Being a teacher with less than one whole school year under his belt, I am not sure how qualified I am to answer this question. However, since part of my grade is based on trying to answer it, I suppose I will give it a go.
There are certain, obvious reasons why someone should join the program: steady work with federal benefits, a masters completely paid for by the university, the chance to meet plenty of intelligent, interesting, and very talented people who enjoy teaching and run the gamut from being just as inexperienced and timid as you to more seasoned and confident than you could imagine. Oh, and how could I forget the sweet MacBook that is issued in the summer? These are all wonderful things and great incentives, but, unfortunately, this view of how the program operates and what you will experience is simplistic, naive, and incomplete at best.
Let’s look at the first item on the list: work. Perhaps the word “relentless” would be more apt than the word “steady”. I honestly feel consumed with school, which makes sense when I’m actually in it, but work associated with school pervades every part of my being even when I get home. Once the school day begins, I do not stop working until I go to sleep... honestly. I arrive at school at 6:50 each morning and do not stop monitoring students until 3:45. Also, since track and field is in season these days, I switch from monitoring students to monitoring athletes from 4 - 5. After a 30 minute commute back home, it is time to make the next day’s powerpoint/worksheet/lesson until it is time for bed. If I did not have certain breaks such as my 2nd period planning period, the 30 minute commute, and some physical activity that I make sure to do when I get home either before or after planning, I probably would not have made it this far. But hey, if I need a flu shot, the cost is next to nothing so I guess everything evens out in the end, right...?
Next, we get to the masters degree. While I won’t say it is exactly free, since my soul is taxed every single day, it is nice to know that I am working towards something. However, the classes we take for it do not exactly have an inordinate impact on how good of a teacher I am. Also, it is not like we are working towards a dissertation or huge research paper. Let it be clear that I am not complaining about the seemingly small amount of work required for this degree because I more than work my ass off at school. However, I am not sure how much weight such a degree will carry on a resume.
I can’t really complain about the people or the computer, and the details about my list are not meant to be reasons to not join. I’m still confident that I want to teach and I am glad that I am going through something like teaching at my school very early in my career when I do not know any better. Applicants, though, need not be uninformed or misinformed about what they are getting into.
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