ShmoopTube

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smell elementary middle high school teacher are one of those a la shmoop

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a home in the Hamptons a private jet mountains of cash shiny bling I'll enjoy [fancy home, jet plane, vault full of money]

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the pretty pictures people because if you decide to go the teacher route well

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you're never gonna get your hands on any of this stuff there's no such thing as a

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financially successful high school teacher hua masses great wealth or [teacher eating apple near yacht]

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fortunes and names their yacht yo teach considering that most teachers are smart

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individuals very few of them go into their professions thinking they're about [teacher dreaming about money]

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to make Bank well sure you might make more dough teaching at a holy Torah

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private school in Beverly Hills than you would if you were teaching in the inner

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city public schools of Philadelphia but there's a ceiling on how much dough you

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make and that ceiling is usually you know covered with spitballs so why [spit ball lands on teacher's head]

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become a teacher then at all well if you've got a razor-sharp mathematical

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mind why spend seven hours a day babysitting teenagers with a Dede when

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you could be rolling in moolah as a Wall Street trader if your debating skills [man rolling in money]

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are top-notch well why not channel that ability into a career as a trial lawyer

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or a politician or a real estate agent well is there truth to that whole those

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who can't teach axiom well not so fast first of all

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money is nice having money makes life easier grants you comfort and security [child counting money]

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adds value by giving you the freedom to take trips overseas and allows you to

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post bail when you um you know make an error in judgment but for some well it [woman behind bars]

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isn't enough for some people it's more important to change minds and lives to

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give young people the tools to be the next great inventor or chemists or

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architect or software designer rather than pursue those avenues for themselves [man lounging in pool]

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and to have their summers off that's a perk for those willing to sacrifice a

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certain lifestyle teaching can be an attractive gig let's look at some pros

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and cons here Pro you work from 8 to 3 9 months a year with days off for [pros and cons on blackboard]

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vacations yeah that's not counting the hours you

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spend at home each evening grading papers and tests and preparing the next

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day's assignments but you don't do that every night and the whole thing's not a

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bad deal timewise four months out of the year you're able to do whatever you want

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provided it doesn't cost too much money and if you want the opportunity to make

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Ordo well the opportunities usually there you can teach summer school you

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can coach a sport sell knockoff watches and the teachers lounge

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so yeah freedom in the form of time off is a big eat and that usually doesn't

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get calculated when they throw out those low salary numbers - yeah all right Kahn

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you're gonna watch all of your students learn grow up and achieve all sorts of

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amazing things that you never will you used to have all kinds of dreams but you

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gave him up in order to teach well now you'll have to live vicariously through

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your students whose dreams are still very much alive so yeah you're the kind

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of yoda-like person - there Luke Skywalker biding your time and your [Yoda and Luke in a swamp with light sabers]

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little swamp while they go traipsing all over the galaxy on various adventures it

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can be tough you might have to pay a visit or two to a school counselor [woman cries on counselor's shoulder]

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here's a pro those students are gonna remember you and thank you and a tribute

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at least some of their success - you're above and beyond level of instruction

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and inspiration and some of them will keep in touch with you over the years

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considering you of Vital enough influence in their lives that they'll [woman on phone]

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want to keep you there alright well there isn't much more fulfilling work

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out there even if it does fill your checking account with fat stacks of cash

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Kahn you're gonna have one long 50-year headache well first there are the kids

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they can be rowdy subordinate and sometimes downright belligerent they [kids playing on bus]

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don't really want to be there they'll disobey you simply refuse to complete

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their assignments and disappoint you on a regular basis and some of them will

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draw demeaning caricatures of you in their notebook but beyond the actual

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classroom headaches are the ones that will be incurred by your superiors your

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school's principal the district's superintendent whatever nutjob is

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currently heading up the Department of Education and then there's the teachers [man with a squirrel head]

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union well they make you pay a lot of dues the taxpayers and a whole lot of

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politicians hate them and you're not really sure if they know what they're

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doing the laws of the country seemed to always be changing and the whole thing [laws thrown into trash]

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seems like a mess but for all the headaches the stress isn't that bad like

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you may have a lot on your plate and plenty of people depending on you but

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it's not like if you forget to grade someone's test paper they're gonna die

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on an operating table low stress so yes education is important but the

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day-to-day stakes are manageable certainly relative to other

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professional careers alright here's a pro the money isn't as bad as you think

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let's say your base salary is 58 grand a year unless you live in rural Iowa or

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some other pastoral location where 58 grand is actually a lot of money your [cows in field]

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family is probably scraping by on that relative pittance but it doesn't tell [family eating a Hershey's bar]

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the whole story you've got health benefits like exceptional health benefit

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Thank You union negotiators like 10 grand or more in value a year medical

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dental vision psychiatric pet care it adds up it's good stuff and you've got a

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pension fund called the Cloverdale where most schools contribute something like a

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grand a month to that fund for you once you're established as a long-term

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teacher you've got partial use of a secretary or admin or two so throw in

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another five grand or so in value there you might only technically be making

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fifty eight grand a year in salary that you can spend today but remember that

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the state is quote forcing you unquote to put away 12 grand a year in savings

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each year for a long time so you should have pretty decent

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retirement dough think about it that 58 grand figure that's in your head is

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completely false in fact to keep you employed you're actually costing the

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state or taxpayers or whatever private school foundation is writing the checks

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closer to a hundred grand a year to pay you that fifty-eight and that's for

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about eight and a half months work with almost no weekends and all that isn't

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including any extra summer school work you take on or bonus pay for coaching

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football prepping the speech team or directing the student-written play why

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I'll never make my parents happy so considering how much you take on and

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what part of the country you live in you can actually carve out a nicely decent [saw carves money pile]

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financial niche for yourself and your odds of hanging on as a teacher well

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pretty good unless have video surfaces of you doing unsavory things to an

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airline mire flask your job is safe and even if you are a poor teacher well

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you'll just get moved to a poor school it's kind of how things work in the

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teaching game unless of course you're tenured ie your job is protected because

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you've been teaching forever without major incident in which case well they

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really can't touch you would do anything to you okay so what does a teacher do

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all day well don't they just magically appear at 8 a.m. for

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first period and then justice magically vanish when the final bell rings well [teacher appears and disappears in a puff or red smoke]

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they're not actual people with actual lives are they as someone who is likely

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a student yourself you know roughly what a teacher does during work hours they [woman in grocery store]

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stand up in front of the class and write important names and dates on a

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whiteboard they pass out pop quizzes and evil gleam in their eyes they ask you to

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stay after class just so they can exert their power and terrify the bejesus out

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of you you're not going to college you're going straight to the TSA but

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what about in the hours after the school day ends you've heard a woman's work is

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never done yeah okay a little outdated in a lot

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sexist but when it comes to teachers well it's a true statement a teacher's

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work really is never done so say a typical teacher has 25 kids in her

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classroom if each one has either taken a test or submitted an essay on a given

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day okay let's make it 24 because it'll be a cold day in hell when Tommy [boy sleeping in class]

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giardiniera does a lick of work that's two dozen tests slash papers you've got

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to sit down and go through with a fine-tooth comb you can't just do a

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quick skim job these kids put a lot of time and after it into studying for

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their quiz or researching their paper and there's plenty riding on the grade

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you give them for each of them the grade could be the difference between getting

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into Yale or taking over their dad's rubber chicken business so you owe it to

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your students to give long thoughtful consideration to everything they've

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written which can take hours if you're a good teacher or 15 minutes if you're

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either a bad teacher or a jaded teacher who used to be good and then you have to

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prepare for the following day if there's a lesson or a lecture to be given you've

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got a plan for it you can't just get up there and wing a speech about the Boston

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Tea Party for 45 minutes if there's another test to be given you have to

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create it type it up print it out draw cute little winking emoji in the corner [teacher preparing for class]

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of each one to relieve some of the pressure you know could be another

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couple hours but totally doesn't have to be you could just pull up a lesson plan

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from shmoop in 30 seconds Food for Thought people anyway this is all [Shmoop website]

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assuming that you didn't have to coach or direct or lead some after-school

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intensive woodworking seminar so yeah while teachers typically clock out at

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around 3:00 p.m. they generally don't clock in to bed until 10 o'clock or so

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usually after experiencing in excess amount of eye strain well the good thing

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is that you aren't going it alone there's almost a war like camaraderie [teachers in military uniform gather together]

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among teachers you all know what every other teacher well and your department

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at least does and you lean on each other so there's a good support system there

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when the school superintendent is cracking down on the use of purple chalk

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in classrooms your fellow teachers will have your back well when it comes down

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to it there are two types of teachers those who color inside the lines and

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those who venture outside of them you can totally beat one of the teachers who

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stays inside the lines your students will probably pass their tests your

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principal will give you a pat on the back and you will be well on your way to

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becoming tenured but you probably won't be remembered you might add a little

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value to some kids lives but you won't dramatically change them for the good if

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you can on the other hand be one of the teachers who isn't restricted by the

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usual rules and guidelines well who will act out the entire Gettysburg Address

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rather than just tell you about it or take you all outside to blow up an

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ostrich egg on the football field or flat-out tell you to question authority

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and not even take anything they're saying for granted well then you've got

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a shot at being a formative figure in the lives of some impressionable youth

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who are just dying to have their sponge-like brains filled and when all [information going into student's brain]

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is said and done you will be rewarded in the hereafter if you believe in such a

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thing for your noble work and sacrifice without teachers there would be no

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passing along of knowledge without teachers there would be no inspiration

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to innovate without teachers so there would be no snub so yeah thanks for

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making education a priority and for keeping us in business

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