Teaching is definitely a noble profession. It gives you the opportunity to change lives. That’s one of the greatest advantages of being in a teaching job. In this CareerStint article, we tell you the benefits of becoming a teacher.
The job of a teacher is exciting and rewarding. There is less stress involved. This job gives you a platform to connect with inquisitive, young minds and bring a positive change in their lives. As a teacher, you get to play a key role in developing basic learning skills in children, inculcating good values in them, cultivating their minds and teaching them not just lessons from books but lessons of life. At that young age, kids consider you as their role models; you inspire them, influence them.
Through this article, we do not intend to tout the teaching profession as the most comforting or the least stressful. We understand that like any other profession, this one too has certain disadvantages. For instance, the salaries of teachers aren’t very high, due to which some teachers have to take up second jobs in the evenings and during vacations. Also, the job of a teacher is demanding which can lead to stress. This article, however, highlights the benefits of becoming a teacher and talks about how rewarding the profession is.
Teaching at the School Level
# You help kids develop basic reading, writing and verbal skills.
# You teach them basic math, science or language.
# You teach them to express themselves, interact with people, make friends and thus help them develop social skills.
# When they are in school, you are their parent. You play a key role in cultivating them and making them the kind of human beings they become.
# An added advantage of being their teacher is having the opportunity to see them grow.
Teaching at a Higher Level
# You are instrumental in helping your students master the subject you teach.
# You help them hone their skills in the subject and develop subject expertise.
# If you are good at what you do, you earn your students’ respect and admiration.
# You get a chance to share their aspirations, a chance to build their dreams and a chance to give them wings.
You are Remembered
The role of a teacher in the life of his student never really ends. Henry Brooks Adams has rightly said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell, where his influence stops.” With your students, you grow; from parent to friend; caretaker to mentor and continue to influence students who admire you all their life. They remember you for what they have got from you, they are thankful to you for what you have taught them. That’s one benefit of being a teacher – you are remembered for long.
Benefits such as a less hectic work schedule, less job stress, a decent salary and job security are inherent to the teaching profession. Let’s look at this aspect of teaching and understand how becoming a teacher can be beneficial in this regard.
Less Working Hours
A teaching job requires you to work for about six hours a day, which is less compared to those working in the corporate sector. You don’t have to be on the job for nine and ten hours everyday, except for days of after-school activities and student tours. This way, you get more time for your family and to pursue other interests. Basically, you have a life outside work and being in a teaching job, you can maintain good work-life balance.
Winter vacations, spring breaks, days off in summer and festival holidays come packaged with a teaching job. Quite a few times of the year, you get a chance to enjoy a two or three weeks’ vacation. Perhaps no other profession is blessed with so many holidays. You can spend your vacation time with family, friends or in pursuit of your personal interests. The holidays can also be used for professional growth. Many teachers opt for higher education or take additional courses for better career prospects. Some use this time to earn extra money by taking activity classes or taking up other jobs.
Salary and Other Benefits
The pay packages of teachers are quite competitive. Teacher salaries range anywhere between $40,000 and $45,000. Besides the perk of holidays around the year, teachers are eligible for various insurance and pension plans, which are paid for by their schools. Many schools offer comprehensive health and medical insurance to teachers. The government offers pension plans to teachers in public schools. In addition to these monetary benefits, teachers are funded for school supplies as also scholarships and teaching programs. True, the teaching profession promises financial security.
Being in this profession, you get an opportunity to develop as a person. To be able to impart knowledge to the students, you need to continue with your pursuit of the same. You need to be abreast with the changing time in order to keep your students updated. To be able to teach a subject, you need to be an expert in it. As a teacher, interaction with students (mostly kids or teenagers) becomes a part of your job, for which you need to possess specific skills. And in fulfilling these demands of the teaching job, you grow as a person.
- As a teacher, you are someone your students look up to and derive inspiration from. Realizing this makes you a more responsible human being.
- To teach well, you need to know well. It’s wise to teach what you know and important to know what you teach. Your teaching job requires you to keep pace with the time; keeping yourself updated on the subject you teach is what your job demands. This encourages you to become a subject expert.
- Another benefit of becoming a teacher is that you get the opportunity to be a part of the constant process of learning. Someone has said that every student teaches his teacher, a new teaching style. True that is. In changing your ways while teaching students of different intellects or varying abilities, you get to learn so much.
- Teaching involves oratory, spontaneity and presence of mind. This calls for great communication skills. Being a teacher, you have to speak to a class of fifty odd students coming from different backgrounds. It does take a lot of confidence to do that day in and day out. Impromptu questions from students, some weird, some witty, are an everyday affair. As a teacher, you are expected to know all the answers. This demand of your job makes you more aware, more confident, more spontaneous.
- As a teacher, you are surrounded by bright young minds, curious to know everything about the world, especially if you teach in a school. You get to spend a majority of your time of the day, with children, talking to them, understanding them, teaching them, learning from them. Time spent with kids is time put to good use. As a teacher, you are with children for five to six hours everyday, at times becoming their friend, at times their guardian. There’s relatively less stress involved in a teaching job, as spending time with children in itself is a great stress buster.
- As you teach a new set of students every year, there is less monotony in a teacher’s job. What you teach may repeat but those you teach it to, are new. If your school/institute allows, you can get an opportunity to devise new ways of teaching, formulate different teaching strategies and invent ways in which learning can be made fun for the students. This makes you develop creativity.
You can Make a Difference
One of the most important benefits of becoming a teacher is that you can contribute to the shaping of future generations. You get a chance to nurture young minds and make a difference to the society.