Job Description
Title: Teacher
Education Required: College degree and teaching certificate that will need to be renewed on a regular basis. Must also be willing to work towards master’s degree or higher level course work.
Duties: As a teacher you will be required at any given time to do the follow:
-
- Wipe noses of crying children
- Help a student open combination locks
- Loan a student $2 so they can eat lunch
- Call Department of Child and Family Services because you suspect abuse at home
- Open a Gatorade bottle for a student because they can’t
- Attend department meetings
- Listen to a parent tell you that you are a bad teacher
- Laugh at a horrible joke your student said to make them feel better
- Sit with a student at lunch because they have no friends
- Hold a parent teacher conference where a parent will scream at you
- Be told by an experienced teacher that your opinion is invalid
- Attend IEP meetings
- Write letters of recommendations for your students
- Watch the news and understand your profession is not respected
- Break up a fight between students that are larger than you
- Tell a student to stop picking their nose…and eating it
- Call the custodians to your room to clean up a pile of vomit
- Listen to a student tell you they hate you
- Listen to a student tell you they love you
- Be told by your college friends that you are dumb for choosing this profession
- Attend faculty meetings
- Help a student pick up their books in the hallway
- Watch as a student with unlimited potential wastes it
- Testify in court against a student or parent
- Help a student clean their locker
- Give a student a hug
- Get to school well before the students arrive and stay well after they have left
- Read to a student who doesn’t know how to
- Grade until your hand falls off
- Be a role model in the community even when not at school
- Plan lessons that will keep the attention of a boy that plays 8 hours of Xbox 360 at home
- Help students find friends
- Instill hope in a hopeless situation
- If you finish all of these things you might actually teach as well.
*numerous other duties as assigned
Benefits: Intrinsic, not monetary. You will be benefited with knowing you are molding the future and if done with passion the rewards will be far greater than any Wall Street bonus or corporate perk.
To add to your list:
Spend hours researching and writing grants to obtain additional materials and/or equipment for your class/school.
Sponsor a before or after-school club for students who have a special interest, such as chess, robotics, programming; usually without any extra pay (though sometimes we get lucky!).
I think you summed it all up accurately!
Great list Josh. A few more:
– stand up for a student when no one else will
– make home visits to unspeakable environments
– regularly make a fool of yourself for the benefit of your kids (assemblies)
– stand in the pouring rain during bus duty
– eat too many cafeteria lunches
Thanks for the post!
Well stated, Josh. I wonder sometimes if teaching passionately for an entire 40-year career is possible, or if everyone eventually burns out.
As Julie says, you have summed up our frustrating, tiring, inspiring chosen profession very well. This is a message that needs to be brought to the attention of parents, media and other critics at regular intervals.
While your list is valid and has many true points, I think you have left off what is the most important part (and hopefully why we keep showing up day after day)…to motivate and inspire kids.
I think at the end of the day if a student comes up to and says "thanks", then all the frustrating parts of the day is washed away.
I hope a someone appreciates your hard work if they haven't already.
and some days you get something like this from a student (actual poem from today)
Librarians come in shapes
and sizes blond hair black
hair brown
blue eyes brown eyes
green
But you are the best
I know of.
and it's all worth it – Beth Redford
Teachers are responsible for certain subjects and classes which they teach during the day.
Education Job Descriptions