Chapter 1 Teaching: Is it For Me?

1. Chapter 1Teaching: Is it For Me?

2. Why Do People Become Teachers Today? • NEA survey results • Desire to work with young people, 73% • Value of education in society, 44% • Interest in a subject-matter field, 36% • Positive influence of a former teacher, 32%

3. Why Do People Become Teachers Today? • Other reasons: • Always wanted to be a teacher • Family influence • Job security • Benefits and long summer vacation • A lifetime of learning • Others?

5. Join the Dialogue • Why are you interested in teaching?

6. Why Do Some People Leave Teaching? Between 40-50% of new teachers leave the profession within the first five years.

7. Why Do Some People Leave Teaching? • Primary reasons given for leaving teaching: • Personal reasons • School staffing actions • Other job opportunities • General dissatisfaction: salary, student discipline problems, and lack of support

8. Why Do Some People Leaving Teaching? • Salaries • Teachers have historically low salaries compared with other professions • However, teachers receive pensions and great benefits which, along with “priceless” qualities of work, can make up for low pay

10. Why Do Some People Leaving Teaching? • Lack of support • The first year of teaching is generally “sink or swim” • This is changing with many new mentoring and induction programs

11. What Has Motivated People to Teach at Different Times in the Past? • The nation’s first teachers • Many young men entered teaching between graduating college and entering a profession • Between 1636 and 1776, 40% of Harvard graduates taught at some point during their lives

12. What Has Motivated People to Teach at Different Times in the Past? • Teaching becomes a woman’s profession • In 1830, the vast majority of teachers were male. By 1900, 75% of teachers were females • Catharine Beecher advocated for women to enter teaching profession • Teaching was an opportunity for middle-class, single women to enter a respectable career • Women worked for lower pay and were expected to leave the profession if they married

13. What Has Motivated People to Teach at Different Times in the Past? • The first “Peace Corps”: Teachers in the Midwest and South • Communities in new territories and states needed teachers for emerging schools • The Board of National Popular Education recruited young women as teachers and sent them west to “civilize the frontier” • After the Civil War, newly freed blacks and Northern teachers taught former slaves

14. What Has Motivated People to Teach at Different Times in the Past? • Immigration transforms teaching • Chinese and Japanese immigrants moved to the West Coast. Southern and eastern Europeans immigrated to East Coast • New students meant new opportunities and challenges for teachers • Many established residents wanted new immigrants “Americanized” • Needed more teachers for the influx of new students

15. What Has Motivated People to Teach at Different Times in the Past? • Progressive education • Part of a larger effort to improve the quality of American, especially urban, life • Belief that students learn best when practicing real-life activities while engaging with a community of learners • John Dewey wanted to create school communities which were “worthy, lovely, and harmonious” for the students

16. What Has Motivated People to Teach at Different Times in the Past? • The emergence of high schools • The majority of students did not attend high school until the 1930s • Not until 1950s that a majority of students graduated from high school • High school teachers enjoyed greater prestige and higher pay

17. What Has Motivated People to Teach at Different Times in the Past? • Movements of the 1960’s • The Peace Corps brought teachers from U.S. to underdeveloped regions • Teachers began to be required to complete a baccalaureate degree prior to teaching • Women were given greater job freedom across all professions • Civil Rights movement

18. What Has Motivated People to Teach at Different Times in the Past? • Effects of the Civil Rights Movement • Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, many African-American teachers lost their jobs as schools were integrated • Teachers could no longer let disadvantaged students “slip through the cracks,” but had to provide effective teaching to all students, regardless of race, disability, or income

19. Should I Be a Teacher? • Ask yourself: • Why am I considering teaching? • How will I find out if teaching is right for me? • You may not know the answer until you spend time working in a classroom

20. What About Me? • What about teaching most appeals to you? • What excites you when you think about standing in front of your own classroom? • What is the least appealing thing about teaching? What about it scares you?

21. Reading: From To Teach, The Journey of A Teacher by William Ayers • Gives reasons for not teaching • Low salary, low professional status, complex and difficult working conditions • Ayers began teaching at an alternative school in 1965 and believed, then and now, that teaching was (and is) a way to change the world • Ayers concludes: • “Teaching can still be world-changing work. Crusading teachers are still needed—in fact, we are needed now more than ever…And this, I believe, is finally the reason to teach…I teach in the hope of making the world a better place.”

22. Reading: “The Colors and Strands of Teaching” by Melinda Pellerin-Duck • Lifelong teacher who believes students need to have an active role in their learning • Exalts in the joys of teaching and when asked why she continues teaching, answers: • “…I teach because I see extraordinary possibilities in my students. I could not see myself doing anything else but teaching; it is my vocation.” • Subverts the popular saying: “Those who can’t, teach” by claiming that only those who can, teach: • “Those who can, find joy walking into a room with open minds. They teach. Those who can, take students from ‘I can’t’ to ‘I can.’ They teach.”

23. Reading: “The Wrong Solution to the Teacher Shortage” by Richard M. Ingersoll and Thomas M. Smith • Demand for new teachers stems from increasing students and retiring teachers, though these reasons are only secondary to the problem of teacher attrition • 40% to 50% of new teachers leave in the first 5 years in the profession • Teacher shortage won’t be alleviated by recruitment, but rather, teacher retention efforts • Support from school administration, teacher-mentor programs, improved working conditions

24. Reading: From The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching by Herbert Kohl • Characteristics of “schools and classrooms of hope” • “Staff, parents, and community are in common accord that every child can learn” • “They are safe and welcome places…” • “Teachers and staff are delighted to work and free to innovate…willing to take responsibility for students’ achievement” • Kohl’s goals: • To challenge students with new material and intellectual programs • To understand how to deal with youth rage and violence and use understanding for students’ benefit