Technician to Teaching?

[Guest GarnierSkinNaturals]

Hi all, so my question is...Has anyone ever made the leap from technician to teacher? If so...Do you have any advise. What were your experiances.

 

I am getting to the stage in my life in my mid 20's where I am stuck In what I believe to be a dead end job teching. No advancement, bad management, no work, bad social life and a salary just over the average asda worker etc. I have two choices of either going into business or staying in education. I have a few years of experiance in each.

 

I have been flirting with the idea of teaching since sixthform. I enjoy working with children...well noisy teenagers and I know more about IT than all the IT teachers in my current school. Would have a liveable wage, lots of holidays and I would enjoy my job and always be busy. I would have to do the GTP as at my age I cannot afford to do a PGCE anymore with so little money.

 

My two main cons for teaching are as follows:

1) Bad social life. Most schools are full of middle aged people with kids. There is no real sense of social life and although kids are part of it I feel you need to have a decent working social life with others around you.

2) Being in my mid 20's and teaching IT / Business could potentially mean another 40 odd years of teaching. In this amount of time the changes would be dramatic. Once your a teacher thats it. Your pretty much stuffed.

3) I would need to develop a thick skin and more confidence. I dont have those two things at the moment.

Edited May 9, 2011 by GarnierSkinNaturals

[irsprint84]

Why do you have to stay in education? Just apply yourself

[dhicks]

I am getting to the stage in my life in my mid 20's

 

Crikey, you're practically still a teenager...

 

I know more about IT than all the IT teachers in my current school.

 

That isn't really important - teaching ability is important, technical knowledge less so.

 

The going-in-to-business option is probably the best for you. What were you thinking of doing?

[Guest GarnierSkinNaturals]

Well having the distinct feeling I may have lost my passion for IT Probably never had it in the first place.

 

Its basically a quarter life crysis. I am in a flux between being a young wanting to party 20th something to almost a late 20's guy. Your not really respected and treated as an adult untill your in 30's...it seems.

[bossman]

@GarnierSkinNaturals:

 

If you didn't have the enthusiasm for IT in the first place why did you get into it?

 

You think IT is a dead end job well what do you think Teaching is?

 

Ruled by the bell and all the red tape plus jumping through hoops to fulfil the job criteria as well as trying to teach teenagers who really don't want to be taught but want to pi** about all the time.

 

I think you just want the holidays and the so called respect, believe me most teachers don't like what they do its a job and if they could do something better which paid as much then they would.

 

Enjoy your life as a teacher ;D

[witch]

TBH in the schools I work in there are many many young teachers now (they are cheap, y'see) and so your social life really wouldn't be that bad. Many of the teachers go out together to pubs, clubs and suchlike.

As for teaching for the next 40 years, I don't think this is necessarily the case - you could move out into training in industry or move up through the local authority in the future.

BUT teaching isn't that easy -The main consideration is - do you REALLY want to do it?

[Advocate]

I work in Higher Ed and lots of techies here get specialist in there area and then go on to teach under graduates. Indeed a lot of our techies are abused in that they are often called upon to teach a class say final cut pro for instance but still only get techie wages. Some get specialist and then go back into the world of business where being able to teach final cut can earn a fortune.

[firefox_2006]

I did my PGCE a few years ago and never really thought of a career in teaching. It was tough for me, learning to cope with the various demands of the role and I never really felt 100% comfortable doing it, hence why I am back on the technical side. For me it was tough trying to make the rather dry content appealing to teenagers (how do you make databases sound "cool" or spreadsheets). I remember trying to teach the DiDA and how difficult that was. I never really saw my friends much at weekends as I was always trying to plan the next lesson. As I say most teachers don't plan lessons these days as its the same stuff regurgitated year after year, hence why students get bored and switch off. I learn't a lot from the experience and it looks good on the old CV. Perhaps arrange a visit to different schools to get more of an idea, definately something that requires more thought than what I put into it lol.

[rad]

Do you have a degree? If you do, its easy, if you don't (like me) its harder to get in (but apparently there is a way)

 

I'd speak to the ict teachers and other subject teachers and get their opnion, would they be a teacher, do they enjoy it etc. I know from speaking to the ICT teachers, October hol is spent marking one lot of work, Easter is spent marking another set, evenings are planning and marking on the go stuff, its not all easy especially when you work out the number of hours put in past 5pm and before 8am.

[penfold]

Well I've worked with young(ish) teachers as like witch says, they are cheap to replace retiring teachers. But the thing that most struck me about these teachers was that they wanted to teach and it shows. Sure they sometimes grumble about loosing the odd weekend when out and about with the kids, but on the whole they enjoy it. They put the extra work in and enjoy the rewards with the job satisfaction they get. They also have good social lives and the addtional holidays potentially allow you to do more travelling than you would in other jobs during your summer holidays.

 

However, I have also known and heard of teachers who treat it like any other job and just go through the motions. So it seems to me that unless you wanted to teach you would just end up like all the teachers we moan about who do the minimum amount of work to get through the day...but is that so different to what you do now?

 

As for being stuffed when teaching, well you can have that attitude about any job you are in. I was once told by an IT teacher I used to work with a comment which kind of made me understand a little why they do it. He was having a bad day with lots of things going wrong(bad behaviour, interuptions etc) but after a little vent he asked what other jobs can you get up in the morning and not know what you have to do? He hated the thought of going to work doing the same routine and the fact when a single kid makes him laugh or the fact they have actually learnt something made him feel good. If your job is no longer giving you satisfaction then maybe you need to look at why? If you really feel that teaching is a possibility then maybe you could look into running lunchtime/afterschool clubs to get some experience and see if you actually like it before making any decisions.

[CAM]

Well having the distinct feeling I may have lost my passion for IT Probably never had it in the first place.

 

Its basically a quarter life crysis. I am in a flux between being a young wanting to party 20th something to almost a late 20's guy. Your not really respected and treated as an adult until your in 30's...it seems.

 

I know just how you feel there. So many things you feel you are too old to do to be "mature" but so many things you don't want to do until you are older. And schools have this habit of making you feel older then you are.

 

Keep your skills up, options open and CV in the wild. I'm learning Sharepoint and web coding myself alongside sorting out the school's reports.

[Guest GarnierSkinNaturals]

So it seems you all have mixed opinions on the matter. There are some comments on here which do make alot of sense so thank you for your comments.

 

One of the main reasons I am consider teaching?

 

As Penfold said "but after a little vent he asked what other jobs can you get up in the morning and not know what you have to do? He hated the thought of going to work doing the same routine and the fact when a single kid makes him laugh or the fact they have actually learnt something made him feel good."

[witch]

So it seems you all have mixed opinions on the matter. There are some comments on here which do make alot of sense so thank you for your comments.

 

One of the main reasons I am consider teaching?

 

As Penfold said "but after a little vent he asked what other jobs can you get up in the morning and not know what you have to do? He hated the thought of going to work doing the same routine and the fact when a single kid makes him laugh or the fact they have actually learnt something made him feel good."

 

Good to hear - so if you really feel like that then go for it!

(I must admit though, in my job every day is different and you never know what those cheeky computers are going to get up to next!)