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I know pachmama teaches high school and desertdreams is also middle.

Yes, I teach 8th and my husband teaches 10th; 10 years experience for both of us. We both love our jobs but it's definitely not easy - it took us years & years to fully refine our craft and style and curriculum. Creating engaging, impactful, multimodal lessons every day take a lot of effort. We aren't textbook teachers.

I love teaching youth, I love my subject, I love the "work hard, party hard" schedule (50-55 hour weeks, but 12 weeks off total). I love the energy of a classroom and I'm decently extroverted. I get to talk about a lot of cool things all day long.

I love that I am impacting the future generation, but it's also a weighty responsibility.

I hate the feeling of failure, of never being enough or doing enough or being done. I hate the unethical decisions/policies that are in place bc of the drastic lack of funding.

I think Texas has ok funding? At least compared to AZ, which is a bad barometer

I'm a former 7th, 8th, and 9th grade math teacher. Here are a few thoughts I had!

What I loved: my content-area, helping kids figure it out (especially the kids who were struggling most at the get-go), the kids themselves (I really enjoyed working with middle schoolers, though I know not everyone does!), feeling like what I did made a difference - to the kids, their parents and the teaching teams I worked on. I also still love when I see former students around my community and get to hear what they are up to now.

What I didn't love: never feeling caught up, my school policies regarding test retakes and re-teaching with very little student accountability in the process, new school-wide initiatives that changed every year (it felt like a constantly moving target!), too much or too little parental involvement (in one school I taught, kids had zero support at home and it was heartbreaking...in another school I taught, we had to email grade reports home twice a week and parents literally would come find me before they'd even talked to their kids at the end of the school day to demand for extra credit opportunities to "fix" the grades. Such a wide spectrum there!)

@math.nerd: What you wrote about the emotional stakes and overwhelm of teaching really resonates with me a lot. Classroom teaching was not for me long term either. I taught for eight years, but knew by about two or three years in that I wanted to find a different path - still within education, but not so much on the "front line".

I work part time now in curriculum design and it's a much, much better fit for me. I can anticipate and solve more of my problems, and I don't feel like I'm constantly adjusting my day on the fly like I did when I was teaching. I work more independently (I'm more of an introvert - which actually helped some in the classroom for my more introverted students...but was harder on me than I realized at the time.) And I'm absolutely able to set work aside emotionally, which has been the right thing for me and my family at this stage.

Many of the things that stressed me so much about teaching though are the things that my friends who are in it for the long haul love about the job. I think it's so much about knowing yourself and where you draw your energy and satisfaction in your work. For what it's worth, I also think that had I gone into teaching after having kids, I would have been a heck of a lot better about drawing firmer boundaries between work and home and not working 60+ hour weeks. I had a pretty tough time scaling back from what I had been doing when I needed to make adjustment after kids.

@skinnycow: So, this is what I would tell anyone who was interested in teaching (not specific to you):

Teaching must be a calling. It's not always one you love and sometimes you regret your decision, but it's not a "fall back" because another career didn't work out or because you want summers off. It's because there is something inside of you that says that teaching and investing in youth matters. Even when your job/ school site sucks, you know it matters.

The good: I make a decent to good salary, enjoy having the same schedule as my kids' yearly schedule, enjoy the camaraderie with my fellow teachers, have laughed to the point of crying, and have cried along with my students when they are heartbroken. I have heard kids say that they "used" to hate to read or students who finally read something they love. I have been confided in and trusted. I know (at the end of the day,) that even though I am not a perfect teacher (no one ever gets there,) that what I do matters. I may not be with my own children during the day, but I am investing in other people's children and that helps. I like that I have flexibility (this varies a lot) and that teaching is an art. I work 38 hours a week and *rarely* bring work home because I work through my prep and my lunch.

Cons: I feel like teaching is treating like a "lesser tha n" profession. Sometimes it's nearly insulting. There is this adage that "those who can't do teach" and I feel like that attitude still applies. I have been worried to sick about students and have become skilled at CPS reports. School, district, and state initiatives are CONSTANTLY changing that are meant to be adhered to immediately without much support or resources. Classroom management is hard. I don't deal with noise. I've learned what works for me, but. sometimes, even that doesn't work. The discrepancy between school resources is appalling. Sometimes the cranky (often older teachers) can wear on you. You are never good enough. That is a positive and a negative. There are very very few "perks." I have to beg for construction paper. I get 80 dollars a year for my class expenses. Being gone for the day is such a pain. Many teachers go in sick because of the minimal number of sick days and the hassle of creating a sub plan and knowing that you will have to come back and deal with all kinds of behavioral stuff.

I would encourage you to talk to some local teachers and see what their experience is like and make sure you research the contract for each job you interview for since health care etc can vary so much.

Best of luck!

@caitcat: I have always been more passionate about curriculum vs instruction. So, do you work for a major publisher? Sorry for so many questions!

@skinnycow: Summers off is absolutely a perk! Just not the reason to become a teacher (not saying that's you.)
I wanted to be a teacher forever and then I went to college and decided that teaching wasnt interesting enough. So, I took a semester off and finally decided to go after it. I don't regret it. I know that I will always work in education. I'm just not sure I have found my niche yet. In the meantime, I am gaining experience.
Have you looked into the salary schedules at nearby districts? So, I will say that *eventually* you'll find a work/home life balance but the first 2-3 years, it feels like you are drowning. It gets better.

I'm not a secondary teacher her but I am an elementary teacher. From the outside, teaching appears easy and the profession is not as respected. Teachers who make it look easy are highly skilled. Teaching is a calling and a passion and that is what keeps us hang in there though all of the downsides of the system. It is ALWAYS the teacher's fault for low scores when there are SO many contributing factors. Success is defined by scores and not progress so you have to be really secure in what you value or it the system can really wear you down. There are many rewards of the job - relationships with students, their families, and staff. Helping student to believe in themselves and feel safe and secure. Teaching kids to get along with each other (the most important life skill to me!) It is emotionally draining and there is no off button when it is so personal. The fire in me to help kids is what keeps me going but I would be lying if I said I hadn't considered what else I could do because the system is constantly telling teachers they aren't good enough.

I taught high school science before becoming a SAHM.

The actual classroom teaching part is fantastic. Honing your craft as a teacher is very rewarding. And the personal aspect of getting to be a child's sometimes only example of a functioning, compassionate adult is something I found really rewarding.

I didn't teach for very long, so most of my experience was filled with very long hours as I was learning how to do it well and wasnt efficient right away. It really took away from my family. I also coached, and no matter how efficient you get at that, you'll always be gone extra for practices, games, etc.

Ultimately, I'm very glad to have given back to my community in that way. But the politics and bureaucracy are irritating at times and take away from the work at hand.

I do hope to connect with that age group again in the future, but not in the traditional classroom setting. It takes too much away from my family and my own self. There was very little time to do any kind of self care. I was too exhausted