TheApple

Being an educator is hard work, but there are also many obstacles that lead great teachers to quitting. What are some of the main reasons you think teachers quit?

I don't want to sound harsh, but I think at least some of them quit simply because they aren't meant to be teachers.
Perhaps they don't have some of the qualities that are necessary.

I think that I would mostly agree with johnslat. Some teachers that I've seen (both in Greece and in the States) were hardly made for teaching ...

In Greece, part of the problem lies in the fact that teaching may be seen as a part-time temporary activity (not for the mainstream schools but for the private evening schools of different specialisations) which ironically do most of the teaching work. Many of our public school teachers would have quit long ago from what I understand but they do not want to lose their coveted "permanency" as public employees ...

I guess to a great extent this is the result of misinformed choices when are called to select the university we want to study at ...

Salary is a lot of it. In the south, the pay is at the lowest. Many teachers get paid below poverty level and we have to put up with a lot in the classroom.

Playing your part: If preparations and support activities for the classroom were already in place it would take a great deal out of the work load and shift the focus. If the teaching materials and methods were prepared by professionals and these issues were the focus when student success statistics were accumulated, then a good portion of the stress would be removed. Individual teacher performance could be arrived at with something other than the brute force of EOG testing. ARC has committees that shoulder the materials/methods responsibilities. This is something that can be done by the state for all school systems and make issues like pay, stress, burnout, and other career killers fade.
The classroom is a time for facilitation of learning. Automation of bookkeeping tasks and preparation of instructional design belong on the shoulders of the pros. It would be cheaper for the state to take this on...

Fear-I was threatened by a student the other day..

Misconceptions about what teacher is going to or supposed to be, then it turns out it's REALLY hard- a lot harder that most other people realize.

I put in 11 to 13 hrs per day. I change methods/plans constantly to motivate. The apathy and lack of respect are astounding. Being told to expect the best and then being told to teach to their level. Teaching to the graduation exams. Trimesters instead of semesters leave barely enough time to teach content well. Somedays I think I'd rather work at McDonalds. Would you like fries with that?

I have been teaching for 20 years and have seen several teachers quit over the years and am near burn out. The salary is low, but that is not the major problem. I am from the great state of Texas where the emphasis is on test results overall and in sub populations. Administrators harp on this issue constantly. I am in a poverty school system and 95% of my students passed last year. I was rewarded by being given the lowest group in the district. In Texas our payscale stops at twenty years, yet those of us who have taught 20 years or more or expected to live without a cost of living increase, much less a raise. I love what I do and delight in the children that I teach, but am not surprised by the amount of teachers leaving the profession.

So will the lack of respect for teachers and low pay rates ever change? In the U.S., parents complain about paying hire taxes to help the schools but buy their kids the expensive playstations,x-box and i-phones!

Misconceptions about teaching

Unrealistic expectations cause some teachers to quit. Some people who go into teaching have unrealistic expectations about changing the world; they expect it to happen quickly. Other people who become teachers have unrealistic expectations about how they will be loved by all their students. Of course, teachers are not the only one's with unrealistic expectations. Administrators have them about how much work teachers can handle and still be effective, taxpayers have them about how little money teachers need to support themselves and their families, and the government has unrealistic expectations when it says that all children can achieve to the same degree in the same amount of time and that all this can be measured with a handful of standardized tests.

Wow, a lot of salient replies, fellow teachers... I agree with much that you have said. I've taught for 9 years in Canada. In this region it's changed a lot paywise during this time, so my feelings have changed over time. At first it was SO much work for SO little pay, although I loved parts of the job... It was very hard on my health as a beginning teacher. Lots and lots of hours... - nuts!

Now, we get paid much better, so the hours seem more rewarded. I don't feel so taken advantage of on salary as I did then. Most kids are respectful, but some aren't, and some parents can be very difficult to deal with. That is what I find stressful at times, coupled with the hours. I was putting in 80 hours per week this past fall, teaching 6 new courses which were very different subjects.

The demands are very high. I agree so much that the courses need to be designed for us, so we can concentrate on the teaching.

Karl said:

Jill said:

Being an educator is hard work, but there are also many obstacles that lead great teachers to quitting. What are some of the main reasons you think teachers quit?

Teachers who once had a quality track record leave because they realize that for all the crying of the importance of teaching and an educated class our "civilization" doesn't really want an educated class because of the severe damage it would do to the capitalist society. We need a percentage of ignorant people for our sysstem to work. Also,
when you create a system which allows disturbed students to disrupt the learning mileau other students who want to learn are adversely effected. We throw all students into the same pot. Our society depends on a large segment of our society to be mediocre and we have been succesful. Anyone who has walked into a variety of schools in this nation can only laugh because we destroy the gifted and academic students because of the need to "dumb down" any meaningful learning. Fortunately, countries like China, Japan and others who really appreciate thinking and knowledge will pick up the mess we have created. If terms like "crash and burn" need to be used they need to describe our educational system.

I wonder how many other career persons would answer this question differently. I think the thing I'm most impressed with about teachers, is that teachers don't quit because they don't care- they quit because they care so much that when the system fails them, they can't take it.