Re-posting from AIBU to the staff room forum.
have wanted to be a secondary school English teacher for many years. However I was put off for various reasons and pursued a much more lucrative professional career. I’m now 38 and settled in my job. I still dream about teaching English literature to teenagers. I think I’d like to change careers in the next 5-10 years, not because I don’t like my job but because I don’t want to look back and regret not doing it. Whenever I mention this pipe dream to others I’m immediately met with a barrage of negativity.
Mumsnet teachers, am I mad? Is teaching as bad as people say? Why are so many teachers unhappy (or are the unhappy ones just a vocal minority)? I would be taking a massive pay cut to do it but money isn’t everything in life!
Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.
The staffroom
considering future career in teaching
chocolatesun · 03/05/2018 10:59
I posted on your other thread.
I love teaching English to teenagers. I have never been in a classroom thinking 'I hate this'. You get so much from it, and no lesson/day is ever the same.
However, I loathe the pressure that we're all under at the moment. I really struggle to reconcile my idea of 'working with teenagers, making a difference, etc (which seem similar to yours) with seeing the impact the current education system has on the mental and emotional welfare of young people. A lot of the time at the moment, I worry that as a teacher in a core subject I'm doing more harm than good 
Get into some schools, talk to as many teachers as you can, then decide.
I am an English teacher. I think it is telling that you say you want to teach literature. That does dominate at secondary level but is not all we do. And, to be honest, my love of literature has been severely damaged by the schemes of work that insist we teach the entirety of, say , Macbeth in 5 1/2 weeks so we can do a soul destroying assessment. And, these days, it is rare to have much choice over which text you teach to whom, I'd add, even at A Level. Uptake of Engl lit at A level ahs dropped : largely, I am sure, down to the enforced route march through Gove's canon at GCSE. Good luck with the inspiring bit...
Sorry.
Marking can be wonderful when you're reading top set / A-Level literature essays, but when you're onto your 59th Year 9 description of 'an inspiring place', it gets a little boring...
Yes sorry I shouldn’t have implied in my last post that English marking was exceptionally boring compared to ther subjects 
Not true I’m sure. But it probably is more time consuming.
How many hours a week do you like to work?
While you would get to teach literature, you will also spend a lot of time on full stops, capital letters, and there, they're and their.
I think your best bet would be to locate a tame teacher who would be happy to have you shadow them (you'll probably need to pay for a DBS) for a couple of days at least. Aim to follow them from the moment they arrive in the morning to the moment they leave at night (not many teachers would be up for this; try to find one who owes you a favour 
) In a perfect world, you'd spend time in a few different schools, because they vary enormously. Signing up as a supply TA is quite a good way to do this, but obviously it's time consuming / minimum wage. When I trained it was competitive and no one in my course had less than a year's full time school experience - now that trainee numbers are down this requirement may have relaxed.
Teaching secondary English destroyed my mental health, and it took me years to rebuild. Most of the teachers I knew are now out of the profession, or have moved into less intense roles (TAs, adult Ed, tutoring, charity work, consultancy, etc etc) So I may not be the best person to advise.
That said, I do have some ex colleagues still at the chalk face, who are still passionately dedicated to their students. You might turn out to be one of these, so I won't tell you not to try.
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