4 important things to know before becoming a teacher
4 important things to know before becoming a teacher
Do you remember your school days? Love them or hate them, often your view of your educational experience was based on your teachers. All it takes is a good teacher to see your potential and completely change your perspective at a young age.
Perhaps you are now thinking “Should I be a teacher?”. Maybe you want to give something back to the next generation. But when you join an apprenticeship, you need to know what you’re getting yourself into.
Here’s what you need to know to become a teacher.
1. Lessons last longer than average of 9-5
Teaching takes a lot more time than you think. A lot of people assume that teachers have long vacations and only have to work one school day a week, but they miss the point.
Teachers also have to do a lot of marking. This has to be completed in your own time and not during school hours when you will be teaching. There are also lesson plans and health and safety risk assessments as well as meetings and parents evenings to attend.
But there is a further responsibility and that is the time it takes to resolve the issues of students who are in trouble. Perhaps they have taken illegal drugs, have been arrested by the police or are accused of bullying another student.
Perhaps their family life has collapsed and that is why they do not attend school regularly. While other agencies may investigate these issues, these are not isolated cases and often require input from teachers and a face-to-face discussion between teacher and student.
If you decide this isn’t for you, don’t despair, there are plenty of alternative teaching jobs out there.
2. Teaching requires emotional energy
Teachings requires emotional energy more than anything else. You invest in your students and want them to be successful. So if they fail an important test or exam, you can think of them in your free time.
Good teachers will also go beyond what is needed in the classroom, making sure that all of their students are prepared and ready to enter the world.
They may even spend some of their money to buy bus tickets for students or to help them get the right textbooks to prepare for the exam.
If you are an emotional person, it can eventually affect you. You must develop a strategy for managing your emotions about struggling students, or your family life could suffer.
3. You have to study hard all the time
Good teachers do not rest on their laurels. They are constantly learning and improving their knowledge in order to pass it on to their students.
If you only have a bachelor’s degree, you may want to pursue a master’s degree part-time alongside teaching.
If you have a liberal arts degree, you might consider studying part-time to broaden your horizons.
4. You must be human
Teaching is not just about leading the class and passing on to your students the vast knowledge you possess. Many subjects are not concrete and require more reflection than this, for example philosophy classes.
This technique will get you nowhere. That is not a teacher’s job.
It is assumed that all of your students are as interested in the subject as you are. Most won’t.
To be a good teacher one must be a good person. You need to be able to read your students and know what they are thinking and how to encourage them to learn and study.
It is difficult, but above all it is a question of psychology. In Finland, computer science is taught in a fun way that engages students through chess, a game that is at least 1,300 years old.
