Teaching Job - A Guide for Teachers

A teaching job is an honorable career choice and is actively taken up by a lot of interested candidates. A teaching job demands devotion, dedication, discipline, and determination. However, just like any other job, a teaching job also requires some research that needs to be done in order for you to make the decision to go ahead with it. So here are some of the things that teachers need to think about before taking up a teaching job.

Commitment to Work After Hours

Most jobs require you to just work for a particular amount of time from the office or at home, after which you can do whatever you want. However, a teacher’s responsibilities do not end at the school - they need to prepare for the class they will be conducting the next day. If they do not, the students will not be able to understand a particular portion of a subject, which will negatively impact their grades and even how they view the subject as a whole, So, the commitment and conviction to work after hours is a very important prerequisite towards being a teacher. If you are not okay with it, it will severely affect your productivity as a teacher.

Salary

Teachers often have different salaries depending on whether they are working at a government, government-aided or private institution. Government institutions offer a higher salary, greater flexibility, and more benefits for teachers, while a purely private school might offer only quite a little. The salary also changes depending on which state you are in as well as your experience and qualifications. Hence do proper research before settling for a particular school. Central government schools offer salaries that are higher than some college professor posts in reputed colleges, so it all comes down to how reputed the school is and how well off the students are.

The First Few Years

Not a lot of people realize this, but a teaching job can be quite strenuous and often exhausting. It has been reported that about 17% of teachers quit in their first few years of teaching for this very reason. Other factors can also add to this like family problems, a low salary, fewer benefits, etc. but the primary reason cited by many of them was that it was difficult to handle the class and complete the portions. However, there are a lot of teachers who handle this task with such ease that it almost looks like second nature for them, so it depends on your comfort level.

Handling Parents

Parents can be a great help or a major enemy for a teacher. There are a lot of parents who want to help the teacher impart as much knowledge to their children as possible, while there are also certain teachers who boss teachers around for every minor mistake they make. This can also be a source of stress for teachers and can be one of the factors that lead to them quitting as mentioned in the previous point. Again there are a lot of teachers who have excellent liasoning skills and can negotiate their way out of any situation. New teachers can ask for help regarding this from other experienced teachers, but they need to know this happens a lot and should be prepared for it.

Earning Respect

Children will not give you respect just because you are a teacher - that respect needs to be earned the hard way. Different teachers use different methods, but the basic idea is that they need to strive towards being strong, educational, firm, and at the same time, easily approachable and fun-loving to the student. The teacher must be able to spark the students’ imagination in the subjects that they teach and leave them wanting to learn more, while also being more than a teacher and providing emotional and moral support for the students if and when required.

Soft Skills

To excel at a teaching job, you should not just be good at teaching - you should be a good negotiator, an excellent communicator, and have impeccable organizational skills. Critical thinking is almost a must in the field of teaching and time management is another important prerequisite. To learn more about the skills a teacher should have, click here.

An Extended Education

A teaching job does not mean that you stop studying. On the contrary, it actually means that you’re just getting started. In order to teach students about a certain subject, the teacher needs to do a lot of extra reading so that they convey to the students what they need to know in such a way that everyone understands. So, be prepared to learn much more than what you signed up for.

Conclusion

Teaching offers quite a lot of satisfaction to the teacher if they do well because it is immediately apparent in the students’ behavior and grades. Of course, there might be hiccups along the way, but it’s not something a few years of experience can’t fix, especially if you are truly interested in the field. So, if you are ready for the journey, strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.

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