I Need Out Of Teaching...What Career Should I Switch To?

Become a librarian. Way less stress, similar pay and you don't have to deal with kids all day.You would need to go back and get your masters.

Teaching is not fully recession-proof anymore. Here in Philadelphia over 80 teachers were laid off last year. If they made one more cut, I would have been next. That changed my view. The bottom line is that people who don't take some chances (after a little research) may not have the best quality of life because they live in fear. I am a teacher who is slowly trying to change living a life based on fear. When it is time for a change, Just Do It.

The grass is not greener necessarily in a "right to

work" union free state. Our district is getting ready to

roll out pay for performance but many of the measures

are unattainable to a quality teacher who works hard for

her own classroom. To be considered "distinguished" I

would need to pilot some new program that affects the

entire school district. Of course I love the children but I

am raising my own family too. The demands are increasing

and I can't put my own family after my career.

April wrote:

Of course I love the children but I

am raising my own family too. The demands are increasing

and I can't put my own family after my career.

Welcome to the real world. The rest of us have been toiling under the pay for performance culture and juggling our families/careers for many, many years now. Now you might be able to understand why parents resent teachers for making them provide supplementary tutoring at home because the teachers refuse to teach anything other than the basics in the classroom. We have to do our own jobs- to pay you- and your job.

You won't get one iota of sympathy from me.

Word is that Lamar Odom might be seeking a new crack dealer. If you're still looking for work and can relocate to SoCal, it is a possibility.

bills and more bills no time wrote:

April wrote:

Of course I love the children but I

am raising my own family too. The demands are increasing

and I can't put my own family after my career.

Welcome to the real world. The rest of us have been toiling under the pay for performance culture and juggling our families/careers for many, many years now. Now you might be able to understand why parents resent teachers for making them provide supplementary tutoring at home because the teachers refuse to teach anything other than the basics in the classroom. We have to do our own jobs- to pay you- and your job.

You won't get one iota of sympathy from me.

You resent teachers for suggesting you help your kid with their homework? So you expect the teacher to come home with your kid and provide that extra tutoring? Helping your kid with homework is part of being a parent buddy. Teachers who have kids I'm sure sit down with their own kids after dinner and help with homework too. Get real. If you don't want to help your kid out and attend their every need then don't have kids.

bills and more bills no time wrote:

April wrote:

Of course I love the children but I

am raising my own family too. The demands are increasing

and I can't put my own family after my career.

Welcome to the real world. The rest of us have been toiling under the pay for performance culture and juggling our families/careers for many, many years now. Now you might be able to understand why parents resent teachers for making them provide supplementary tutoring at home because the teachers refuse to teach anything other than the basics in the classroom. We have to do our own jobs- to pay you- and your job.

You won't get one iota of sympathy from me.

more learning occurs at home, especially for younger children, than at school. Remember a teacher is trying to reach 30-35 children at once. You only have to reach 1-few at home (unless you are an idiot who won't use condoms). Teachers would love to work with your child one on one and turn him into Harvard material, but there just isn't time for that, despite teachers' best efforts. Remember again a typical class now as up to 35 students due to things like military spending and tax breaks for greedy rich people and corporations. Lets assume your kid is average, from your statement below average might be more likely, but I'll give your parenting skills the benefit of the doubt. The teacher has about 3 minutes that he or she could spend one on one with each student a day at max, assuming nothing else was ever done in the classroom. Now most of the time there are inclusion students in classes (save ap and dual enrollment) who will take more of the teachers time than average. When you consider the fact that the teacher is spending most of the class teaching a lesson that cuts down even more time he or she could spend with little johnny, because you wouldn't help him with his Pythagorean theorem homework at home.

Still think the parent has no role in education? If you do, I encourage you to send your child to boarding school, it will be better for him. By the way in university level education courses, they strongly emphasis the role of the parent in education and how crucial it is to get parents on board with what is happening in the classroom.

If you are in California the California Corrections is hiring a lot in the next few years and they make a lot more than teachers. If you are a teacher you have the ability to easily pass the written and the interview(and if your on this message board the physical fitness test would be easy as well). The benefits and retirement are great and there is no age limit. Yes you have to work at a prison and see some terrible things but the fact that you can make two to three times as much makes it a no brainer

Performing in adult movies. It pays well. The work is steady and good paying. And, there are some benefits.

Hey, I think this may be of some help!

http://www.educatorrescue.com

is an emerging start-up with one mission: to give support and advice to teachers transitioning out of the education field.

Check it out if you want to switch out of teaching but have no idea how or don't know how to get the life you want after teaching.

http://www.educatorrescue.com

Mick Lovin wrote:

Performing in adult movies. It pays well. The work is steady and good paying. And, there are some benefits.

You're probably underestimating what a hard job it is. Also the pay is probably on the decline. The real money is apparently in escorting. Videos are like advertising for that. Also the real money is in being a woman in that line of work.

I live in Arizona and there's also a demand for correctional officers.

Many of the hospitals will pay for a 2 year post undergrad program for a specific certification.

And nationwide there is demand for transport trucking drivers.

HELP ME! wrote:

I am in my 10th year of teaching and desperately need a change. I taught HS for 7 years and switched to a virtual middle school 2 years ago. I have a B.S. in Biology and a M.A. in Education. I really hate teaching. I hate working with kids. I tried getting out of the classroom (by going virtual) but I still hate working in education. Low pay, the teachers union, political correctness, parents who don't care, kids who don't care...I am sick of it all.

With my experience & education, what career change could I make? I need at least 50k per year to make ends meet.

Easy money bruh.

Get 85+ percentile on MCAT to get accepted to medical school.

Get 90+ percentile on Step 1 and Step 2 and do above average in classes.

Do easy 7 year residency working 90 hours a week.

Fast, quick cash bruh.

Pimp

Problem is that your clearly have no idea what a teacher does in a day. And then the hours that same teacher puts in after school, weekends, summers and every other day, which by the way is all overtime yet all unpaid. It's not called tutoring when it is your own child. It's called being a parent. You chose to have children, and doing homework comes with that. Oh and there are plenty of problems with performance pay for teachers. How do you propose that we evaluate teachers effectively? In order for you to understand any of this, you would need to be a teacher or somewhere in the school system. See, there are these things called IEP's, kids who have special learning needs. So how do you evaluate a teacher who has those kids? How do you evaluate a teacher who this year has the majority of students who are really really low and then in that same district, in that same school, teaching the same grade, you have a teacher who has a majority of students who are average to high coming in and have high parental involvement at home. How do you evaluate that? I have had several jobs, most of them crap jobs just to get me through high school and college. They were hard working, dirty, long hour physical jobs. None of them compare to the work of being a teacher. Coming from a teacher. You clearly are not one, so how can you know anything about it? You can't. So do everybody a favor and keep your ignorance to yourself.

army

navy

air force

marines

coast guard

The people on here putting down teachers have no idea what they go through every day. You have to work with many children that refuse to do work and that are not motivated. You have to work with those coming in late because they can't get a ride or parents can't take them. You call parents about students skipping or acting up and nothing changes. In the corporate world, these trouble maker people usually get fired or written up with no questions asked by parents if they decide not do their work. Yes, there are those teachers that are complete performers and love to just show movies and have fun with easy projects. However, this does not prepare for the real world or college. Oh yes, my tenth grade literature class was a blast. I heard a college student tell me a story about a 12th grade lit class. "We all turned in papers and did projects, all of us got an A and it was fun and wasn't hard at all." When she made it to college she had to drop out of basic literature because there were too many papers and it was apparently too hard. That won't prepare anyone for college. When you get a job, it's not always a game and it's not always fun and entertaining. The education system in America should have changed by the 1970's. Keeping students in classrooms (especially high school students) all day and forcing them to be there and be on task 6/7 hours a day is not easy in today's world. I think the best education system should have teachers a guides, monitor the class, let them work throughout the day at school getting their own assignments done with online instruction or resources available with a teacher more as a guide. We would still have math teachers, English teachers, ect to answer questions or do mini lectures for those who need/want it for help. But not to lecture every day and spend half the time with discipline and forcing unmotivated students to pay attention and do work right then now! Parents don't want corporal punishment. Parents don't want F's. Parent's want students to succeed which is good. The time in school should be getting work done on their own, and turning it in by deadlines. If they do not turn it in, they don't get the grade. If they keep not turning work in, they will be 19 or 20 without graduating high school or going to college. That should be the lesson. Do it or don't succeed. Just like a person wanting a job sitting a home all day doing nothing. A high school student sitting around all do doing nothing won't get a diploma. Why can't it be that easy? Lectures and forcing everyone to be quiet all day long, especially in high school is very vintage.

Getting high school kids ready for college is becoming the focus of a lot of schools that I interviewed for in FL. It's also one of the things that made me want to be a HS teacher. I think I could've been better prepared for college while in HS, especially with strong study skills and tips for scheduling classes and just what to expect.

OP:

I'm going to start teaching this year and left a job that I was very unsatisfied with. It was an office job making just slightly less than a teacher w/ 3 wks vacation per yr. It's insane how much you have to work in the private sector, even on Christmas eve and only federal holidays off. I did that job for 3 years and couldn't take it anymore. In that building but in a different company one guy committed suicide at work - he shot himself. I could see how unhappy people were going to work and older people too. I can't imagine working there for so long, just getting through it. So I decided to go back to school and finish my BS degree and be a teacher instead. I watched the documentary Waiting for Superman which a friend told me about and I realize the whole system is so messed up in many ways, but at the end of the day the product of my work is going to students who need help and not a few rich people. I'm also realistic and am doing research on what else I could do if teaching doesn't work out in the long run. By experience with other jobs, if I don't like it I can put up with it for up to 3 years. So I would do Health Services Admin - the job is basically being in charge of a department in a hospital or a small health care facility and with more exp running a bigger facility. Transferable skills are being able to work with diverse groups of people, being a leader and role model, motivating others. But new skills would be needed in business, accounting, and health-related like insurance, laws and regulations, etc. Health care is another area with a lot of issues and that's not going to be a picnic either. Whatever you choose to do you have to be flexible and willing to make changes, resilient to conflict and frustration which is everywhere pretty much. Not everyone knows perfectly well what they would like to do for 30 years. I feel you can only know for sure once you're actually doing the work, sometimes even way later with more experience and expertise.

I have been teaching middle school ELA for 20 years in the inner city with children who are struggling readers, live in severe poverty, come to school hungry and have severe behavioral/mental heath issues. I have always loved teaching and have earned distinguished teaching ratings for the past 5 years. I go to work st 7:30am and do not leave my building until approximately 6pm every day including Friday’s. I work endless hours still in the evening and on the weekends. I spend hundreds of dollars on incentives and food for my kiddos to try and help motivate them. It’s hard to want to learn when your basic needs are not met. Those of you who have never stepped into a classroom, yet slam teachers should be ashamed of yourselves as you have no clue and to what we actually do. I never have a lunch because my kids ask to come and be tutored, so I give up my lunch. We can not get subs because of our childrens’ behavior so we lose our preparation period to cover a class of a colleague. We are teachers, parents, counselors, nurturers, disciplinarians, social workers, etc. etc. our school districts ask us to do tasks that look good on paper but becomes busy work and takes away valuable time we could be utilizing to help our students succeed; and we have been working with no contract and pay freezes. Although I have found teaching to be rewarding it is also exhausting. Many students have no respect for teachers and cuss us out. We are no longer permitted to suspend children, give detention etc. and have absolutely NO support from administration. Most parents are supportive when you talk to them but their child’s behavior doesn’t change. I too, am at a place where I have 10 years to retire and don’t know if I can even make it through this year. I have an extremely rough group of students this year and I am seriously thinking of a career change for my mental health. If you think that we have it so easy, I welcome you to come to my school for one day and try to teach, others have tried and left our building in tears including certified teachers.