Teaching - aspirational profession

[mids2019]

What are your views on teaching as being a career young people aspire to?

I think it definitely should be but it seems currently going people especially the academically gifted tend to say doctor, lawyer, banker, journalist etc as desirable professions.

Is this because of the working conditions and remuneration within the teaching sector or there other societal.factors at play?
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It's ridiculously hard work, whilst the general perception is that you are lazy and anyone could do it, and the pay isn't even that great.

No, I don't think it's aspirational at all, which is fine because I don't do it any more!

I did actually want to teach from early on at uni and did a lot of voluntary work relating to it, but that was nearly 20 years ago when the job was much more 'open' as long as you got decent results and no complaints nobody was too worried about what you did to achieve that as long as it was all above board. You were busy at certain times of the year (mock exams, coursework deadlines, reports and so on) but you were allowed to manage your own workload and do easy stuff during those peak work times. Everyone knew KS3 lessons suffered a bit from Easter to May half term but then they got the best of everything once the older kids were on study leave, so it all evened out in the end. You can't do that any more.

As a science graduate at the time i felt my only choices were teaching, which I fancied and at the time was quite a good starting salary and career structure compared with staying at uni to do research (which I was also invited to consider as my dissertation could have progressed) and existing from grant to grant. Or go and do some vocational training to get on the ladder in the NHS, I'm glad I didn't do that as it seems it's even more in crisis than teaching in terms of staffing and retention.

and it’s very hard/rare for a teacher to be sacked

They are not ‘sacked’ as such, but lots of older and expensive ones are managed out. It’s becoming a real issue, enough that the unions are concerned.

Teaching is a terrible job. 10% teaching which is fantastic. The rest is just micro managing, no autonomy, toxic management, stress and workload.

Not a job to aspire to in any way.

I agree that teaching isn't seen as aspirational.
I don't agree, however, that that is because of Ofsted, excessive workload, lack of resources, micro-managing, lack of autonomy etc. Those were not issues when I was at secondary school in the 1970s - and teaching wasn't aspirational then either.

I agree with the 'familiarity breeds contempt' argument. We have all experienced being at school and so we think we know what teaching is like. Most of us have experienced poor teaching (either as pupils or parents) and it is easy to focus on that rather than on the good examples.

Unfortunately, the fact that teaching is a female-dominated profession, especially at primary, doesn't help to raise its status. It's also doesn't help that teacher training courses are not seen as competitive to get onto, and in many cases the induction process may not be sufficiently rigorous to 'weed out' unsuitable candidates.

Disclaimer: I am not a teacher, but lots of members of my family were or are, I have friends who are teachers, and my daughter is currently training to be one!

I think some people do certainly aspire to be teachers and I hope this continues to be the case. It's certainly a tough job with long hours and not always an appreciative audience but every day is difference and teachers can and do make a difference.

as for I think it definitely should be but it seems currently going people especially the academically gifted tend to say doctor, lawyer, banker, journalist etc as desirable professions.

No I don't think it competes for the academically gifted for the above (although I would question journalist - after all the ho ha with the BBC and COVID I wouldn't see journalists as high achievers!).

Of my school friends several became teachers and some were reasonably bright but they weren't ambitious. They were more interested in finding something 'family friendly' with long holidays. (Whether this is a correct perception of the job or not is something else but its like Doctors signing up to be GPs)

I don't think you need to be wildly academically gifted to be a teacher in most schools. You certainly need other talents - entertainment, negotiation, persuasion, thinking out of the box. I think its exhausting but its not the same level of academic as say a nuclear physicist or brain surgeon.