want to give back or make a difference in someone's life. Most teachers quit in the first 5 years.
Public school teachers usually work 6-8 hours a day, they get 2 weeks off for the Christmas holidays, 1 week off for Spring break and a full 2 months off during the summer. On top of that, they have very good job security because they are employed by the state government.
In my area, teachers make around $60,000 - $70,000. They can make a lot more than that it some areas. Sounds like a pretty good gig if you ask me. Agree, disagree?
I was an elementary level special education teacher for over 30 years and I strongly disagree. While I enjoyed teaching it was nothing like you describe.
I did not make $70,000 a year until I had 30 years on the job, with a master's degree and 54 post master's degree credits. My bestfriend at the school did not have a master's degree and even after 35 years of teaching experience earned under $50,000 a year. And, we were in one of the higher paying districts in our area. BTW, we had to pay for our own master's degrees and post master's degree credits.
My typical day for decades was 7 AM to 7 PM. These hours were quite common at my school. The few teachers went home earlier, usually because of having young children, normally spent a few hours each night at home correcting papers or planning lessons. Plus I usually spent many hours on Saturday and Sunday doing paperwork and lesson plans.
In my area you are employed by the local school district and it was surprisingly easy for a teacher to get fired if the principal and/or parents did not like something that did.
Teaching is not a career you go into for the hours.
It is pretty typical to have work 10 hours every day and even on the weekends in many office jobs (that say they are only 40 hours per week). Employers always BS their employees about work hours.
However, no office job I know gives 10 weeks of time off every year. That is unheard of.
It is pretty typical to have work 10 hours every day and even on the weekends in many office jobs (that say they are only 40 hours per week).
However, no office job I know gives 10 weeks of time off every year. That is unheard of.
On bull****. I know way more office drones than teachers and none of them work weekends or evenings. That includes partners in law firms who are the litigators for their firm. They all seem to be able to hit Happy Hour every day and fill up the public duck blind sites this time of year.
Teachers here might get 40- 50 tips. However legal aid attorneys make less than that even and work all year with 3-4 wks vacation and 60 hour weeks. Teaching is not a job you go into for the money.
Public school teachers usually work 6-8 hours a day, they get 2 weeks off for the Christmas holidays, 1 week off for Spring break and a full 2 months off during the summer. On top of that, they have very good job security because they are employed by the state government.
In my area, teachers make around $60,000 - $70,000. They can make a lot more than that it some areas. Sounds like a pretty good gig if you ask me. Agree, disagree?
You only see the front end of teaching- you don't see behind the scenes. You don't see the hours of preparation, studying, writing up lesson plans (think the teachers just wing it?), keeping up with new methods of teaching, dealing with parents, principals and other administrative staff, trying to reconcile the desire to give that students your all with the realities of the situation and a whole host of numerous issues.
Most teachers don't make that amount, even in good areas.
If you think that public school teachers have such a sweet deal, I urge you to talk to some teachers. Better yet, sign up to become a public school teacher- you'll quickly learn how 'sweet' teaching can be.
Teachers here might get 40- 50 tips. However legal aid attorneys make less than that even and work all year with 3-4 wks vacation and 60 hour weeks. Teaching is not a job you go into for the money.
Not the money, but the benefits and that pension.
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