I Just Started Teaching

the thadeus is a teacher of love. he taught your mom last night.
but seriously. i taught before. it has it's perks but wears you out after a while.

 

I was a HS math teacher for 2 years in an overseas American School-- probably has much smaller class sizes and better conditions than public schools in the Bronx.

But yes, planning and grading take a lot of time, but planning gets better and less time consuming the second time around. Grading never stops being tedious, though.

Also, being the "authority figure" in a classroom with a bunch of teens can be challenging.

 

i know your pain. my girlfriend is a teacher and she brings her work home everyday.

 

I've taught children (middle school) once. A whole lot more difficult than I had anticipated. I didn't last very long.

Congrats on your new teaching job! Maybe you can incorporate basketball (mainly Rockets) somehow into your lessons. Start grooming foreign support for the good guys.

 

I plan on teaching health and physical education next school year, hopefully middle or high school level...same pay as core subject teachers, no grading, easier lesson plans :grin:

 

I teach but my students make six figures.

 

i teach at afterschool programs and avoid the bureacracy that is School Boards, Unions, and Furlough Days...

but my support is 100% with the teachers.

 

I was in Qatar. There are several conferences/job fairs every year around the country in which overseas Americans schools around the world inverview for teachers. I went to one of them in which more than 100 schools from all over the world interviewed for various teaching spots, did about 10 interviews during one weekend, got a few offers, and chose to go to Qatar.

 

start working on ur Masters now. keep teaching until you finish that. They offer a Masters for TESOL. Then start applying overseas. You will have public school experience, a MA in TESOL or Shakespeare (watever you fancy) and a license in your home country. This will give you the best chance at landing an International School job or University job.

 

Congratulations! While I'm not a teacher myself, I grew up in a family of educators. Dad was a department chair at a major Houston university, my uncle retired as a dean at a campus out at Clear Lake, my sister a retired grade school teacher who eventually taught English as a second language, and is now a successful romance writer (she has a master's in English, herself).

You just went up even higher in my Pantheon of ClutchFans Members!

 

oh nice. i had a friend who taught out in the Bronx for 3 or 4 years and now he's working at an International school in Switzerland. The planning and stuff is only hectic the first few years. after that you pretty much know how to handle any situation just by looking at the target grammar.

back to my friend, he said the NY teaching jobs were actually pretty good. he was well compensated and the students were cool. anyway, congrats and good luck. i taught for 5 years in the Japanese public school system. it was rough at first but most of the downside was from the bureaucracy.

 

I teach....just started my tenth year of teaching elementary school in central Texas. I love working with the kids, but the paperwork/ grading/ etc. is starting to wear on me more and more each year. Also, co-workers can be a bit...ahem...dramatic at times, to put it mildly.

 

Congrats,

Welcome to the profession. This is my fourth year.

You will quickly find out that you work about 70 hours a week, when you take into account grading, planning, home visits, etc...

I love my job. I work in a Title I school with an ESL focus. Currently, I teach in an SEI class. It's challenging, but in the end, I feel like I'm making a difference, even if it's on a small scale.

Rest while you can. It never gets easy.

 

Even though there us a lot of vacation. Its like a full year job compressed into less time

 

Good luck, sir... do well. I really do appreciate you teaching our young... and know that it is not too easy... and that I wouldn't do elementary school if I decide to teach in my future once I am burned out from IT stuff... I see what you mean about "not the 8-3 job you were expecting" all the time because Mrs. SwoLy brings the work home, too. It is VERY HARD WORK that takes time and perseverance. I take my hat off to you for not giving up quickly, and you deserve lots of respect.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, and... the FIRST YEAR you will plan lots of things out, then in the SECOND YEAR you will use some of the same stuff you used the FIRST YEAR, but not everything will be the same, so you'll end up using maybe the same lesson plans, materials, quizzes, etc. Some smarter kids will figure out your "style" and your "quizzes", but as long as they learn and get the work done, you shouldn't change it too much. Mrs. SwoLy says that the second year was easier because she's using most of the same stuff, but some doesn't apply. The THIRD year will be much easier.

But (you knew there was one), don't take this the wrong way or get upset... this here:

... this is incorrect and I think you know why. Release the stereotypes, please.

Yeeee-ikes... I hope you weren't an English teacher.

 

My wife is a Kindergarten teacher. According to her, it's all about time management.

She works her butt off during the day so she doesn't have to bring anything home at night. She's the first one there every morning (she's there before the janitors open the school) and does more work before the kids get there than most teachers do all day.

When all the other teachers are complaining about having to grade papers at night or stay late or come in on weekends to get caught up, she just shakes her head.

And yes, it was quite an eye-opener finding out how much of their own cash teachers have to spend getting ready for the school year. That really sucks, but it's part of the gig, apparently. At least you can use it as a tax write-off.

I have a Music Ed degree, but I'm not currently using it. Most of my friends are teachers/band directors.

Props to you smoothie for deciding this is what you want to do. Stick with it. It gets easier, not harder.

EDIT: And just ignore SwoLy.....

 

C'mon, Swoly, you know the drill.