Job Responsibilities
Teacher responsibilities are innumerable. We are expected to
plan for and teach reading, spelling, grammar, handwriting, how
to write in the following styles: narrative, descriptive,
persuasive, and expository. Other subjects are science, health,
social studies, math, and character education. You must plan and
teach intervention lessons to the slower learners to give them
an extra dose of reading skills sometime in each day. You must,
obviously, be able to write volumes of lesson plans each week
listing the objectives to be taught and the corresponding skill
number for the Alabama Courses of Study in EACH subject area.
Lesson plans are also expected to contain a bellringer for each
lesson to get the attention of the students, all text pages,
workbook pages, all activities and/or projects you plan to use
for each subject,what daily assignments will be graded, what
daily assignments will NOT be graded, a copy of any assessments
that will be used for EACH subject area during that week. You
must do bus duty for no additional compensation. You must listen
to the retorts from administrative people who have not taught in
classroom situations in numerous years tell you that they would
not have any of the difficulties you may be facing on a daily
basis, and that you should work at the school from 7:00 A.M. to
5:00 P.M. daily with no additional compensation(though they are
the ones paid for those hours). (The administrators choose to
ignore the fact that if you do not stay late each day that you
are dragging a 40 pound bag of books and papers home with you
each day, and that you continue to work on school work from the
time you get home until you fall asleep trying to get all of the
papers graded.) You are required to work with students of
unbelieveable low abilities and at the same time work with
extremely smart children who you are struggling to push forward
so they are not held back by the low students. You must teach
children how to behave in public places such as restrooms,
lunchrooms, and hallways. You must teach all forms of courtesy
and manners because after having taught many of their parents
you know they are not being taught any of these at home. This is
due to work schedules in some situations and lack of caring in
other situations. You must deal with students who have never
been expected to listen and pay attention to anyone except the
television or video games. You must deal with parents in a
professional manner, who do not appreciate what you do with and
for their children. You must be fair to your students regardless
of their level of cleanliness or infestations; all children need
love and affection if you are to be an effective teacher.
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Job Requirements
Teachers must be trained in Lee vs. Macon, your certification
level must be ranked as highly qualified.
The chances of getting jobs varies. It always helps if you know
someone if you are new to the system.
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Uppers
The look on your students' faces when they are successful, and the look from
them when they know you really care about them and want them to learn.
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Downers
The pay rate for a professional person with five years of
college and many, many hours of other professional training is
nothing more than a slap in the face.
As a whole, I feel that the public looks down on the teaching
profession.
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Lifestyle
Teachers have no time for a life during the school year.
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Compensation
There are no additional bonuses for teachers.
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Advice to Jobseekers
Be ready to be unappreciated and not be paid for your time and
effort.
I would never recommend teaching to others unless there is a
huge change in education.
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