Should I reconsider teaching?
So I am 23F, graduated college 2 years ago. This year I’ve gone through major life changes that have led me to reconsidering this path and I’d love to know thoughts.
My mother has now retired from her teaching career after a little over 25 years I believe or maybe right at 25. She’s never done anything besides teach. She taught 1st and 2nd with a Master’s. Growing up, she and other teachers constantly discouraged me and my friends (other teachers’ kids) from following that path. This was a little hard for me to hear as a little girl because I really enjoyed coming to my mom’s classroom with her to work, going school shopping with her in the summers, and playing school at home.
When I got to high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I am gifted in English and scored a 5 on the AP Lang exam. I got great grades and feedback from my English teachers. Because I got a 5, I moved onto college English early but since I didn’t have an at-school class, I was allowed to sit in on the AP Lit class sometimes for fun. And I did love it. I’ve been watching Crash Course Literature for fun since middle school. So I went to college for English where I continued getting great feedback from my teachers and was a writing tutor, which I liked. I like formatting, grammar, etc.
I graduated with my English degree and went on to law school, but even while I was doing this, I used to say that one day maybe if money is no object I would go and be a high school English teacher. 1.5 years into law school I decided to leave because it wasn’t the right fit for my work-life-balance desires.
Since then, it’s only been a few months. I’ve been pursuing jobs in the corporate world without much luck (I do have marketing experience). I’ve been pondering whether I really want to work a 9-5 forever and be in the corporate world at all, feeling like my work has no impact or meaning. I worked at a daycare with 1-4 year olds between college and law school and loved it. I do not find that I lose patience with the children or that they grate on my nerves. I’ve also started thinking I might like to be a librarian. I was saying that’s my dream job even before I was reconsidering education.
My mom has started to change her tune about education now that she’s retired and she seems to support this choice if I want to do it. My dad will be angry at me but I mean you can’t please everyone I guess. I would want to teach probably upper middle school or high school English and get my Master’s in Library Science for the pay raise, teach at my mom’s school, and wait for a library job to eventually open.
But I guess I’m just wanting some thoughts on this. I feel like my mom was never really giving me a clear view of education because 1. She works with small children and doesn’t really like kids very much and 2. She’s never worked a corporate job so she has no way to compare her experience to another kind of job. Obviously I will have hoops to jump through if I choose this path, but I’m definitely reconsidering it now because I love English, hours are good and after-hours work is more meaningful since it has a tangible result, and you get the summers off (I’m aware some teachers have second jobs and I’m open to doing that until I can get my Master’s). I also like high school kids a lot and normally I’d want to teach high school AP Lang or Lit, but with the rising safety concerns in schools, I think middle school might be better for my nerves. Not that they’re perfect either but you get what I mean. I do like middle school aged kids. I’ve been around them quite a bit and I’d say preteens are my favorite age of child. I love making them feel heard because society usually neglects kids at that age and I think it’s the most formative time for a child. I think it really all does come back to who you were and what you loved at that age.
Would love thoughts on this! This has been a very difficult thing for me to confront after years of being discouraged from doing this while always having been drawn to this path. In fact, that’s one reason I got my English degree—so there would always be a road back.