Teacher in Training

Is money ever an issue? I hear a lot of bad talk about a teachers salary. What are your views on it?

Well - I am not an expert on teacher pay since I have yet to be employed as a teacher (I’ve only just graduated in December). Although, money is an issue for me right now because I just finished my student teaching. I received no pay (as is the customary practice) and paid full tuition (including pay for on-campus facilities that I could not use because I student taught hours away from campus) during this past semester.

Although I have yet to be employed as an educator, I do have a view on teacher salary. Yes, teacher salary is too low for the hours and work that teachers put in. However, I really wonder what would happen to the career if the average salary accurately reflected the hours and work. I feel as though people would start becoming teachers for the material rewards and not for the satisfaction of teaching and nurturing children/teenagers/young adults. Therefore, if the pay went up enough, I wonder if the quality of educators would go down.

However, I despise the argument of “teachers only work 9 months a year, so their pay should be lower” because teachers do work through their breaks. I know I worked most of my summer vacation before my student teaching semester and I was not even going to be paid once the school year began. In May I found out I would be teaching a section of Drama at the local middle school and that I would need to design the curriculum myself because it was a brand new class. So, I spent a large portion of my summer vacation preparing, reading, researching, etc. because I wanted to make sure I gave the students the most exciting, enriching, and encouraging class they’ve ever taken. And you know what? It totally paid off. And I really do not mind that I did not receive a penny for my work. In fact, I paid $4,000 in tuition to go to a school and teach for a semester.

Again, this is an opinion of someone who just finished university and my opinion will probably change once I find a job. Maybe. Who knows? If you want to know the opinion of educators who are employed, I would recommend looking for other blogs under the #Education tag.