Teaching

I have been a public school teach for almost 19 years. Recently I was asked if I would recommend being a teacher. In other words, is teaching a good profession to go into these days. I had to think about it. If you asked me 10-15 years ago I would have said yes. 10-15 years ago teaching was a good profession to be in. So is it today? Frankly, no. Over the last few years the students have become more difficult to deal with. You have more and more students with behavior problems. More and more students with psychological problems. And what I consider the worst part, you have more and more students who don't want learn. Heck, more and more don't want to do anything. Now that would be manageable, but there are even more problems today.

Parents are becoming more and more your enemy instead of your ally. Instead of helping teachers deal with problem students, they actually enable the students and fight the teacher. In fact, many parents a resorting to involving lawyers and filing lawsuits over what used to be minor problems. Then you have the teachers unions which used to be more moderate but have become more and more liberal (it never was conservative of course). Then there are the ever increasing demands on teachers to improve student performance and implement constantly changing curriculum. There are many more problems as well, but the reality is that teaching used to be rewarding (and even fun at times), but it has become highly political, stressful, combative, and unrewarding.

So should someone consider a career in teaching? No, unless of course it has been a lifelong dream of yours. Then by all means become a teacher, but do so with your eyes wide open and with low expectations of developing a highly rewarding career. So why do I still teach? Now that is a very good question!

What do you think?