Whether you are coming to the end of compulsory education yourself or you’re looking for a rewarding second career, teaching is certainly a profession to consider. Most people do not take on a career in education for the pay check alone, but there are lots of reasons other than financial incentives why so many people find teaching such a rewarding career choice.
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To Make a Difference
A good teacher will make a huge difference to a child’s life. They might make the difference between a child understanding a subject well or always struggling with it, or perhaps they could be there to support and listen to that child in a time of need. Whatever the reason, many children remember their teachers and the lessons they have learned from them years after they have left school. As a teacher, you can be the person who really makes that difference and shapes young minds.
You Enjoy a Challenge
Teaching is a challenging career, and you will have to be able to think on your feet. It is necessary to hold the attention of the whole class by coming up with new innovative ways to teach a subject in a way that expands their minds and helps them to grasp difficult concepts. It is challenging to come up with new and interesting ways to do this on a regular basis. However, you also have the added challenge that children will ask lots of questions around a subject if they are interested in it. You will find yourself having to come up with responses on the cuff which will require you to be able to talk and assimilate information quickly and accurately. This is a fantastic career for those who enjoy a challenge.
You Like to Perform
Standing in front of a class every day is a performance. You will be the focus of attention and planning a lesson can be a lot like learning a script. The added curve balls that are being thrown at you when the children are asking questions will sometimes make you feel like a stand-up comedian being heckled. You will need to enjoy performing in front of people if you want to get ahead in teaching, but apart from being on the stage, there is no other career that comes close to the thrill of putting on a good performance.
If you are passionate about a subject, it is natural to want to share that with others. A teaching career will allow you to share that passion with others and educate them on your chosen subject. Hopefully, it will help to make some students as excited about your subject as you are. Whether you are interested in science, languages or the arts, being paid to talk about it all day long can’t be a bad thing, can it?
You Love to Learn
If you are an academic, then learning is a passion in itself. Teaching your students and helping them to learn is a very rewarding vocation, but teaching does not mean that you have to give up learning yourself. Every day your students will react to you in a way that will help you learn too. Whether they are asking you to look at a topic from a different angle or asking you a question you had never thought of before, you are going to be learning from your students.
Teaching a class does not mean that you have to give up formal learning yourself either. Once you have qualified as a teacher, you can carry on studying for formal qualifications such as an online ma Education at the University of Exeter to enhance your own learning and further your career. You can also learn more by taking up continuing education courses for teachers.
Career Stability
This is one of the most stable professions you can join. You often hear of large corporations making thousands of people redundant, but this is not the case in the world of teaching. There are frequently more job openings than there are people qualified to fill the roles so you will never need to be out of work. Once you have got your foot in the door, promotion often happens from within, so you may not need to wait too long for your skills to be recognised and promotion to be offered accordingly.
Flexibility
A teaching career can be very flexible. Teachers do not have to spend all their time in the classroom. A lot of work goes into lesson planning, preparing, and marking work. Approximately half your time will be spent in the classroom which you will have scheduled hours for. The other half will be spent outside the classroom and there are no set hours here. This makes the job very flexible, and it doesn’t need to be a 9-5 job if other hours would suit you better. This works well for teachers who have other commitments outside of work.
Many people think that teachers only work during term time. This is not true as teachers need to spend some of their holiday time planning for the term ahead. However, teachers can work flexible hours to do this so it may make your schedule easier to manage. It usually works out that teachers do get more than the standard 28 days per year holiday too, but it may not be as much as you would think.
To Join a Great Community
The teaching community is a big place and the people who are a part of it have all different levels of experience. Some people will be just starting out and need lots of help and support to be the best they can be whereas other teachers have been in the classroom for thirty years or more and they are keen to pass on their knowledge to more inexperienced teachers. There will always be someone to ask if you are unsure of something and you will find a lot of support among the teaching community.
These are some great reasons to join the teaching profession, but you can probably think of many more too.
