Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching but actually thrive. Are you considering a career in teaching.
It's a noble pursuit, but let's face it, deciding to become a
teacher can be a minefield of potential mistakes, because making mistakes in this decision
process can definitely lead to a lack of fulfillment, definitely burn out and feeling
like you wasted so much time and money to just be stuck in this career
that you hate. So let's dive into these six mistakes that pretty much everyone
makes when deciding to become a teacher. That way, we can ensure that
your decision to become when leads to success both for you and your students.
So, the first mistake that people often make when deciding to become a teacher
is being unclear about their motivations for teaching. So this is basically the same
thing as your why. And I know it's so cliche to say that,
like, what is your why for teaching? But you really need to ask
yourself why do you want to get into this? It's honestly one of the
biggest mistakes that people make when deciding to become a teacher because they don't really
understand what it entails. They know about teaching based on how they were taught,
but they don't necessarily know just how hard it can be. Maybe you
want to become a teacher because you heard that there is a teacher shortage and
they're pretty much trying to fast track everyone to become a teacher to fill those
gaps. Maybe you're really attracted to the holidays and breaks that we have,
especially summer break. Maybe you have a child who's also in school and you
want to have the same time off that they do, which is understandable.
I think of it as the same way that you would ask yourself why do
you want to become a police officer or why do you want to become a
doctor? If you really need to understand why you want to go through all
that you have to do to actually get into that career and everything it entails
once you're there. So, for example, if you're a police officer,
there's definitely a lot of risk involved in terms of putting your life on the
line, a lot of reward, and if you want to become a doctor,
well, you're going to be in med school forever and have a huge
amount of loans, and is that worth it for you to help save people?
So same thing with teaching. Why do you want to become a teacher?
And when it gets really tough, is that why? Strong enough to
stay in? This is especially important when you have people who want to discourage
you from becoming a teacher. So sometimes you'll tell people that you want to
become a teacher and they'll be like why, Hey, I get it.
Teaching is really tough. And so if you don't have a solid why,
something that's really motivating you to do it other than breaks or hey, I
like being poor something pike that, then you're going to have a hard time
defending that and really feeling confident about your decision. Because I'm going to be
honest with you, if you were going to go into teaching, I really
encourage you to want to see it through, no matter how hard it gets.
I think a lot of teachers go into this profession with this dream or
they see people who are smiling on Instagram or TikTok and they're like, Hey,
I could totally do that, and then once they're in here, they're
like you know what, it's not how I imagine, and now I'm going
to leave. I would prefer you just to not go in to teaching if
you don't think that you can handle it. So again, what's your wife?
So the next mistake that people make is overlooking whether or not they actually
like working with children. I know this seems obvious that you should want to
work with children, whether they're an elementary, middle or high school, but
you'd be surprised by how many people go into the profession and it don't necessarily
like working with kids. It's odd. It's odd. It's odd because here's
the thing. In order for you to be effective as a teacher, you
have to be willing and able to build relationships with these kids. So if
you go over to someone's house and their kid is around and it's awkward,
like you just have a hard time interacting with kids in general, maybe really
think whether or not you want to be a teacher. If you don't know
how to talk to a high schooler in a way that doesn't make them like
necessarily roll their eyes at you or walk out of the room, maybe that's
not the age group that you should be working with. But if you really
get along with younger students, saying you can talk to them in a way
that gets them to listen to you and get them to be excited about what
you're talking about. Maybe that's the age group that you should go with.
I've actually mentored teachers that are new to the profession who are second career teachers,
meaning they've worked somewhere else, and they're really intelligent people. They have
a lot of information and because of that, they assume that they could teach
the information. However, they lack the ability to really relate and interact with
students, and also they have a really hard time breaking down concepts for other
people to understand. So if you're someone who's just really really smart in a
subject area, that does not mean that you should become a teacher or that
you're even going to be good at it In terms of public school, I
mean, maybe at a community college or at a university, but not everyone
is cut out to teach in public education. Just being honest, the third
mistake that so many people make when they're deciding to become a teacher is neglecting
interpersonal and communication skills. I don't think I have to tell you that being
able to communicate effectively is really important as a teacher. That only because you
need to break down concepts for students, but you also have to be able
to hould conversations with them, puld conversations with other adults who maybe make you
uncomfortable, and to also work as a team with other teachers. I mean,
communication is how you convey knowledge to your students, also provide guidance to
them one on one, and just foster an effective learning environment. In general,
you're going to have a very difficult time building trust with both your students
and their parents and building faith in your administrator that you know what you're doing
if you can't communicate effectively. So what does this mean. It means that
teaching can be really difficult if you are on the more introverted side, if
you're someone who's easily intimidated by others, especially other adults, or if you
can't really assert yourself in situations, you're just going to have a really difficult
time getting across what you're trying to say what you mean because of your lack
of communication and interpersonal skills. I actually know of teachers that are brilliant in
the classroom, but when it comes time to working with other adults, who,
by the way, are just as much a part of teaching as the
kids. If you can't work with other adults and talk to them and get
along with them because of how you are, you're really going to struggle as
a teacher. I just hate to say it. To really assess your communication
skills. Are you able to explain concepts clearly? Are you able to actively
listen to other people without just trying to come up with the next thing that
you're going to say, Because this is really important in terms of being able
to listen to students and figure out how to help them. If this is
something that you struggle with, like maybe you don't get along with a lot
of people, and you may want to work on your interpersonal and communication skills
before becoming a teacher, because otherwise you're going to find yourself really dissatisfied in
this environment. And just again being honest, The next mistake, and this
is a big one, is underestimating the stress and pressure of teaching. You've
probably heard some horror stories about how difficult and stressful teaching can be, and
you know what, most of them are true. I don't really think a
lot of people understand the emotional demands of teaching. Again, they might see
something on TikTok or Instagram in terms of a teacher who's like smiling at their
students. The kids are raising their hand and the kids are interacting and everyone's
having fun. And yes, that absolutely happens a lot. In fact,
it happens a lot in my classroom, if I'm being honest, and it
does happen a lot in classrooms across the world. However, there are also
a lot of classrooms where there's constant disruptions, where there are disrespectful students,
there are me and belligerent parents, and they're administrators that are toxic, frankly,
So you have to be someone who can deal with stress and pressure.
You have to be someone who can work under a deadline or work under the
pressure of an administrator who wants you to reach certain goals for these students,
or who wants you to be a certain way, and who's going to criticize
the things that you do in your classroom. Can you handle that? Do
you have thick enough skin? Are you someone who can handle stress and maintain
your composure at the same time, Do you have enough grit to handle this
job because it's not for the faint of heart. And maybe you're someone who
likes to challenge and you're like, yeah, I can totally handle anything that
you throw at me, but can you love it? Can you love the
stress? And can you get to a point where you've worked out your systems
enough like I have? And teaching is a lot less stressful. So this
is definitely something that you need to be honest with yourself about. If you're
someone who is very anxious, if you're someone who is prone to depression and
anxiety, I just can't see how teaching would benefit you in any way because
it is really stressful at times. It really stressful. The next mistake that
people make when deciding to become a teacher is ignoring the need for adaptability and
patience. So teaching is going to require you to be flexible and adaptable at
a moment's notice. So if you were someone who needs things to happen in
a certain way at a certain time, teaching is that that. Because you
just never know, someone is going to talk out lot in class and you're
going to lose your train at thought, or they're going to yell across the
room or throw something across the room and it's going to disrupt the entire class,
or without any notice, there's going to be an assembly and it's going
to interrupt your lesson plans, and it's going to throw your pacing off completely
and the students. You know, teachers say this every year, that you
know the kids are not all right this year, kids have changed. And
I don't know, it makes me feel old to say that, but it's
true. Kids are changing. Kids are definitely different, especially post pandemic.
They were also becoming more difficult right before the pandemic, but definitely since then.
You might have heard of horror stories at this point about what it's like
in classrooms, and they're not all wrong, They're really not. And so
do you have patience to work with difficult students? Can you adapt to unreasonable
and unideal situations with grace? I think it's really important to be able to
handle things like misbehavior without losing your cool. That's the best way to get
kids to not want to misbehave in your class. But I've seen time and
time again teachers snap back at students or kind of have a little meltdown when
someone is misbehaving, which, by the way, it eggs on that student
and makes them want to do it more. And then there are extreme cases
like maybe a student is going to tell you to f off, or they're
going to swear at you, or they're just going to leave the room.
What are you going to do about that? Are you going to turn red
in the face and lose your cool? How adaptable and patient are you when
you're working with students who have emotional trauma, students who have issues going on
at home, who maybe you weren't parented in a way that's affected for them.
What are you going to be able to do about it in your classroom?
So if you're someone who can be patient and who can adapt easily,
then you're going to thrive in teaching, not gonna lie. You're going to
be put in really difficult situations and you're going to thrive regardless. But if
you're someone who gets really thrown off and really frustrated and you just want to
give up, you probably should reconsider whether or not you want to teach.
And the next mistake that a lot of people make in terms of whether or
not they should teach is failing to consider whether or not they have a strong
support system. So again, teaching is not for the faint of heart,
and they're going to be very many situations when you were frustrated, you want
to throw your hands up, you want to give up, or you just
completely delve into teaching and grading and everything and you just block everything out.
If you don't have a strong support system, then you're really going to have
poor work life balance and you're probably going to give up. I mean,
there are long work hours, a lot of grading, a lot of paperwork,
a lot of meetings, and so these are things that you need to
consider because if you don't have someone who can pull you away from work,
who can get you to spend some time on yourself and not have to worry
about work, which a lot of teachers they end up doing, then you're
going to get burnt out and you're inevitably going to quit. So ask yourself,
do you have friends and family who are there for you when times get
really tough as a teacher, or maybe that you have a therapists that you
can talk to or your church. Just basically ask yourself if you have the
supports there. Even if you feel like you're really stable and adaptable as I
mentioned before, and patient, you still want to make sure that you have
some kind of system there to support you for when teaching gets it's really really
hard and you're ready to throw in the towel. So does this mean that
you shouldn't teach? Absolutely not. I love teaching. I've been teaching for
twenty two years and I've got at least another twenty years left in me,
and I'm sure that I'm going to enjoy it till the very end of my
career. But these are just some things that you should ask yourself when you're
trying to decide to become a teacher, because the like I've said before,
I don't think that you should even become one if you can't address all six
of these areas and feel confident that you've got them down, that you've got
them conquered. I would actually like to hear about the things that you're struggling
with as a teacher, because I know that there's a lot of disillusionment and
people that want to quit, and I'm always trying to find ways to help
teachers so that they don't quit, but I do understand when you do,
so i'd love to hear about what you're struggling with and maybe I can make
an episode about it. Be sure to email me at Kim at teachers Need
teachers dot com. Thanks for hanging out with me today, you guys,
and I will see you next time.