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One of the differences from transitioning from office worker or even teacher's aide to lead teacher is that the teacher is "on" all of the time. It's like being the leading actor in a stage play with an audience of both youngsters and adults constantly judging and evaluating your performance 100% of the time. All eyes are on you and there's no privacy to adjust your clothing or blow your nose as there would be in a cubicle. Years ago, I asked my aide to conduct a whole class lesson while I attended to something else. She usually worked with small groups of students, but when she had to stand in front of the whole class to explain something, she couldn't think what to say, at least not easily. She told me afterwards, she felt like she was on a stage. Teachers are often drained at the end of the day because of the intense concentration. You really do have to have "eyes in the back of your head," aware of everything that is going on around you, while talking to a parent, teacher, administrator, thinking about the steps to remember for the lesson, giving out assignments, collecting papers, giving out papers, and so forth. There is no moment when you can just blank out like you can at a desk for a few seconds. Forget about going to the bathroom. When you get to use the bathroom during your lunch period, so is everyone else. You need to do your business quickly and have a good bladder. This is just the tip of the iceberg and the "easy" stuff, but it's no wonder that young teachers eventually grow tired, even when they work in good situations. I'm just bringing this up because this is something that I, a career changer like the OP, didn't expect.
Some other things you don't want to forget about:
1) Oceans and oceans of paperwork (though nowadays most if it's not on actual paper). And zero time allotted to do any of it. Sped has even more paperwork than regular classroom teaching.
2) The general expectation from both parents and school administration that anything that goes wrong, it's always, always the teacher's fault. The teachers take the blame for absolutely everything in the school system that's not right.
3) Politics, infighting, and cliques. Principals are under so much pressure to make things better (while being powerless to change any of the things that cause problems) and teachers are so widely regarded as the bad actors in the situation, that this leads to situations where the principals feel pressure to prove they're making positive changes by getting rid of a certain number of so-called "bad teachers" each year. How do they decide which ones to get rid of every year? It's the ones that aren't in their clique. Suck up to the principal and the powerful teachers, and you'll do no wrong. Get on the wrong side of the principal, or worse, one of the principal's pals, and you can expect harassment.
1) Oceans and oceans of paperwork (though nowadays most if it's not on actual paper). And zero time allotted to do any of it. Sped has even more paperwork than regular classroom teaching.
2) The general expectation from both parents and school administration that anything that goes wrong, it's always, always the teacher's fault. The teachers take the blame for absolutely everything in the school system that's not right.
3) Politics, infighting, and cliques. Principals are under so much pressure to make things better (while being powerless to change any of the things that cause problems) and teachers are so widely regarded as the bad actors in the situation, that this leads to situations where the principals feel pressure to prove they're making positive changes by getting rid of a certain number of so-called "bad teachers" each year. How do they decide which ones to get rid of every year? It's the ones that aren't in their clique. Suck up to the principal and the powerful teachers, and you'll do no wrong. Get on the wrong side of the principal, or worse, one of the principal's pals, and you can expect harassment.
For the third, that's what my former system implemented. Principals had to rate 7% of their teaching staff Unsatisfactory each year (conversely, 7% could be rated Exceeds Standards).
Over the course of a 30+ year career I attended probably over a thousand staff meetings (that includes having to have a subject area meeting, or at least an agenda submitted for one, when I was the only one teaching the course. Yes, that happened) and I only remember what was said at one.
Our quarterly benchmark test scores didn't quite meet expectations so we were informed the Principal's bonus was in jeopardy and asked what were we going to do to raise the scores.
Keep in mind that at that point teacher raises, step and COLA, had been suspended for several years.
I am 54 and thinking about getting my teaching certification for Special Ed. I have a degree, so it would only take me two semesters (it is a bridge program for non-ed majors that already have a bachelors). Do you think this would be something that I could do for years to come? I love kids, my energy level is decent and I am in reasonably good shape - for now, lol!
My preference would be elementary, but HS would be fine...my concern would be heavy lifting (if required), and perhaps having difficulty getting hired due to my age.
Truth. Case managing IEPs is about 10,000,000x more draining than anything related to direct student interaction. When my job became more about IEP management, proportionally, than it was working with students themselves, the writing was on the wall to get out. I lobbied my team intensively regarding adding on a process coordinator to take some of the IEP tedium off my plate and get me more time back to focus on instruction, but they dragged their heels. After I left, they backed down on it and hired a process coordinator, because they couldn't find another special ed teacher willing to take on all the stuff I'd been doing. She didn't stay, though.
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