Should you be a teacher?

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Should you be a teacher?
By Me

I like what the last post said about dentists complaining about their jobs, too. I come from a family of teachers and have many other teacher friends. It seemed every single one of them would either complain about their
current jobs or continually comment on how difficult your first year of teaching is. I was totally freaking out, but my rationale was that no matter what job I picked, whoever was currently in that job would try to discourage me from doing it by complaining. But just to comment on the first year of teaching (as I am currently involved in it) ... When I heard people complain about how

hard it is, I guess I was expecting a different kind of hard. I thought the hard part would be putting in a billion hours doing lesson plans and making up stuff (worksheets, forms, class decorations) that a lot of other teachers had made years ago. Turns out this stuff takes up very little of my time (though I anticipate it taking even less next year). What takes up most of my time is paperwork. It's difficult to explain the frustration that is paperwork unless you're involved in it, but basically the deal is that you have to fill out forms about everything. For example, any individual program you want to get a kid into is a form. You fill out a form about your own performance and data. Add to this progress reports, supply requests, notes home, and field trip papers, and you'll find yourself buried in paperwork. I estimate that I spend about half an hour on average each day on papers. The other thing that's so incredibly frustrating about the first year of teaching is classroom management. This is the area that causes most of my thoughts about quitting. You just cannot believe how much time and effort you put into managing those kids. It's like all you want to do is teach, and you find book after book and website after website with good ideas you want/need to try, and yet you don't get to them because you're spending all your time on discipline. Especially frustrating is dealing with discipline on some day that throws them out of wack (assembly, holiday, minimum day, field trip). Many, many days I find myself wondering why I even bother with this job because I find myself wasting all my energy on classroom management. But two things keep me going: (1) the fact that a lot of people seem to stick with the job, so I figure there must be a payoff in the long run, and (2) those moments where positive gains make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I feel like there are fewer of these moments than there are difficult moments the first year, but since these moments tend to be so wonderful, they balance out the negative feelings. So I think you should still go for it, but you'll be better off if you don't go in expecting to do everything without allowing time for classroom management.

In terms of wanting to prepare in advance, I totally know how you feel. I didn't want to save all my preparation for the last minute. However, a major problem is that fact that you can't do much to prepare when you don't know what school you'll be at or what grade you'll be teaching. Don't do a lot of specifics to prepare. By that I mean, don't go creating lesson plans or wall decorations or any of that. Schools have a lot of specifics that might go against whatever you do to prepare. For example, I worked hard to make up a special chart for the lunch count. Turns out my school didn't require a lunch count. I made up a special form to record homework assignments, and it turned out the school provided one. The point is that, unfortunately, you can't do much to prepare for your own specific class. I think the best thing you can do to prepare is to get good ideas. Observe, student teach, check out magazines and books. This way you can at least go into your job without being totally blind, and that should make you feel better.