Company's Name Local public school district
Your position 8th grade algebra teacher
Your duty/s Transform hooligans into productive citizens.
I take the state standards and the county's extra required topics and turn them into lesson plans and activities that match the learning styles of the students in my classroom. I constantly assess their progress through activities, quizzes, informal feedback, etc, and write formal assessments to monitor their progress. That's the easy part.
The hard part is training 13 year olds to take responsibility for their learning. They've been babied all throughout elementary school by teachers and/or parents, and this is the magic time where we stop doing that and they freak out.
The other hard part is teaching them to be respectful people.
Your co-workers are, for the most part, insanely dedicated individuals who pour 100% of themselves into this job. I work at a low income school, so no one chooses to come here because "it's easy". They come because they believe they can make a difference for these kiddos. Almost everyone has masters degrees, years of experience, and great enthusiasm for what they do. There are a few wet blankets and slackers, but they're greatly outnumbered.
Pros are that I go home at the end of the day really feeling good about what I do. Every single day, I know that I affected 130 little lives (hopefully for the better). I also love that even though almost every week is at least 60 hours of work, I can do the majority of the extra stuff at home. I can leave the school by 4:30 or 5 almost every day to get home and let Lucy out, and then finish up the rest of my planning on the couch for a couple hours. I also have fantastic stories I come home with almost every day:
http://middleschoolsafari.blogspot.com/
Cons are that it is physically exhausting. There are no such things as "mental health days" in this field, because it is 10x the work to find a decent substitute and make sub plans than it is to just fight the snotty nose or burn out and come in.
It's frustrating that the public opinion controls so much of what happens inside the classroom (that decisions aren't made my the "professionals", but by popular opinion). For example, parents were upset that kids were getting "tracked" into regular level classes. They raised such a fit that they got the school board to implement "open enrollment" for honors classes. If a parent signs a paper, their child is officially an honors student. That means that I have a lot of kids inappropriately placed, and my honors classes are waaaay lower than they have been in the past.
There is also VERY little respect. All day long, I am berated by 13 year olds who are learning what is/isn't appropriate and pushing boundaries. They don't stop talking when I am speaking, they get mad at me when they score poorly on a test, and the most common phrase out of their mouth is "But you didn't tell me..." That would be fine, but fellow adults don't have a whole lot of respect for what I do either. When I was in IT, people were impressed when I talked about my job. Now the common responses are, "Oh, that's cute" or "It must be nice to get home at 3:00" or they tell me how to do my job better. ("If teachers would just allow their rating to be based on student test scores, we could get rid of the crappy teachers") It's frustrating to no longer be treated as an equal by former coworkers.
Finally...the pay stinks. I knew this going in, so I don't complain about it, but there have been no raises in 5 years (not even cost of living adjustments, so really people are making less than before).
Favorite thing about your job is the "you'll never believe what so and so said in 3rd period!" stories that I bring home every day. Also the kids who really really want to learn, that I can help. It's really rewarding in those situations.
Anything else you want to discuss about it A lot of people who go into teaching enjoyed being in school and were good at it. The thing is, the majority of kids you teach aren't those types of students. It was really, really eye opening to realize that only a small percent of my students are internally motivated to learn. The rest are still learning the value of learning--those are the ones I really try to reach.