Related Posts
I tutor for cfa if anyone needs help.
Bowl Leader
Additional Posts in Jobs for Teachers
What is the best tool for hiring teachers?
What can I do other than teach?
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Summers and holidays keep me going
What keeps me motivated is seeing the impact I have on my students. Every time I see a light bulb go off in their minds, it reminds me why I chose this profession.
I tell people I'm still teaching because I have to pay Williams (they're too big to be bills), and retirement won't cut it right now. In truth though, what really keeps me going are the former students that tell me what a difference I made, (some of whom used to call me "Daddy Good" when my blood kids were in school), the current students that are excited to tell me their successes, (some of which call me "Grandpa Good", I really am getting old), the students that are literally begging me not to retire until they graduate and seeing the light come on when something I'm teaching makes sense and. they get excited. One student in particular even though she's not in my class anymore, asked me if she could call me Dad since she never knew her real dad. There's the things that keep me going.
And no, when I started college, I had no intention of becoming a teacher.
I kind of wandered into this career. I was going to be a pilot didn't go that route, was going to be an IT Computer guy, tried one course of that in college and hated it. Thought about teaching history. I was always a musician and finally ended up there. If you had asked me in high school if I would be a teacher I would have laughed in your face.
I love that movie!
Same things that have always kept me motivated.
I love my job, I love the kids I teach, and I love having the opportunity to impact their lives.
Those fundamentals haven't changed even as some of the things around them shift.
In spite of the challenges, I still love the kids snd seeing them learn, grow, and succeed.
Everyday is a wake up call. I love to learn, and although I’m a teacher, I’m not a know-it-all. 🧑🏿⚕️
Gotta be honest I’m with Pennsylvania - my motivation right now is that beautiful summer break I get to spend with my family. It’s a bummer to not be making money but it’s nice not to worry about childcare in the summer!
My daughter (also a teacher) has a quote on her wall, says " Teaching is not about the income but about the outcomes". I agree. I did not choose this profession for the money. I agree with TES1, Every time I see the light go on or a student comes back to thank me, I am reminded. Those things I will take with me into the afterlife. Those memories.
I love my kids!!! Yes, they are my kids even though they are in high school. I love seeing that aha moment when they learn or figure something out, and seeing what they become.
It's always great when I see them outside of school after they have become adults. I always remember their faces, and admit that their names can be difficult, but I can tell them the classes they were in and where they sat in my class most of the time.
It has NEVER been about money, and yes vacations are a perk but that should not be what drives a person in education.
Two years to retirement
Probably the same here, but I still enjoy my work, most days. I will very likely be doing student-teacher supervision in my retirement. Looking forward to it.
I completely unashamedly agree. I am not sure that I would have ever chose this profession, or stayed with it if I wasn't able to walk away from it for an extended period of time every year. I could have undertaken much more lucrative career paths, but I went into this path with the understanding that I would not get rich at it, but make a comfortable living, make a meaningful contribution to society, and actually have a life that was not constantly centered around work. I am approaching the end of my career as a public school teacher. I am pleased to say that I was right.
I feel that life is constantly centered around work as a teacher.
"what keeps you motivated to teach these days?"
June and July.
Teaching was a later career choice for me. I was 32 when I started teaching. The time off is great, but on the flip-side; my job in the private sector was much less stressful, and much more evenly paced. However, that is not enough to keep me motivated. What I think really keeps me going is that the best day in the classroom cannot be topped by anything else I have ever experienced in my professional life. The worst day feels a little devastating, and can be difficult to keep in perspective, but the great days weigh much more than the bad days, even if there are sometimes fewer good days :)
Counting the days down until May 23 when I retire. I have students in my morning classes that I love to connect with but I have some in the afternoon that drain my will to live.
I teach AP Psychology and they are part of the reason that I stay on. I am 55 years old and this is my 5th year teaching. My second career that I fell into when subbing and finishing college and staying home with my 5 boys. The higher kids are a lot of the reason but it is also the students that want to learn, however, that is only a 3rd of all my other classes. On average I have upwards of 32-42 students. Otherwise it is herding cats and trying to get the students that get credit recovery when they fail a class twice that makes up the 2/3 rds of my classes. Oh and the behavioral issue students.
I love working with the students, and I love making a difference in their lives. I help them to get through their math classes when most of them have given up. Yes, I originally got into teaching to have the same schedule as my children, and I have refused to look at other career fields since because I don't want to work summers. It's really the intangibles that keep me teaching--the "aha!" moments.
Retired in the Bay Area 2020, started in East L.A. in '87 on an emergency credential. Best years of my life.
In the actual study they say:
<q>Review studies broadly categorize three “types” of teacher
motivation: altruism (the desire to do selfless good), intrinsic motivation (an enjoyment of
teaching, helping, or interacting with students or children), and extrinsic motivation (the
pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits of the job, such as salary, time off, stability, etc.).
Among these, altruism and intrinsic motivation tend to be predominant reasons cited by
prospective teachers </q>
I will point out that people may avoid mentioning extrinsic motivators as they is likely to get them nudged out of the program. If they were to answer that way on an interview that has anything to with teacher impression or getting a job, they may find employment to be hard to find.
I know that I am very uncomfortable when asked and, even though I am clearly extrinsicly motivated, I manage to respond with some plausible lie that lands me in answer types one and two. I can not be the only one and that may have a large impact on the validity of the study, the penalties are just too severe for saying the "wrong" thing.
At this point, I have read more of the actual study https://edworkingpapers.com/ai23-789
On page 14 they make mention of the men that were included in the study. Here it is important to quote from page four, "our sample is largely White (84%) and female (93%)."
Returning to page 14, they state, "Turning to gender, we find that male PSTs’ essays are substantially less likely to include Enjoy working with children (RR = 0.56), Always wanted to teach (RR = 0.28), and Own positive experiences (RR = 0.16). These results highlight the long-standing gender dynamics contributing to a dramatic underrepresentation of men in K–12 teaching."
Looking at that quote, those questions are frequently used as "filtering" questions both in the programmes and of prospective applicants. This filtering by these gatekeepers for people that are similar to the gatekeeper will tend to remove men from the programmes and teaching opportunities.
On page 15 they mention that those applicants who mentioned specific, "Content areas or Switched from something else score moderately higher on certification exams in pedagogy and content (0.16–0.22 SD).12 The Switched from something else results are interesting, in particular, because they suggest that expanding recruitment need not come at the cost of quality or readiness."
I can see, "Switched from something else," linking strongly to adversity. On page 20 they point out that the adversity topic was, "associated with higher clinical observation scores and had lower attrition as full-time teachers."
This makes sense as those of us who came from poverty backgrounds know that we have reached the top rung available to us. Those who switched from something else and strong adversity scores lack the connections and experiences to easily move up the ladder. Further, it is noted on page 13 that, "Adversity was negatively related to Enjoy helping or teaching and Enjoy working with children—the supertopics most closely characterizing intrinsic motivation."
On page 16 it is noted that, "we observed previously that PSTs who described adversity in their essays were more likely to be nonwhite or have lower high school GPA and SAT scores, and this supertopic is also negatively correlated (though not significant) with certification exam scores. Altogether, these patterns may highlight a disconnect between measures of teacher effectiveness (or readiness) and standard measures of academic achievement."
On page 16 they go on to say,"we find that PSTs who wrote about adversity tend to work in less-advantaged schools, perhaps consistent with an underlying motivation to help disadvantaged students or work in the same context as their own schooling." I would argue that the discriminatory gatekeeping is well tuned to reject applicants from backgrounds of adversity. Thus, the "less-advantaged schools" are the opportunities that are left for them. This is a result of discrimination rather than preference.
Further, in addition to filtering for white, upper-middle-class applicants, people who look and think like the gatekeepers, the system actively discriminated against men by disfavouring stereotypical,male responses while cherishing stereotypically female responses. Further, this perpetuates the cycle for male underperformance in the classroom. "PST motivation differences by race/ethnicity and gender speak to long-standing concerns about underrepresentation in the K–12 teacher workforce. As one particularly stark example, 17% of female PST essays talked about “always wanting to be a teacher,” compared to only 4% of male essays. Men were similarly less likely to express enjoyment working with children and talk about their own positive schooling experiences. We hypothesize that these patterns may reflect the gendered messaging that boys receive from an early age regarding expectations for their interests and career choices."