Teaching, in my family, is kind of a legacy. My grandmother was a teacher in a one-room school house during the depression, my mom was a first grade teacher for 32 years and my dad was a ms/hs teacher for 28 years. I want to lay all of the cards on the table here, but make sure you read this all the way to the end. It's not as bitter as I am about to make it sound.
Teaching is TOUGH! The pay is terrible, you are expected to be everything to your students, not just their teacher, but their disciplinarian, their counselor, and even their janitor. In your contract, you will have to agree to do "any other duties as deemed necessary". This means that you could be required to mop the bathroom floors if someone asks. There are no teacher unions in the state of Texas. You will do more paperwork than you will teach. As an ESL teacher, you will have the rules changed out from under you on a regular basis, so you'll need to keep up with legislation. If this is a fall back career, find something else to do. If you love kids and want to do something to change the future, then TEACH. There's no money and the parents will only love you when you're not contacting them about a problem with their child. Get tough skin, because some of the problems these kids have today will break your heart.
I have a student right now that takes showers in the nurses office everyday because there is no running water at home. I have another student who's living with his grandmother because his father took the other siblings, but didn't want him. I have had students who lived in houses with dirt floors with 3 rooms and 12 family members.
IT'S A VERY HARD JOB. Teaching isn't just about curriculum anymore. It's about preparing young people to be responsible, accountable adults who are able to make the right choices in a very unstable world. It's hard for them to give a flip about math when they're being bombarded with issues we never even had to consider at their age. Teen pregnancy, drugs, alcohol, gangs, and god knows what else.
Gaining their attention is harder than ever because we have to compete with x-boxes, cable, the internet and all of the entertainment and instant gratification handed to this generation. We have to entertain them and at the same time find a way to get them to pass a test while we do a dog and pony show to get a decent evaluation to keep our jobs. A survey recently showed that 70% of todays youth refused to go out and get jobs. These are some of the challenges that we face as educators.
NOW. If you have read this far, good! Being a teacher does have rewards. The best feeling you will ever have is when you finally reach that unreachable kid. You may not know that you reached him/her for 10 or 15 years. One day you'll pick up the newspaper and see that they've made something of themselves. I have seen some of the most unlikely students become educators and even superintendents!
My advice to you is this. Make damn sure that you want to make a difference, not a dollar. Do get involved in your students' lives. Give them hugs, give them love and give them your attention. Don't expect your day to begin at 8:30 and end at 4:00, because being a teacher means being a counselor, and sometimes a parent-proxy and we all know that parenting doesn't stop when they're 18. Be someone that your students can trust. Have an open door policy. Know that the first day you step into the classroom, you will be judged. Don't be afraid to admit mistakes, stay 3 steps ahead of your students, always, always be prepared and keep them busy. Make your classroom expectations and your consequences clear and be consistent. Kids still view teachers differently than other adults. Especially the younger ones. They don't see us a people, really. So when they see you outside the halls and in public, they judge your actions and so do their parents. Always be professional. I could go on(obviously, I have). I'll spare you the rest. I love being a teacher. Somedays, more than others. It's not all good, but it's not all bad. As an ESL/bilingual teacher you will never be without a job and you will have your pick of the litter. You will also have your work cut out for you!
Good Luck and welcome to the fabulous world of education!
