Advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher – The teaching profession is often regarded as the noblest profession in the world, and it is not because it is the highest pay or requires advanced degrees to work in this profession.
The reason is because of the responsibility it comes with. It takes more than effort to shape the minds of young people or even older people (in the case of adult education). It requires great skill and precision.
Sadly, many people would choose to pursue other career paths than go into teaching. The reason is that they feel it is not rewarding enough and that teachers are not accorded enough prestigious recognition, unlike other professions.
Either way, we shall discuss the teaching profession and what it means to be a teacher. After that, we shall look at other relevant information related to the topic.
Who is a Teacher?
A teacher is saddled with the duty or responsibility of helping students acquire knowledge or the relevant information they ought to learn in school. The teacher also helps the students to understand and inculcate in them ethical values like competence, virtue, and many others.
Teaching may be done either in the classroom, which is a formal setting, or in an informal setting like the house (homeschooling). Whatever the setting, the fact that an instructor is imparting knowledge is enough to categorize such as teaching.
Teaching is mainly done by paid professionals employed by the private or public school system. In some cases, though, some people take it upon themselves to teach children in extreme conditions like war-torn zones or poverty regions for free.
These categories are mostly attached to NGOs or carrying out such services under the wings or arms of an international humanitarian organization.
Ordinarily, when people talk about a teacher, they limit them to the classroom or educational institutions. That may be correct, but the role and personality of a teacher do not begin and end in a classroom; it involves more than that.
It could also involve a situation where a motivational speaker is talking to a crowd or gathering of people and successfully imparting them knowledge they never had. Also, it can be seen through a pastor or church minister who teaches the words of the bible to the congregation.
Ultimately, the profession involves teaching and imparting knowledge, both within and outside the classroom, by paid or charitable professionals. Knowledge is imparted, and other essential ethical values can also be imparted.
What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of A Teacher?
As we stated earlier, being a teacher has its ups and down. Some people who find the profession less attractive for several reasons do so not because of any particular reasons but because of its glaring disadvantages.
On the other hand, some people find it attractive due to the plethora of advantages available for professionals in this field and the profession in general. Whatever the case, we shall look at each of their advantages and disadvantages shortly.
Advantages of Being a Teacher
There are many reasons why you should be a teacher. Some people see the profession as being one that is less rewarding and unattractive, but the truth is told, people tend to pass judgment on things they do not understand.
There are many reasons why you should choose this profession over other professions, as we will show them you shortly. These advantages or benefits of being a teacher include:
1. More Available Job Opportunities
One of the beautiful things about the teaching profession is the available job options that exist in this profession.
Statistics have shown that the profession would gain over a 5% increase within the next ten years for the kindergarten level of education and over 5% for the profession in general, which is almost more than what is expected of other professions in the United States of America.
This shows that the profession will continue to offer employment opportunities in the nearest future, which is the case as the population increases. So is the fact that people will need education, and teaching has an employment edge over other professions.
2. Extensive Breaks
Most professions need to afford you the time to go on long breaks. Aside from the regular weekends and some public holidays, some career paths ensure that you continue to work.
Some career paths could even have you working through the holidays and weekends, with the excuse of better pay, or in some extreme cases, you get paid less to nothing or nothing for such an extensive break.
This is not the case with this profession as you have the time to go on break given the fact that schools go on long, periodic breaks various times in the year, giving you a chance to relax, rest and enjoy other things or endeavours which you will love to engage in during your free time.
3. Human Interaction/Bonding
One of the beautiful things about choosing a career path in teaching profession is the human interaction it offers. As a teacher, you spend most of your time around the students, and this bond would go a long way to ensure that they become better students and better people.
As a teacher, such human interaction would benefit you, too, as you would be exposed to the vulnerability of the students, and you would have to mold them based on the definitive version of the persons they ought to be.
In the end, a relationship would be created, which would go a long way in ensuring they do not leave the excellent path this bond has placed them on.
4. Transferable Skills
Most people think that teaching means that you get to spend a large portion of your life in the classroom with just your knowledge of what you want to teach, and in the end, when knowledge becomes obsolete, you cannot even boast of any other skills.
This is purely untrue, as the profession offers you soft skills you can use outside your profession as a teacher. These soft skills include public speaking, human relationship, listening, and other skills that are incidental to their skills as teachers.
As a teacher, there is no challenge when you want to quit your job for employment opportunities in other career paths outside your profession. The soft skills acquired will come in handy.
5. Satisfying Job
A teacher’s job is pretty tense and challenging, and in the same vein, it brings much frustration when the student does not do well. It is like a builder who spends time and energy constructing a house. A teacher goes with the plan, goes through all the necessary procedures, and believes he has done an excellent job.
Only for the rain to come, he discovers that the roof is leaking, the house is flooded, and other things that he felt were in place at the time of construction were all faulty.
That is how a teacher feels when a student fails. However, no joy is more significant than when a student, using the sample and template of the teacher, ends up doing perfectly well. That is where the satisfaction comes from – the fact that the students who are taught are doing well.
6. Learning opportunities
Teaching allows you to learn more or retain what you have learned. During high school, I would take out extra time to teach my classmates some topics they may have difficulty understanding.
In the end, I found out that I have more widened knowledge about the topic than I used to before I began teaching it to my colleagues. The secret is that the continued repetition and the fact that you tend to research more about the topic before you teach it makes it easy for you to remember and broadens your knowledge of the topic.
7. Creates a sense of community
Working in this profession gives you the sense that you are working not in a corporate world filled with massive competition and rivalry but within a community of professionals bonded by their shared passion for the job.
This collaborative relationship extends to the students who see their teachers as guardians, friends, siblings, or something close or more than family, as against seeing them as masters. It makes the whole learning environment easy seamlessly easy.
Everything within the profession is geared towards ensuring that this lifestyle is adopted by everyone, from the teacher to the students.
8. Being a hero
In the army, you get rewarded with ranks for bravery and your service to the army. There are fireworks, salutes, and a crowd cheering you on, amongst others. and that is how a hero is celebrated in that profession. In other words, you are rewarded with all sorts of gifts, elevations, and other things incidental to being a hero.
For a teacher, it is more of a personal gratification which could also be resounding, especially when it comes from the mouths of the students who have greatly benefited from it.
Owing to how insignificant the profession may appear, most people tend to see teachers as more unsung heroes whose achievements could rival even that of a war hero. As people who continuously shape minds, every great mind owes that progress to a teacher somewhere. They are true heroes. As a teacher, you can get to wear this badge too.
9. Instant effect of your handiwork
No profession reaps instant results as teaching, with lightning speed. Most professions take more time before they feel the impact or effect of your work.
Some take weeks, days, or sometimes years before the effect of the work is felt, while it is more immediate in the teaching profession.
The effect of this profession is such that as you are teaching, you can easily see whether or not the student understands what you are teaching, and if they do not, you have the instant chance to retract your step and try out a different method.
This chance is only available for some professions, as they either have to wait a long period to correct errors made in the line of work owing to how slow the effect of the work comes.
10. Pension and insurance
Teaching remains a rewarding career while you are working and no longer in operational success. Aside from the fulfillment you get from an illustrious career dedicated to shaping the minds and actions of people, you get to enjoy retirement benefits like a steady pension, insurance, and many others.
This opportunity is only available for some people in most companies or another line of work, as they are required to make hay while the sun shines. They have to save and engage in various cooperative schemes to be sure that they have enough to last them through retirement.
However, in this profession, you have the chance of a retirement benefit like your pension, insurance covers, and many others.
Disadvantages of Being a Teacher
As we have stated above, the advantages or benefits of being a teacher may be as overwhelming as may be, but the fact remains that there is a downside to this too.
Below, we shall look at the disadvantages of being a teacher.
1. Poor Salaries
The teaching profession is not exactly lucrative. Unlike various professions that would have you earning massively, with this profession, you earn little.
For instance, the basic salary of a teacher annually in America is $60,000, with some areas paying as much as $80,000. This falls short for someone with a college degree, whereas people in other fields or career paths with the same college degree are paid way more than that.
That being said, if you seek a profession that would allow you to leave a flamboyant lifestyle, spend big and have enough to save, then sadly, you need to look out for another career path, as this profession cannot help you with that.
2. Lack of Support from Administration
This profession enjoys minor support from administrations both of the institution and that of the state or province. It is no secret that people tend to overlook the importance of teachers.
This age-long complaint has seen various administrations use their plight as mere propaganda to gain votes or score political points. On the side of the administration of the school or institutions, they mostly care about the revenue or prestigious honors that can be gotten from the school but pay little attention to the plight or well-being of the teachers.
With this lack of administrative support, it is no secret that the profession faces more recline as days go by.
3. Being under scrutiny
The potter is always under constant criticism, as the saying goes. It is the same thing with a teacher because just as a potter helps to mold the clay, the teacher helps mold the students’ minds.
Teachers face enormous scrutiny and criticism from all angles that affect the profession. They face scrutiny from the parents or guardians of the children. They face criticism from the principal or administrators of the school, they face criticism from their colleagues, and in some cases, their students.
These scrutinies may be good if the aim was to improve the teacher, but that seems different, as it makes the teachers feel bad about themselves, coupled with the other problems they may be facing already.
4. Little or No Vacation
Other professions give their employee time to go on vacation. It affords time to forget about work and go about their personal affairs while taking time to relax and rest from the stress and rigors of their jobs.
A teacher does not know this benefit because it is simply not afforded to them. Even during break, they have to prepare ahead for the start of school with their lesson notes and plans.
The long break is when they have to prepare their notes and slides for the next session or the beginning of the next academic period after the break. So without a vacation, the teaching profession lacks the patronage that other professions get.
5. Lack of resources
There are limited resources available for teachers in the teaching profession, unlike in other professions where the resources are plenty and possibly endless.
In most cases, most teachers have to source materials or resources themselves with little or no assistance from the administration. The library may lack the necessary books, and the laboratory may lack the necessary equipment, and so on. However, the fact remains that students ought to learn, so it now falls on the teacher to source these materials themselves.
Irrespective of the fact that they may have successfully sourced these materials, they are not compensated by the administration, as they are quickly reminded that it is their job in the first place.
6. Age-long administrative processes
The learning process has been hindered by archaic administrative procedures that make it difficult for teachers to work effectively.
Virtually every profession experiences changes that reflect the recent times and practices of what is expected from the profession, and they undergo these changes periodically and from time to time.
However, the same principles have been practiced in the teaching profession over the years, making it challenging to teach students properly. Some schools still use chalkboards to teach, and some schools draw computer appliances on the board without having any physical parts. This type of negligence is what would end up significantly affecting the profession negatively.
7. No pay during breaks
When you go on breaks as a teacher, it is automatically assumed that you are not working, and as such, you are not entitled to earn salaries or wages.
This is irrespective of the fact that you have to work during breaks to ensure that the next academic session goes well for you and the student, and by extension, for the school.
The payment only runs during your school or academic session, but your salary ends outside that. That discourages many people from pursuing a career path in the teaching profession.
8. Less budget allocation
As we had earlier stated, teachers enjoy little to no love from the government or people in the administration. This can be seen through the amount of budget allocation given to them.
When government allocates a budget, a bulk of it goes to financing the military, war, and other areas that they feel have more relevance than the profession. In contrast, education gets one of the lowest allocations.
This would discourage anyone from pursuing a career here because with such low budget allocation comes the fact that you would end up with nearly nothing as salary or wages or less funding for education-related projects or programs.
9. Different learning styles
Learning styles is more personal to the teacher and the student, as there is a tendency for students to have various individual learning methods. While some can learn on the spot, others must go home and read to understand, while others must be repeatedly taught before they understand.
Numerous learning styles can be stressful on the part of the teacher, as you have to embrace these differences and see how you can relate to each student individually to ensure that they can function better with the rest of the class.
If you lack such patience, it could become difficult for you to do your work effectively.
10. Cumbersome workload
Teaching has about the highest workload of any other profession out there. You have to constantly ensure that you are up to date with available knowledge for each course or topic you teach.
You must constantly research, make notes, and go through various materials and resources to get accurate information to pass on to the students.
While others may see it as no great work, moving close enough, you would see how much work this is on the teacher’s side.
Conclusion
Being a teacher has its advantages and disadvantages, and we are glad that you took the time to go through the article.
The aim of this article has been achieved, and you now have the necessary information to know the advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher.
