Is Teaching in the K-12 Classroom Worth the Stress? Positives and Negatives

9 mins read
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The teaching profession is one of the most unique occupations in the world. I love preparing the next generation for future progressiveness. I love to see students that have taught since kindergarten become doctors, lawyers, and community leaders.

Teaching is for people who love children. However, becoming an educator and managing a classroom has its pros and cons.

The pleasures of teaching

Educating children can be very rewarding. Walking in the classroom hours before the students arrive is a natural high for educators who delight in their profession. Each morning they greet each student with passion and inspire them to engage morning work.

The glory of an educator is the quality of his or her classroom. The most excellent class includes several superiorities:

Good reputation

A dynamic classroom is the pride of a principle and the pleasure of a substitute teacher. Your room will be the first that visitors to the school will see. The principal wants to make the best impression possible upon all educational representatives.

Substitutes will delight in making your class the choice of the day, rejecting many more available assignments that he or she could have chosen.

Your class will be a model for all others. Teachers will inquire of your strategy. Other students will beg to visit your classroom

Academically Inclined Pupils

Classmates who would rather stay in from recess and do exciting and creative lesson assignments are the delight of every serious educator.Ā  Our goal is to produce an exceptional level of moral, intellectual and academic development within each student.

Toxic classroom

An academically inclined classroom encourages and inspires each other to toward mastery of concepts, knowledge and critical thinking skills. Helping each other become students of excellence is a genuine priority of each classmate.

Excellent Team and Well-Respected Student Leaders

Other teachers envy the teacher in such classrooms. Everyone can see the unity among such students regardless of where they are on the school grounds. Ā In the hallway, the line is the quietest and the straightest at all times. In the cafeteria, they eat with quiet table talk and finest their food before lunch is over.

Outstanding classmates appreciate achievement. Whenever they achieve a significant task or project, high fives and compliments are the order of the entire day.Ā  Joy and confidence increases. Contagious energy spreads throughout the school building.

In most cases, such classmate can run the entire classroom with little help from the teacher, especially when it comes to handling the rituals and routines of a school day.

Knowledgeable

Because they inspire each other toward excellence, the students of an excellent classroom retain a substantial degree of knowledge they have learned over the course of a school year. Every assessment test taken is nearly a breeze.

The confidence and competence of each student shine brightly through the pattern of high score recording on every test.

Their teacher isn’t ashamed of allowing them to enter and participate in an academic contest, regardless of another’s districts superior reputation.

Strong value list and commitment

Every classroom needs a strong list of values and commitment to demonstrate such values each school day. Dynamic classrooms possess such a list. Not only do they recite this list every day, the take absolute joy in expressing these values on an ongoing basis.

Other teachers and the administration is highly impressed at all times.Ā  Compliments come a dime a dozen.

The deep commitment to values is encouraged by every single student. The teachers of such classrooms hardly ever miss a day, and when they do, they just can’t wait to get back to the classroom.

Resilient and responsible

Every classroom has its crisis, but the classroom that excels resolves a problem with a win-win approach. Because each person holds the other accountable, they are able to come to a peaceful understanding and resolution for the sake of maintaining, respect, unity, and strength.Ā  Such students can always bounce back from an unpleasant situation almost immediately.

Because each student knows his or her responsibilities while in school as well as away from school, they practice good values within the community as well. No one wants to develop a bad reputation outside of school and diminish the good name of his or her school or classroom teacher.

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The Challenges of Teaching

However, teaching is a challenging profession. An outstanding profile of a superior classroom such as the one above is rarely witnessed in today’s modern day schools. Only a few exist in every district. The truth is that most public schools, as well as private ones, are a step away from submitting to total chaos and confusion.

In a challenging classroom, the focus is constantly interrupted by both foreseen and unforeseen occurrences in the classroom. The most common distractions include:

Relational

Some classmates are constantly at each other’s throats. Name calling, bullying and tearing apart each other’s character are daily activities teachers must confront.Ā  Teachers find it difficult to teach in an environment in which they have to put out attitudinal fires every five minutes.

Physical conflict

In classrooms where students carry around a lot of anger, fights may occur suddenly, sometimes without much time to prepare an effective response.Ā Ā  In my first year of teaching, I was upfront teaching an algebraic lesson. The students were unusually quiet that afternoon.

While my back was turned, I was suddenly startled by a loud bang. When I turned two middle school girls were locked in battle.Ā  Although one was taller than the other, both did serious damage to the classroom.

In such a situation, you can call for behavior support, but in some cases, you may have to step in and stop the fight to avoid serious injury.

Resistance

In every classroom, a teacher may experience a measure of resistance from a student or two, but there are classrooms where nearly every student is extremely difficult to handle. In such classrooms, the students eventually take over once they detect fear and intimidation in an educator.

What every Mature Educator Knows

Every mature educator knows that the conflictual situation must be prevented by implementing a system of classroom rules, regulations and rewards for managing toxic behaviors. To ignore this, like many new teachers entering the industry, means a very challenging school year lies ahead.

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However, setting rules and the logical consequences that come with violated them, still doesn’t guarantee that you will have a great classroom full of respectful and academically inclined students.

The bottom line is that to teach in the modern day classroom, an educator must have avalanches of passion, and must love children above all things. For highly dedicated teachers, the paycheck always takes a back seat. Ā The main thing is to help prepare a new generation to take effective and positive charge of homes, neighborhoods, businesses, and communities and sustain the prosperity and greatness of the nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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