I’m a teacher in a Catholic high school, and I absolutely love what I do. I’ve been in the profession since 1980, and in my school since 1987 (with the exception of 5 years home when my kids were young.) And, I might add: as a private school, we don’t follow Common Core, so I’ll leave that out of my discussion.
But there are lots of good reasons why so many new teachers wash out within the first three years.
So many graduate from college with a degree and certification and a head full of buzzwords about reform, but with very little concrete knowledge of what they’ve gotten themselves into. Some simply do not know their material. In order to teach successfully, you’ve got to know it inside out. You’ve got to have 2 or 3 or 4 alternate explanations ready, for those kids who simply don’t get the first explanation. You’ve got to know what they learned last year and what they’ll need to know next year. You’ve got to see the interrelationships between what you’re teaching in October and what you’re teaching in April. Without a solid grasp on the material, you’re in deep trouble.
But that’s the easy part. Probably the hardest part for new teachers is developing that innate sense of authority. I very rarely “tell” a kid to do anything; it’s almost always a very polite request. But over the years I’ve developed a way of “asking” my kids to do something in such a way that they don’t think of declining. Very often new teachers have a hard time with this-- either they come across as being as a power trip, or as someone trying to be their student’s friends. And it’s something that’s very hard to teach a new teacher; it’s something you need to find within yourself, and find very quickly. Without it, you don’t have the kids’ respect, and without that respect you can’t teach them. But you only have the first week or two of the year to get that respect.
Another surprise for lots of new teachers is all the “other stuff” they’ll be doing. From the responsibilities of homeroom to cafeteria duty to extra help every single day to parent conferences (last night I got home at 10 after conferences), I think a lot are surprised at all the outside stuff. And they’re taken by surprise by the amount of time they spend on prep, and on grading… it’s not quite as easy as they believed.
I’m not whining- as I said, I LOVE my job. But I think there are a lot of nuances that take new teachers by surprise, and that contributes greatly to the number who leave the profession.