When a Student Asks a Teacher, "Should I Choose a Teaching Career?"

[Editor's note: Taylor Scott isn't her real name, but she is a real teacher in the really troubled schools of New Orleans.

This is Taylor's first guest-post. That's her blog's portrait on the right.

She quit her South Carolina school last year, and is in her first year in a New Orleans school. I've been a fan of Taylor's dispatches from the teaching trenches since she started, because of her mix of a passion I want to call "tragic," her sharp eye for (often ironic) detail, and above all, her writing skills. She's honest, funny, in-your-face, vulnerable, and outraged by turns if not all at once. Be sure to check out her blog for some first-rate, first-hand reportage from ground zero of some shocking schools - here's a good place to start: her first week in her new school in New Orleans.

Before I turn it over to Taylor, I want to share one vision I have for this space as it unfolds: I want to feature posts from other teachers, from other school districts across the country - New York, D.C., Chicago, L.A., and anyplace else, rural or urban, rich or poor, charter or traditional (and yes, alternative and even home-schooled and/or unschooled), in a regular rotation of "dispatches from the trenches."

And I want a similar rotation from the same type spread of administrators, students, parents, and school board members. Let me know if you're interested by sending me a private message.

Now here's who, in my previous blogging life, I (admiringly) called "a bitch, a hellcat, an absolute doll" - Taylor the Teacher. And note, in this post, the hellcat's claws are retracted. She's less tamed in her own space. - Clay]

~     ~     ~

So My Student Wants to be a Teacher

I received the following message from a former student via Facebook a couple of days ago:

Hello! How are you? I am just writing because I have been meaning to write to you for a long time. Sadly, I have been really busy. I just wanted to write because I never got to say to you how awesome of a teacher you really were. You made your class so much fun to go to. Also, you were a wonderful listener. I know more then once I went into your classroom upset and you were there to listen for me. You also made me realize how much I want to be a teacher. I have finally decided to go back to be a teacher. English! HAHA. But, I want to be like you. You were amazing, Mrs. Scott, and I just wanted you to know that!

Love,

B.

I’m sitting on this message because I don’t know how I should respond. No teacher wants to discourage a student’s dream, but there are things she needs to consider before she sits down to the table to lay her bet on a teaching degree.

Teacher dropouts are more common than high school dropouts. There’s a good chance she’s not going to be satisfied with her career choice within five years. Half of new teachers aren’t.

I could never in good conscience advise B to major in education. Spending money to go to college in order to improve her earning power in the future is a financial decision. Borrowing the money for an education degree is even worse - and, financially speaking, an investment in which she, as a teacher, will lose either way.

She could end up as one of the 50% of teachers who stick it out and enjoy teaching for years and years. In that case, her standard of living will be the same after twenty years in her profession as they are when she starts. And she’ll have student loans to pay off.

But it’s equally likely she’ll be dissatisfied with teaching within the first five years, and then she’ll need to find another career. There are many rewards to teaching, and for the years that teacher is able to reap the warm fuzzies, very fulfilling. But sometime between her third and fifth year, she may not view those intangible rewards as worth the pay she’s receiving and will have to move on.

When she does that, an education degree isn’t going to be particularly valuable.

No matter what people say to our faces at Christmas parties, the business world doesn’t think much of teachers. Teaching experience on her resume is not a strike against her necessarily, but it doesn’t add value either. If she invests all her time, money and education on teaching, that investment won’t go with her to her next endeavour. If she wants to continue growing professionally or financially she will have to give up teaching.

They say you should never bet more than you can afford to lose. she should only major in education if she has four years and fifty thousand dollars to lose.

Taylor