Who Wouldn’t Want To Be A Teacher?

I am delighted that teaching is now the most sought after profession in the United States. In the twenty-six years I have been a professional educator, teaching has become a more and more attractive profession. Of course, a majority of the best students at the most elite college are interested in going into the classroom and who can blame them? The way that we treat teachers in the United States is the key to the success of our educational system.

Of course, as everyone knows, teachers have really easy hours. Although class often starts around 8am, teachers get to come in an hour or more earlier to prepare for the day. However, class days often end between 2:30 and 3:30. What a great workday! Of course, most teachers stay after school to work with kids, sponsor clubs and coach sports, call and meet with parents, and attend meetings. Even with all that, most teachers might leave school no later than 6 or 7. And when they get home, they get to take a little bit of school with them and grade student work for a few hours and plan future lessons. What a fantastic daily schedule! And you get summers off to design curriculum, take college courses, and have fun extra jobs to supplement your income and experience!

Many students are attracted to teaching for the status, which may be the wrong reason. Everyone loves teachers. They are praised in the press and lauded in the halls of the legislature. Some college students are only in it for the prestige and teacher training programs must address that. Sure, other countries recruit teachers by paying their way through college and giving them high salaries, but we don’t need that in the United States. The joy and praise heaped on teachers is payment enough.

Teachers not only contribute to society by working with the young, their retirement dollars help ailing state governments. Teachers can feel good that the retirement money taken from their paychecks will be borrowed by the government to pay for many needed projects. Teachers have faith that it will be repaid when they are ready to retire. Since, for many of our younger teachers, that isn’t until age sixty-seven or perhaps older, the whole retirement question might not even matter at all! Besides, who would want to retire from teaching anyway?

Just like the high status, many young people want to go into teaching to strike it rich! The Chicago Sun Times recently reported that some teachers make around $100,000. After teaching for thirty years, students want to make those big bucks. In what other professions can long time veterans with advanced degrees say that they are earning almost six figures?

Of course, the biggest draw to teaching is the kids themselves. Remember what it was like back in high school or middle school? Imagine that all the time! And, for no extra charge, teachers also get to know and love their parents!

The fact is that anyone can be a teacher. After going to the doctor’s office, I performed surgery. I cooked a gourmet meal after eating at a French restaurant. A few visits to the salon and I can do wonders with my hair! If you have been a student, you can be a teacher! No problem!

Teaching isn’t really that hard because there are a battery of tests that tell teachers what students need to learn. Legislators and educrats have made teaching one of the easiest professions around. They have laid out targets in each subject and at each grade level. All teachers have to do is get the kids to score well on the test. What could be easier?

It is no wonder that today’s college students are flocking to be teachers! The way our country promotes teachers is the real reason that America has the best education system in the world!