Becoming a teacher

Random Guy · Sep 9, 2013

i'm a little older than that, but want to do the same thing, except middle school or high school for me.
so anyone in NY area know anything about that?
cowabunga
rg

irieboy8 · Sep 9, 2013

I know there are a few teachers here, but just wanted to throw out this query to the erbb.

I am going to pursue becoming a teacher, Elementary or Middle school. Being that I am changing careers at age 43, is there anyone who has done this? What advice would you give me moving forward?

I am looking to enroll in a one-year intensive Teaching credential program (don't have the $ to support a 2 year program). Oregon and CA are the most likely places to accomplish this.

Job satisfaction helping kids, the schedule, being a part of a community, and my current job is rotting my insides are some of the reasons.

Mahalos! If you live on Oahu, I would buy the <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/beer.gif" alt="" /> to hear your thoughts!

teach here on Oahu with the DOE. Farrington. What do you want to know? DOnt know what assistance I can be as only taught in hawaii and NC.. every state is different

Boneroni · Sep 9, 2013

Congrats for the realization and new direction!

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

I actually work for the SB County Education Office, and the Teacher Induction Program is right outside my office, but that's all AFTER you've been credentialed, so I don't know much about that part of the process.

Good luck and mucho respect for following a truly honorable path <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bowdown1.gif" alt="" />

john4surf · Sep 9, 2013

My son and daughter are both teachers (4th grade and HS). They live locally but are in different school districts.

Both were hired at the schools they interred at after they completed their internships while getting the CA teaching credentials.

Their experience was, it is better not to have an advanced degree when trying to get a teaching job as the districts are almost always required to pay a higher wage for advanced degreed teachers. Both obtained their Masters after working for a few years (not just for better pay but for intellectual satisfaction and, better retirement pay). <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

centrlcoastkook · Sep 9, 2013

Congrats for the realization and new direction!

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

I actually work for the SB County Education Office, and the Teacher Induction Program is right outside my office, but that's all AFTER you've been credentialed, so I don't know much about that part of the process.

Good luck and mucho respect for following a truly honorable path <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bowdown1.gif" alt="" />

Hey I'm a SB County teacher! Get back to work you bloated admin <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/00000054.gif" alt="" />

centralcoastlurker · Sep 9, 2013

My wife has been encouraging me to do this. I have been wondering about it for about 5 years, but have not done sh*t about it. I need to start the ball rolling, but it's tough working full time, being a dad....yada yada <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Boneroni · Sep 9, 2013

Congrats for the realization and new direction!

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

I actually work for the SB County Education Office, and the Teacher Induction Program is right outside my office, but that's all AFTER you've been credentialed, so I don't know much about that part of the process.

Good luck and mucho respect for following a truly honorable path <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bowdown1.gif" alt="" />

Click to expand...

Hey I'm a SB County teacher! Get back to work you bloated admin <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/00000054.gif" alt="" />

While I will not deny that bloat exists, I, thankfully, am not part of it. I work in the printshop where we print materials for districts, schools and teachers at our cost (which is waaay cheaper than outside shops or their leased copy machines)

If you have business cards, I typeset, printed and cut them <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wave2.gif" alt="" />

One-Off · Sep 9, 2013

I teach art at the middle school level in the LAUSD. Now in my 13th year. Before that I taught for 3 years in Sierra Leone. West Africa.

Perks- vacation time, good retirement system, paid health care.

Negatives- lots of them-

The pay is not stratospheric, but it depends what you are used to. I was doing all different kinds of construction work before becoming a teacher and so for me the pay was definitely a raise.

When times are good, no one wants to be a teacher and they scoff at teacher's pay. When times are bad they look at teachers and go "Why should they have paid health benefits and reasonable pensions??" The public sector becomes a scape goat.

It used to be a secure job, but the last 5 years have been a massacre- teachers six or seven years in getting the axe. It's better if you are a math teacher, but no one has been safe from the dreaded pink slip.

Class sizes. When I started, if my classes got to 40 students I would go to the counselor and ask what's going on. Now, 50 is the new 40. Last year I had a class with 58 students. I was tempted to ask the counselor to put two more students into the class so I could say I had 60. The learning conditions could not have been any worse.

Don't expect a lot of love from your students. They are pretty unappreciative. In fact most of them consider you a form of prison guard/slave master. The ones that might appreciate what you're doing are usually pretty reserved and probably won't let you know about it.

If you teach middle school like I do classroom management (aka discipline) will be your biggest issue. Don't expect help from the administration. It used to be we could send kids who were being overly disruptive out of the class room to a "learning center." Then a parent whose child didn't graduate high school, ostensibly because he was being sent out of the class, sued the school district. Now we must keep those kids in the class and "deal with it." So the 95% of the kids who are OK are subjected to the disruptions and delays caused by the 5% who could care less about their education. The lunatics are running the asylum.

There are bright spots, nice kids, helpful colleaugues, but for a while there (I don't know if it still true) teaching was the career with the highest job turnover/job burnout rate around. My first couple of years I'd come home saying, "I can't do this. This isn't for me." But as years go by experience definitely helps.

It's definitely not boring. But it is hard and stressful work. Before every school year I will have nightmares about defiant classes or students and wake up jangly and tense.

john4surf · Sep 10, 2013

duh <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/foreheadslap.gif" alt="" /> interned interred I wasn't as good a student as my kids <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

Qtzmznt · Sep 10, 2013

I'm an elementary teacher in SLO, 37, 4 years in the classroom after making the switch environmental ed/outdoor ed/wilderness programs from 6th grade to university and adult students (still do some of this in the summer).

Have you looked into Cal State Teach ? Maybe not for you but another option out there. I didn't do that (but know some who did). I got 2 credentials and a M.Ed in 2.5 years then didn't have any trouble getting a job exactly where I wanted (in a school next to my house, where I also did a student teaching experience) but I was kind of an exception. If you timed it right with prerequisites in the summer you can complete most multiple subject credential programs (pretty sure being able to do it in a year is a CA state regulation).

huryanpost · Sep 10, 2013

Yeah maybe in Irvine, the inner cities I would imagine your lofty proffs would run home with their tail between their legs. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/baby.gif" alt="" />

Autoprax · Sep 10, 2013

Can you go spend some time in someone's classroom in the grade you want to teach?

You have to love being in the classroom playing around with the kids. And you have to want to help them.

That is the key. If that is you, just go for it and make it happen.

grapedrink · Sep 10, 2013

compared to other educational jobs, the teaching gig at elem, middle or HS is a cakewalk compared to the upper echelon university/college jobs. lots of whiners who teach k-12 where they are only working 40 hours a week and get summers completely off. I know university professors who work 100 hours a week 7 days a week 12 months a year in their late 40's and early 50's having to teach, go to conferences, and publish.

entry level to k-12 is easy unless ur an idiot. good benefits and great pay. most k-12 teachers are little girls that like to complain a lot imho. pretty easy gig compared to what else is out there.

Not an apples-to-apples comparison, IMO. Grade school may be easier hours than university, however you are not dealing with the anywhere near the kind of disciplinary issues at the university level as the grade school level. I grew up close to Detroit and the kind of abuse the teachers at my middle school growing up took from the kids was <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif" alt="" /> as a kid but pretty effed up when I think about it now <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/foreheadslap.gif" alt="" /> Many of them are now in prison for horrible crimes, and not in college making professors lives miserable <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/foreheadslap.gif" alt="" />

Woke AF · Sep 10, 2013

I teach art at the middle school level in the LAUSD. Now in my 13th year. Before that I taught for 3 years in Sierra Leone. West Africa.

Perks- vacation time, good retirement system, paid health care.

Negatives- lots of them-

The pay is not stratospheric, but it depends what you are used to. I was doing all different kinds of construction work before becoming a teacher and so for me the pay was definitely a raise.

When times are good, no one wants to be a teacher and they scoff at teacher's pay. When times are bad they look at teachers and go "Why should they have paid health benefits and reasonable pensions??" The public sector becomes a scape goat.

It used to be a secure job, but the last 5 years have been a massacre- teachers six or seven years in getting the axe. It's better if you are a math teacher, but no one has been safe from the dreaded pink slip.

Class sizes. When I started, if my classes got to 40 students I would go to the counselor and ask what's going on. Now, 50 is the new 40. Last year I had a class with 58 students. I was tempted to ask the counselor to put two more students into the class so I could say I had 60. The learning conditions could not have been any worse.

Don't expect a lot of love from your students. They are pretty unappreciative. In fact most of them consider you a form of prison guard/slave master. The ones that might appreciate what you're doing are usually pretty reserved and probably won't let you know about it.

If you teach middle school like I do classroom management (aka discipline) will be your biggest issue. Don't expect help from the administration. It used to be we could send kids who were being overly disruptive out of the class room to a "learning center." Then a parent whose child didn't graduate high school, ostensibly because he was being sent out of the class, sued the school district. Now we must keep those kids in the class and "deal with it." So the 95% of the kids who are OK are subjected to the disruptions and delays caused by the 5% who could care less about their education. The lunatics are running the asylum.

There are bright spots, nice kids, helpful colleaugues, but for a while there (I don't know if it still true) teaching was the career with the highest job turnover/job burnout rate around. My first couple of years I'd come home saying, "I can't do this. This isn't for me." But as years go by experience definitely helps.

It's definitely not boring. But it is hard and stressful work. Before every school year I will have nightmares about defiant classes or students and wake up jangly and tense.

Click to expand...

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif" alt="" />

compared to other educational jobs, the teaching gig at elem, middle or HS is a cakewalk compared to the upper echelon university/college jobs. lots of whiners who teach k-12 where they are only working 40 hours a week and get summers completely off. I know university professors who work 100 hours a week 7 days a week 12 months a year in their late 40's and early 50's having to teach, go to conferences, and publish.

entry level to k-12 is easy unless ur an idiot. good benefits and great pay. most k-12 teachers are little girls that like to complain a lot imho. pretty easy gig compared to what else is out there.

you talk out your ass too much <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/loser.gif" alt="" />

ghostshaper · Sep 10, 2013

The master's thing is a rumor. Schools want higher degrees b/c it shows mastery of content and it's more prestigious. We have an MD and another with a PhD in Chem in our department. The majority of our department has a master's. This is HS. We also try to hire teachers with more experience even though they will cost more. The hiring committee doesn't know or consider what a candidate's pay schedule will be.

I'm now in my 11th year teaching HS in one of the best public districts in the country (our school has a 920-something API score). My students are motivated, I teach about how awesome the ocean is, and I'm well-respected at my school.

I started teaching in grad school and found that it's rewarding. I decided to teach as a career, and now I get to spend more time with my young sons than almost any other dad I've met. When they're old enough, I'm going to pick them up from school and go surfing with them every day it's rideable.

I can also feel good about contributing to society, rather than just making a buck.

Life is good. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wave2.gif" alt="" />

Woke AF · Sep 10, 2013

Be careful which district program you get into because that is where you are going to be stuck for some time. It takes a long time to develop the classroom skills, teaching techniques, understanding how the system works, how to work with your colleagues and that has little to do with pedagogy.
The 1st couple years are straight survival mode and very stressful.
No matter what level you want to teach classroom discipline is the principal/district main concern. Being a great teacher would be nice but...

Best advice, ideally find a teacher you have a friendship with and shadow them for a day, see what they do and why they do it, how the students interact with them and how the administration jacks him/her around.

Good luck, if you do middle school may God be with you <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

justsomebody · Sep 10, 2013

if it wasn't supported by the state, the whole system would collapse

Um, isn't that why public schools exist? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />

sns1 · Sep 10, 2013

I know there are a few teachers here, but just wanted to throw out this query to the erbb.

I am going to pursue becoming a teacher, Elementary or Middle school. Being that I am changing careers at age 43, is there anyone who has done this? What advice would you give me moving forward?

I am looking to enroll in a one-year intensive Teaching credential program (don't have the $ to support a 2 year program). Oregon and CA are the most likely places to accomplish this.

Job satisfaction helping kids, the schedule, being a part of a community, and my current job is rotting my insides are some of the reasons.

Mahalos! If you live on Oahu, I would buy the <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/beer.gif" alt="" /> to hear your thoughts!

my advice is run for the hills. teaching at that level is babysitting and you will be miserable. there must be some other option or opportunity out there other than teaching?
you'd be better off and make way more cabbage if you opened up a day care center.

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