I’m not a teacher yet, but I am an education student and have had many hours in observations and in class instruction and my mom is a teacher as well, so these are the points that I’m writing from;
A lot of my friends who realize they don’t want to teach anymore the ones that leave the profession, or the major tend to have a few basic reasons:
- They were never "too" into it. At my school in class observation starts your freshman year and student teaching starts your junior year- this helps to weed people out; however, many leave once the start the teaching part of it or they stay because they are too far in their education to change so they teach "in the mean time"
- Lack of mentorship and support from the staff- one of my professors always tells us to stay out of the teacher's lounge lol. But a lot of the people I have met felt that they were thrown into a setting where there were no "rules set in stone" but there was an evident/apparent way that things were done at the school (which people neglected to share)
- TFA- I have my own personal feelings about this, that I'll leave out- but I do know a few people who would agree when I say that TFA grossly underestimates the education that their program has especially when it comes to behavior management.
- Behavior/communal issues. Many teacher, as mentioned above, want to change the world, however when they are placed in situations that need changing they are unable to handle it. One of my friends who just switched out of the ed program called riverdale (the "good" part of the bronx) "the hood/ghetto" and pretty much refuses to go there (or anywhere in the bx to be honest) yet, wants to teach in an inner city- high need area.... :-/