Merely curious. Your words have never made me angry; in fact i usually crack up daily. But this post repeats a message that is given to a lot of career changing teachers (and for all i know people for whom teaching is their first career) and i’m afraid i don’t understand why you would want to ask people not to teach.

But that’s probably not going to be the case. Most likely, for your first job, you’ll teach the shitty lower general science courses the far less studious kids are in. That curriculum will have already been decided for you at the federal, state and county level. You are, after all, teaching to a test now.

I’m probably pulling most of this out of my ass, but my wife is a teacher. It’s the reality of the situation. Education can be a very spiritually rewarding career for a few people but for others, it’s work – a job – because of statutory requirements placed on educators at the state and federal level. I’m bitching, not about teachers per se, but the situation they’re in and the circumstances that surround that. I would like you to get angry at what I say, but telling me to that I’m being discouraging is the wrong place to vent that. The right place is your congressman and senators and union reps and get No Child Left Behind repealed and return the schools to the teachers.

Or be a chump, I guess. Those are your options.

So, is your goal to ensure that people who are enthused about teaching and might actually do a good job and positively influence some students, are dissuaded by your arguments, and end up NOT teaching? Who is that helping? You? Your future hypothetical children? Other teachers? The students? The huge problem that is the public educational system in the US? I agree that you are entitled to your opinion on all things, and this is your blog to do with as you see fit, but i don’t understand who is being helped by the constant negative messages being sent to potential teachers.

I’m not being snarky. I’m honestly curious what the desired outcome of this strategy is.

Substitute teacher has just gotten a job with a christian mission teaching in Honduras.

Hm. So I know four young people who were starting to be teachers in my city in California. One dropped out and now works for an investment firm. His girlfriend is still a teacher, but settled (almost tenured) in a charter school. A third was a math teacher but got bumped due to mandatory firings and now tutors kids on the evenings and weekends (her boyfriend makes six figures playing online poker). A fourth is flying off to honduras in september.

Good rule of thumb: pick red states if you’re gonna be a teacher.