Teaching As A Profession?

Teaching as a profession has had its ups and downs over the years. Having been an educator for 45+ years, I have worked with hundreds of teachers as a colleague, trainer and leader. My wife and two children are current or former teachers.

Sitting on the beach in Florida, where I am happily retired, I couldn’t help but hear someone nearby telling a friend that he should urge his kids, who are both teachers, to move to New York where “teachers work six months and earn over a hundred thousand (dollars) a year.” I was able to figure out his calculation for six months of work, as follows: most school district/teacher contracts in New York State require teachers to work directly with students for 180 days. This does not include 3 or 4 additional days for professional development, meetings, etc. Divide 180 days by 30 days in a typical month and you get 6. Of course that’s a false computation, because all teachers in NY actually work a 10-month year, September through June. The average starting salary for a teacher in New York State in 2020 was $47,181 with a Bachelors degree and $51,754 with a Masters degree. Depending on the specific school district, it takes between ten and fifteen years of continuous teaching to get to the $100,000 range. So, my beach buddy was off by quite a bit. To be fair, there are many teachers who have been in the system for more than twenty years and are making very high salaries…not unlike many professions.

I also have firsthand knowledge of the conditions that teachers work under. As is the case in every profession, the ranks of teachers and administrators are a mixed bag. There are those who demonstrate an abiding love of children and the learning process, a commitment to excellence, a positive work ethic and all of the qualities we would hope to see. There are also too many who do not have those qualities. Inept teachers undermine the profession and make life generally more difficult for the students they teach and for their colleagues. Inept administrators can make life a living hell for teachers (and all other school staff). They fail to provide teachers with the resources they need, undermine the teachers’ credibility with parents, make unreasonable requests of teacher time and effort, allow the school facility to fall into disrepair, and more. And then…there are the parents. Being one, I am sympathetic to those parents who hold high, but reasonable expectations for their child’s teachers. I know that I did. But anyone who has ever set foot in a school knows that there are some parents who are problematic for one of two reasons. One is because they are either not willing or not able to be involved in their child’s schooling. Two, is because they have expectations that are totally unreasonable or totally unrealistic and they want to be sure that you know exactly where they stand. And then, there are the “experts.” These folks may be on your school board, in the state education department, in the federal department of education, at a University, on the lecture circuit as a highly respected author, researcher or consultant for hire. They have a fabulous “new” initiative, instructional strategy or program that is going to revolutionize education, meet the needs of every student, raise achievement scores, reduce bad behavior, etc. For this “exciting” new project to work, teachers will need to participate in many days of training, frequent classroom visits from the project team, learn to implement a new set of instructional materials, attend many after school meetings and more. This will occur, of course, without reducing any of their other responsibilities. But it will be worth it, right? Well…maybe, maybe not. What actually happens is a new school board majority comes into power and decides that the whole project was a “mistake” and throws it out, like yesterday’s trash. Or a new instructional leader is appointed and has a “much better” innovation to replace the previous one. Or a prominent researcher publishes an article stating that that exciting new program of yours really doesn’t work. Oops! So, goodbye Whole Language! Hello the “Science of Reading!” But what about my years of training, conferences, meetings, explanations to parents, lesson planning, tinkering with the program to make it work for my students? Sorry! Lets move along now!

If you are getting ready to enter teaching as a profession, be prepared to answer the current set of interview questions (as opposed to last year’s questions): Are you skilled at teaching in a hybrid classroom program? Do you have experience or knowledge of the four types of co-teaching models? Do you use visible learning strategies? Do you use or create rubrics for grading students? Are you a culturally responsive educator? Do you support the use of restorative justice for disciplinary purposes?

I hope I haven’t discouraged anyone from becoming a teacher. Even though you are likely to be underpaid, highly stressed and underappreciated, it is still a wonderful profession for those who can deal with the obstacles and do it with enthusiasm and skill. Good luck!