What are the advantages and disadvantages to being a teacher??

Question

I'm thinking of being an elementary teacher because I love children, but want to know what advantages and disadvantages come with teaching. Also, do high school teachers get paid more than elementary teachers???

Answer 1

Where I live, pay is calculated based on years of post-secondary education and years of experience. Elementary and secondary teachers are on the same pay scale.

I've worked in both elementary and secondary schools (as a student-teacher, as I'm still completing my B.Ed). Elementary is great because you're with the same students all day, so you're able to make many more cross-curricular connections. You can build a unit around "Outer Space" and incorporate that into Language Arts, Math, Science and Physical Education. I also prefer the actual environment in elementary schools to the secondary school environment because it's more spacious, better decorated and encourages more interaction between the students and their environment. With teaching at any grade, it's a great feeling when a struggling student finally grasps that concept thanks to your support, and when you clue in to the fact that the learning is reciprocal (you're learning from the students) you'll start to get so much more from your job. Teaching is also great because you're always working with different people and the three-way relationship (teacher-student-curriculum) means that you can teach the same thing to two different groups and have two totally different experiences. Nobody can call teaching monotonous.

On the downside, teaching involves a lot of bureaucracy. A lot of your job will be administrative, from planning field trips to applying for funding for your special-needs students. This takes time away from teaching. You've also got your Code of Conduct, your union, the school administration, the school board and the provincial / state / federal body responsible for education. Then you've got the parents (who usually either think they know everything or think they know nothing) and the community. Education is probably the field with the largest number of stakeholders, and everybody has an opinion about how you should do your job. If you can deal with those two things, you can probably survive teaching!

Answer 2

Advantages:

* Receive private scholarships and federal funding for teaching programs
* Funding for teaching supplies
* Health benefits
* No teaching on the weekends, holidays, and the summer
* Knowing that you're making a difference

# Disadvantages: Teaching large classrooms
# Low salary relative to the work
# Small school budgets
# Work, on average, 50 hours a week

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher?

#
In the You Be the Judge feature, we consider both advantages and disadvantages of teaching. On the negative side of the ledger, teachers are not paid wonderful salaries, sometimes lack professional respect from others, get bogged down by routine, have inadequate time for contact with other adults, and face frustration when idealistic goals collide with student apathy, parent hostility, and the demands of old-fashioned bureaucratic red tape.
On the positive side of the ledger are rising salaries, the growing pride in the profession, the joy of working with children and caring colleagues, and the intellectual stimulation that are so often a part of classroom life, as well as the opportunity to affect the lives of the nation's youth.

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What are the advantages and disadvantages to being a teacher??
I'm thinking of being an elementary teacher because I love children, but want to know what advantages and disadvantages come with teaching. Also, do high school teachers get paid more than elementary teachers???

Answer 4

That's kind of a loaded question, only because I think it depends totally on what kind of school you teach in and what grades you teach.
Some definate advantages of being a teacher are obviously weekends and summers off, winter break, spring break.
Teaching also carries with it fantastic benefits.
It can be fun at times, especially when you can see a student's progress.

If you decide to teach the lower grades k-3, you can get away with being a TOTAL dork! The kids love it. You will get many compliments on your wardrobe no matter how it looks.
The kids will make you laugh everyday....and you get the joy of decorating a classroom with tons of fun things.
However, you will also probably wipe a lot of noses, tie shoes, hold grubby hands, and try to calm screaming crying kids.
Little kids don't understand sarcasm so you have to be careful how you talk around them. You might find yourself changing your vocabularly just so they understand you at all.
Parents also tend to be over protective at this age.

If you teach the older grades you get the opp[urtunity do amazing and in depth projects and see the kids really get into them. You can goof around with these kids and make jokes. You can talk to them about sports and clothes, and all kinds of things. They keep you young.

You also often have to become a "counselor" for these guys. You will find yourself spending hours cheering kids up, disciplining, correcting, and demonstrating proper behavior. You will also need to research their home lives in order to find out why students do or do not do their homework. YOu will have to understand what you teach really well, because they will eat you alive you don't know what you are doing. You have to be very firm most of the time, can't let you guard down and can't allow yourself to become their friend.

Answer 5

The main disadvantage of beig a teacher is that aftr a few years,you get bored in repeating the same things again and again year after year,The main advantage is that you have huge psychlogical satisfaction by teaching so many students and watching them grow up in front of your eyes and the respect they pay to you years after they leave the school.yes ,high school teachers are paid more than the elementary teachrs

Answer 6

Pros:
1:Benefits like health care, dental, and other programs for you since you are a teacher.
2: Retirement plans
3: Kids are angels... But you will run into some problems...

Cons:
1: No flexible hours unless emergency
2. Kids can be a pain. You may learn to hate these buggers. ^^ Ex) Stress from work. I find many teachers that they once liked kids and wanted to be a teacher. Now they are just waiting to get retired...
3: Start as substitute then work your way up.

Answer 7

There is no difference in pay between elementary and high school. Pay is determined by your experience or years worked. You need to be totally dedicated to your job, and be willing to put up with disrespect from students. Not from all of them, there are some real great kids out there, but you have to learn how to deal with them. Kids come to school with so much baggage these days, that a lot of your job is supporting students emotionally as well as academically. Hours are very long, it is rare that I come home without any work. Lesson planning takes a lot longer than people think. You have to deal with administration, they may have their own agenda, quite different from yours.
On the plus side, there's no greater feel than a big smile from a student that just understood what you explained or a knowing smile when you connect with one. Be prepared for lifelong training.

Answer 8

weird i just did a report on this

ADVANTAGES
get to help people
possible tenure
good pay
get summer off
community respect

DISADVANTAGES
you do tons of work
work outside of school
lots of training
some training during career

well good luck!

Answer 9

hi, my wife is in her 3rd year teaching, and let me tell you.. its got to be one of the best jobs... we live in the chicago land area. the only disadvantage would be that around here... there seems to be a low demand for elementary teachers. we have a few friends that have graduated in 2004 for elementary ed. and they are having a tuff time finding anything. My wife teaches special ed in elementary ed and she loves it. summers off.. full pension... you can retire at age 55.. and great pay.. you get automatic raises each year... As for pay, it greatly varies by state but heres something for IL... http://www.thechampion.org/teacher/cgi-bin/teacher.pl

that shows every teacher in IL and their exact pay. you should be able to find one for your state. its all public info.

oh and p.s. My wife loves her job... not many people can say that!

Answer 10

You get to go back to school at your own expense year after year in order to keep your certification!
You hone your negotiating skills with unreasonable, irrational parents or administrators!
You are challenged to develop patience by the unruly youngsters!