How many teachers have had a career elsewhere?

[Earnsomething]

And if they have, does that change their perception of how good/bad the job is?

I've been teaching for 6 years now, after 23 years in Corporate Banking.

Teaching brings a unique set of challenges and pressures but that's the point, that's why it's so rewarding IMO. There is a level of scrutiny (doesn't there need to be?) but nothing like what I experienced before where results and progress were reported weekly and moved to daily if you were considered to be underperforming. OFSTED like audits happened four times a year.

I work fewer hours now and have more flexibility over when I work them (outside 9-4), then there are the holidays, during which, yes I do some work but in my past life, if I had a holiday coming up in 6 weeks, it was getting close. My work life balance is better, by a long way.

Students and parents can be unreasonable in their demands but so can customers at a bank, believe me!

I don't earn as much, but then I'm fairly new in the job. My salary before was similar to a UPS3 teacher with TLR, so not different to many teachers with 23 years' experience.

I hear the complaints of my colleagues and yes, of course we all have days when we think we'd rather do anything else, but sometimes I wonder if they would benefit from having done "anything else". Most teachers, apart from PT jobs whilst studying, don't seem to have done other work.

Please don't see this as teacher bashing, I'm just interested in why so many teachers seem so unhappy, when it's by far the best job I've ever had, in so many ways.

This has just reminded me that I once watched a year 8 climb out of the window and remain outside on the playing field whilst observing a lesson taught by a particularly smarmy, smug male deputy head. I assumed the deputy head was deliberately ignoring his behaviour but when reflecting on what I could learn from him at the end he completely failed to mention that most interesting behaviour - I was left with the firm impression he genuinely hadn't noticed...

TheHoneyBadger ,😲 those used to be senior roles!

I’ve done both. Teaching is much harder work.

@SuperMedium

TheHoneyBadger ,😲 those used to be senior roles!

Yep. With capable ‘buck stops here” types who took ownership of issues. All these people do is forward the problems to teachers.

@shortsaint
I worked in a school where that was attempted. A civvy manager in charge of timetable, cover and absence.

It was an unmitigated disaster because they have no understanding why it wasn’t possible to teach period 1 in room A and be in room B on the other side of the school with a whole class in and sat down with their books the next period.

Or why it was important not to split bottom set exam groups between three teachers.

There are utterly brilliant school leader out there who are teachers. But, just as in industry, bad heads recruit bad junior managers. Only it is worse in education because there are so many more of them and the bad idea have proliferated from the top DfE.

@TheHoneyBadger

A horrible new trend in education made popular by really terms funding cuts. This is how you save money on staffing!

I would think long in the tooth career teachers would have a great advantage in seeing all the new educational policies/initiatives in context - eg ahhh centralisation - they tried that in x.... but the problem with it was...

I think that career switchers would not have had this experience. However, perhaps can bring different perspectives - eg of practical applications of x technique in other jobs.

I would think ideally it’s nice to have a mix in a team.

Rather than say, ‘x technique’, could you give some actual examples. Eg what from corporate banking could this new person bring to their colleagues to help their teaching skills?

The thing with those long in the tooth teachers is they get no say in what initiatives descend on them and no one defers to their experience.

Research has shown the most stressful jobs are ones with lots of responsibility and very little control. That’s the nub of it in teaching. You can be forced to do things you know don’t work or aren’t suitable for your students or subject but be totally responsible for learning, results etc despite that shitty initiative that’s wasting hours of your time and energy. So you are hamstrung but have to perform miracles none the less because individual teachers will be judged not the policy makers.

All of the teachers I know haven’t had other jobs except one who was a lawyer. He certainly finds it a loss less stressful. I do agree that many teachers have unrealistic ideas of what work life balance is like in other professions but that obviously varies from person to person.

I think you could also say the opposite , surely!?

X could be how calculus and graphs are used in economics, machine learning, pharmacology to calculate values which maximise income, predict elimination of a drug from the body, model pandemics.

It could be how writing a certain style is more likely to hold people’s attention or persuade them to buy something.

Surrounding landscape and weather influencing mobile phone/Radio/TV signal.

I think anecdotes from other careers would make it interesting for kids and could increase motivation. Obviously it would be a bit hit and miss depending on what experience is there though.

I did 25 years in industry and have just completed 10 years in teaching. There is no comparison to the stress levels and scrutiny we were under in my industry role. Every Monday I had to account for what I had achieved the previous week. We were under constant pressure of being placed on a performance improvement plan if they felt we hadn’t achieved enough. We all used to fabricate stuff when under pressure.

My teacher colleagues have no concept of any of this. In my early years, I was constantly asked if I had anticipated how tough it would be. I learnt not to reply as no one wanted to hear that other jobs were tougher than teaching.

Also teachers are never more than 6 weeks away from the next holiday!

I think anecdotes from other careers would make it interesting for kids and could increase motivation.

I think every prospective pgce student I’ve ever interviewed has said this when asked why they would be a good teacher. I’ve yet to teach a student who cares what the teacher did before teaching, they are much more motivated by being taught well.

I'll start by saying: I'm not a teacher and I've never taught.

I do put a lot of faith in the saying that it takes a village to raise a child though. I therefore like to see a balance: teachers with more experience who have seen it all before and can bring wisdom, new graduate teachers who can bring their energy and experience in being closer in age to the kids and those that have had experiences outside of the classroom that can share those or take learnings from those.

Ultimately we can all learn from each other, why wouldn't kids benefit from that same diversity.

Jeanne wtf , that just is not true. There are plenty of half terms longer than 6 weeks!

On the industry experience thing, you would think the ex journalist I worked with would have been a great teacher with lots of insight, who could inspire generations of young writers. Unfortunately, her motives for leaving journalism were not all that linked to a desire to teach and she was a dreadful teacher and an even worse leader. Perfectly nice person. She lasted two years.

But how much did they earn as a lawyer? Those other professions you’re comparing to are extremely well paid and high status and afford the luxuries of nannies etc.

To be fair you’d have to compare with other professions requiring 4 years of higher education plus a probation year with a 20k starting salary.

The least stressed teachers I encounter are the ones who really don’t give a shit about the kids and refuse to do the level of planning and resource development required to teach kids meaningfully.

The ex lawyer I worked with also left teaching. A very rigid person in his routines and rules, what drove him out was he himself being treated like a child.

He didn't go back to the law, so it wasn't about pay. It was about being infantilised and anti intellectualised. And behaviour. Don't overlook the impact of poor pupil behaviour : this is not mentioned in the OP. I have enjoyed WFH because it has allowed me to think about what to teach and how to teach in far more detail : the pure mechanics of teaching, if you will.

I can empathise with him piggy.

Realistically you can make as much working in a call centre as a low level manager as you do as a teacher. People don’t leave teaching to be lawyers, they leave to go to jobs with similar pay and way less responsibility.

Jeanne - you’ll be top of the pay scale if you are 10 years in to teaching - get ready for the performance improvement plan and the competency procedure since you are now far too expensive for most schools budgets.

I have taught 3 terms this year longer than six weeks.

15 years as an engineer before teaching. Half the money and, honestly, half the stress. But, school management are halfwits! Most have no idea at all how to manage people, budgets, organise, communicate. So many seem to think that 25 years in the same school means they know what they are doing.
People who have had previous careers realise what a good thing teaching is and that the term time stress is returned by reasonably flexible (after school) hours and holidays.
I simply could not do my previous job and raise a family as a single parent.

I guess it’s about finding a job you are suited to: some people transfer from industry to teaching and some go the other way.

People that go both ways may find it easier than their previous job - and that’s not inconsistent. On the whole I think lots of people leave teaching which does seem to indicate that work-life-pay balance isn’t really good enough.

Exactly namenic. If it’s so wonderful why can’t we recruit and retain enough teachers? That’s the bottom line and a far more objective measure than individual opinions and experiences.

Why despite a massive recession is it so hard to get enough people to stay in a secure job with holidays that everyone appears to think are a fantastic boon? Why despite paying people to train and massive advertising campaigns and sometimes throwing money at the recruiting problem (money better spent on schools in ways that would address retention imho) are we still short on teachers?

@CarrieBlue my chemistry teacher at school had a career in chemical engineering before teaching. He was always telling us stories from that and it was really interesting and helped the stuff stick. Real life experience is definitely helpful IMO.

@TheHoneyBadger - the guy I knew was quite a senior lawyer so earned quite a bit more but easily worked twice the hours as a lawyer than he did as a teacher if not more. Many lawyers though who are not senior and working in the corporate sector (or corporate support eg. employment or IP) earn less than teachers and have a lot less job security as well as much longer hours.

Like a pp said though, horses for courses.

@CayrolBaaaskin I think you mean industry experience rather than real life, unless you think that those who have always taught have an unreal life?

My chemistry teacher (I wonder if that’s a trait of chemists?!) used to tell us tales of his previous career - it was irrelevant to what we were doing but wasted a few minutes of the lesson. Depends on the teacher I guess as to whether it’s helpful or not.