Sometimes people really do not think before they speak. When talking to someone about their future career, one should really speak with respect and caution. As a future High School teacher, here are some things all of us in my major are a bit tired of hearing:

1. "You will never get a job"- Yeah we get it. The teaching world is tough to find a job right now, but how would you like if we told you that you were wasting 4.5-5 years of your life preparing for a job that is hard to obtain? We do not need the reminder.
2. "You will never make much money"- We are not becoming teachers because we want to be rich. We want to be teachers because we want to make a difference in the lives of our students. It is not about the money so stop bringing it up.
3. "Are you graduating on time?"- NO. This does not apply to all teaching majors, because there are obviously a few magicians out there that magically graduate on time (meaning they take a ton of summer and winter courses). People do not realize how many credits are required for teaching, I have taken over 100 credits worth of teaching or history courses and I am not even a senior yet.
4. "Teaching is easy"- Let's take a high school or middle school subject. I am going to teach social studies… therefore I must be capable of teaching history, psychology, sociology, geography, economics, and every other “social study” you can think of. And think about how much of an attitude your average high schooler has? No, teaching is not easy.
5. "Teachers have so much time on their hands"- When? Please tell me when because I have yet to find the time and I am not even a full-time teacher yet. As a teacher you must have a lesson plan for each class. You have 5 classes a day. 180 days a year. That is 900 lesson plans a year! What do you think lesson plans just magically appear? No we have to make them and spend the rest of our teaching careers perfecting them in order to make them as beneficial as possible for our students.
6. "Teachers only teach because they want to coach a sport"- This is about to open the eyes of many: you do not have to be a teacher in order to coach a sport. Many teachers end up coaching because it is in their character to do more for their students, but they did not go through 5 years of college to coach adolescents.
7. "You just want your summers off"- WE DO NOT GET PAID ALL SUMMER. Do I honestly look forward to summers off for when I have children of my own to spend time with? Yes. But I did not become a teacher to not work all summer and having to budget my life for those 3 months each year.
8. "Awww you are really going to be a teacher?"- Aw? I am going to teacher 16-year-olds about how Andrew Jackson's mother died from contaminated water and later he killed a man for calling his wife derogatory terms behind a bar… is there something cute about all that that I should be saying "aw" to? because I do not see what is so adorable.

When it comes down to it, us teaching majors do not concern ourselves with all of these minor details when we think about teaching. By the time a teaching major is close to graduating, they know a job is hard to find, they know they will never swim in cash, and they know that not everyone knows what it takes to be a teacher. We become teachers anyways because we love it and I hope that all of those in their other majors love what they are going to do as a career as much as we do.