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Much of the negatives posted here is exactly why I provide child care from my home. I can make my own policies and I can pick and choose exactly who I take into care. I am the owner/boss of my business, not the employee of someone else...most especially not of the parents.
Pay is indeed something to consider as it's hardly ever high pay anywhere in this particular field.
Hi! I worked as an assistant teacher at a child care center/preschool last year. In my state, you do not have to have a degree to begin, you just have to complete a certain number of credit hours per year. (At my center, we were given booklets with a multiple choice test at the end that one can easily complete in 10 minutes. Each one was worth 3 credit hours). This isn't a field where you want to spend thousands for your degree. I'm sure your local community college offers a training program.
Here's some advice I'd like to give you.
1. The pay is usually minimum wage, and possibly a little bit above that if you are lucky. As a general rule, you are unlikely to make a livable wage in most areas unless you are a director of a center (and even then, the pay isn't usually that much). Even if you operate an at-home daycare, weekly rates are quite low, and you cannot have too many children in your home.
2. If possible, try and get an assistant position in a child care center before committing to training. Perhaps I'm naive, but I was surprised by the amount of hard labor that was involved at my particular center. There is a lot of strain on the body involved in this job.
3. Child care staff are often TERRIBLE about gossip. It is not uncommon for morale to be extremely low.
4. I noticed that you are a stay at home mom. This doesn't always happen, but I have noticed that in the majority of cases, women that work at or own child care centers have little to no patience with their children once they get home. I can't say I blame them, but just know that after being with small children all day, you may not have the energy and drive to care properly for your own children. Oftentimes, the children that misbehaved most at my center were children of staff members and the owners.
Basically, I don't believe that the pay level for a child care job makes up for all that is involved. Unless you are supported by someone else (husband, partner, whatever it may be), be sure that you truly love this job in order to commit.
My sister in law was a genetic counselor and burnt out from telling prospective parents that there kids were probably messed up. She went to her church and started working in the pre-school, partly because she could do it with limited credentials and partly cause it was her church, and stayed for 2-3 years before she was burnt out from working so hard for so little dough. She is now back at genetic counseling, with a different company, and loving it.
Jaida, i am not thinking about payrates now, as i already have a long 2 years gap since my last job. One reason i opted for this is i am seeing a lot of daycare/preschool oppurtunities in my area, but it all need certification or related exp.
Milleka which grades you were teaching? Is it same all level?
If you're not concerned about pay, you can work in a store or someplace similar for the same pay with less stress.
The bottom line: this is a high stress, high demand, low respect, low pay profession. Don't get into this unless you love children, and can't imagine doing anything else. Even then, some days you will feel like pulling your hair out and getting a job at McDonald's.
Everybody thinks they can do your job better than you. Parents are highly critical of everything you do. Administrators don't back you up. Students are disrespectful. And the general public is nonsupportive of education in general. Just lurk on this Ed forum for a while and you will get plenty of input from former and current educators. There are many of us, from all over the country, who are completely fed up and are bailing out of the business as fast as we can... and ALL of us got into it for all the right reasons. The educational system has changing tremendously over the last 10 years and it's only getting worse. I don't encourage anyone to go into teaching.
I recently retired after teaching early childhood special education for over 30 years. I agree totally with the above poster.
Hi! I'm in the same position as you were and I was wondering what you ended up doing? Did you go into early childhood? I'm working as a cost analyst and I'm looking into becoming a preschool/kindergarten teacher but it seems like there are a lot of negative feedbacks about the career in teaching. I have a 13 month old and another one coming next year and I want to be able to similar schedule to my children when they go to school and have breaks off. It seems like teachers work a lot more than I thought with really little pay. It seems like such a rewarding career though. I want to be able to help children learn and encourage them. I like being a cost analyst but I'm not passionate about it. I'm good at it and it pays pretty well but I don't feel fulfilled.
I have a 13 month old and another one coming next year and I want to be able to similar schedule to my children when they go to school and have breaks off. It seems like teachers work a lot more than I thought with really little pay.
This should be your last thought. Yes, you will have most of the school breaks off, but there will be in-service days, etc. But you will be at school longer than the kids, and will need to do some work at home.
Have you ever tried subbing to stick your toe in the water?
Hi! I'm in the same position as you were and I was wondering what you ended up doing? Did you go into early childhood? I'm working as a cost analyst and I'm looking into becoming a preschool/kindergarten teacher but it seems like there are a lot of negative feedbacks about the career in teaching. I have a 13 month old and another one coming next year and I want to be able to similar schedule to my children when they go to school and have breaks off. It seems like teachers work a lot more than I thought with really little pay. It seems like such a rewarding career though. I want to be able to help children learn and encourage them. I like being a cost analyst but I'm not passionate about it. I'm good at it and it pays pretty well but I don't feel fulfilled.
Preschool is very different from teaching kindergarten in a public school. Some public schools offer prekindergarten, but most "preschools' are private. Some are more like daycare, with the usual preschool/nursery school activities part of the day. These places are open when public schools are closed to accomodate working parents. The pay at any of these private places is usually in the minimum wage area often without any type of benefits. However, a lot of mothers like these jobs because some offer part-time hours and some allow you to enroll your child (in a different class) for free.
Hi! I'm in the same position as you were and I was wondering what you ended up doing? Did you go into early childhood? I'm working as a cost analyst and I'm looking into becoming a preschool/kindergarten teacher but it seems like there are a lot of negative feedbacks about the career in teaching. I have a 13 month old and another one coming next year and I want to be able to similar schedule to my children when they go to school and have breaks off. It seems like teachers work a lot more than I thought with really little pay. It seems like such a rewarding career though. I want to be able to help children learn and encourage them. I like being a cost analyst but I'm not passionate about it. I'm good at it and it pays pretty well but I don't feel fulfilled.
You will still have to find some type of care for your child for all the half days, teacher inservices, and teacher work days, teacher nights, and PTO events. It's usually about two to three weeks per year, depending on your district.
Half of all teachers leave the profession after only five years. A large portion of them quit after the first or second year. Every single teacher I have mentored cried almost every day for the first few months.
It is very rewarding and a wonderful job. It can also grind you down and make you miserable.
Hi! I'm in the same position as you were and I was wondering what you ended up doing? Did you go into early childhood? I'm working as a cost analyst and I'm looking into becoming a preschool/kindergarten teacher but it seems like there are a lot of negative feedbacks about the career in teaching. I have a 13 month old and another one coming next year and I want to be able to similar schedule to my children when they go to school and have breaks off. It seems like teachers work a lot more than I thought with really little pay. It seems like such a rewarding career though. I want to be able to help children learn and encourage them. I like being a cost analyst but I'm not passionate about it. I'm good at it and it pays pretty well but I don't feel fulfilled.
I wouldn't go into teaching primarily because breaks will match your kids'.
Teachers DO work more than you thought for less pay than you likely thought. Truth to that.
My experience, having taught all ages from regular ed pre-K through special ed 18-21 programs, is that TEACHING ITSELF is a highly rewarding career. However, much about the job that you will be required to do is not, actually, the business of teaching. It is bureaucracy, data collection and analysis, loads of meetings and inservices, planning, curriculum development, curriculum revision in the case of accommodations and modifications as needed, a massive amount of CYA, test prep, and logging communication with administrators and parents. Helping children learn and encouraging and mentoring them is amazing and enlightening. It is also something that you end up being allowed to spend surprisingly little of your time on, squeezed in around all the aforementioned things. Which is highly disheartening.
I, too, am expecting a child, my first. I am out of the classroom by choice, and am in the process of completing a master's degree in counseling psychology to obtain my therapist credentials, to continue to work with the types of children I found it most rewarding to work with, adolescents with behavioral disorders. I have decided that this context is more rewarding to me than continuing to fight an uphill battle with what education has become, and continue to do the guiding and mentoring work that I most enjoyed in the first place.
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