One of the most important jobs in our society, or in any society, is the job of teacher. After all, it is on teachers that we rely for our next generations of thinkers, doers, workers, politicians, and inventors to turn out to be as talented and educated as we need them to be so that we can continue to do our very best on the world stage. Without high quality teachers, it is more than likely that we could enter into a situation where we find ourselves falling behind in terms progress and innovation, which can lead to a whole host of problems with our economy, and not to mention with our whole society in general.

But what does it take to be a teacher? Being a good teacher requires a special kind of passion and diligence that few other professions demand. In order to be a good teacher, you must learn to pay careful attention to sometimes more than a hundred students. You have to be ready sometimes to address issues that are not at all academic in nature, since the people you will be working with are still developing human beings who may have questions and problems that extend beyond the scope of the subject you are teaching.

You must be willing to work long hours, even extra hours, without extra pay. Even though you will spend a lot of time physically in the school and working, you will also spend a lot of time after and even before your work day making sure that you have taken care of all the tasks that need to be taken care of. There are always lessons to plan, papers, projects, and homework to grade, and tests to write, prepare, and grade. You will need to worry about state and national guidelines and requirements so that you can stay certified and employed. And on top of all of this, the pay is not even very good, in most cases.

Ironically, on the other hand, if you do not care about being a good teachers, you can do comparatively little. You can choose to reuse the same assignments and tests over and over again. You can decide not to be creative or interesting or engaging, and you can decide that you do not care if your students actually learn anything, or develop in any kind of important way, within the realm of the subject that you teach and even outside of it. If none of these problems are a concern to you, then you can become a teacher and just do a terrible job. Unfortunately, there are tens of thousands of such teachers across the country. The only problem for you is that you will have to figure out a way to sleep at night–but that is up to you.

However, if you think you have what it takes to be a dedicated and conscientious professional, then you are in a position to make an enormous impact on the lives of hundreds, even thousands of children. It is just important that when you decide to go for it, you know what you are getting yourself into. It is not at all likely that you will get the monetary compensation that you deserve, but if you can appreciate and value the positive change that you could make in many children\’s lives, then this might be the career for you, and you should consider looking into it right away.

Author Bio: Ingrid Jackson\’s favorite subjects for writing her articles are education, schooling, and test preparation. She wants students to find the best ISEE test prep out there. She also likes to write about her other interests from time to time, which are quite varied.

Category: Jobs
Keywords: teacher,teaching,elementary school,middle school,high school, school,job,skills