The State of US Teachers
-We will need over 2 million new teachers in the next 10 years. -Twenty percent of teachers quit within the first 3 years of their teaching careers. -33 percent of teachers quite within the first 5 years of their teaching careers. -The main reason teachers quit is because they feel they are not making enough money. Starting teachers can make as little as $20 000 per year, barely above the poverty line. -Other reasons to quit include: misbehaved students, disrespectful students, whining parents, angry parents, growing families, desire for change, and long hours in the classroom. Teachers feel that their profession is not fully appreciated or understood. Many will meet highschool friends and be laughed at when they tell them what their job is. -Teachers find it difficult to cope with the wide range of students in every classroom- different races, religions, and financial levels. -Students want to be teachers because they feel they can positively affect a child’s life and because they excel in a certain subject. They like being able to help their own communities. -Many of our long-lasting teachers were inspired by past teachers and other role models in the education system. -One top teacher wanted to be a movie-star, a missionary, and a mechanic as a child. She feels that as a teacher she can be all three of these things. -A teacher that does not have set expectations of her students or strong inner will power will likely leave the profession quickly. -Teachers are very stressed and they lose sleep and personal downtime because they worry about their students and they have so much marking to do. -Teachers generally think poorly of themselves and consider the jobs they do to be of a low quality. This is because they are so hurried in the day that they simply can’t do all the things that they want to do. -Teachers have to realize that they don’t have the power to make a student succeed and that, although they can try, they cannot make a student hand in an assignment. -The best teachers are the ones who can find something about every student that is good and love and appreciate each one equally. -The best teachers realize that teaching involves more than covering the curriculum with students . It involves counseling them about their futures. Many children really don’t know what to do in life and the teacher is the person who will put them on the right path