As an education major I hear the same thing day after day. I get you, maybe you aren't majoring in education so you don't know how hard it truly is. But maybe if you took the time to educate yourself, you would see just how important teachers really are.
1. "Education is so easy!"
You try creating a lesson plan each day and teaching a subject to a room full of 12-year-olds that have no interest in the subject, learn at all different rates, and are taught best in different ways.
2. "But you don't get a lot of money being a teacher."
Maybe I didn't choose my career path based upon money. Perhaps I chose education because it's what I actually enjoy and want to do with my life. Crazy right?
3. "You're so lucky you get the summer's off!"
Yea except during that time I'll be making lesson plans, making sure my assignments align with the ever-changing Common Core standards, and probably working a full time job to help make ends meet.
4. "Anyone could be a teacher!"
In case my first point didn't explain enough, lets also talk about how patient you have to be, adaptable to change, and willing to deal with parents that have little to no interest in their child's education.
5. "Aren't you just a glorified babysitter?"
Well, I don't know about you, but the babysitters I've had in the past never taught me Algebra, the scientific method, grammar and verb tense, or American history. Also, there's a reason you have to have a degree to teach. It's not just so you have something pretty to hang up in your office.
6. "You can't help children who don't want to be helped."
My job is not just to teach the material to children. I have to find out what interests them and incorporate it into my lesson plans, figure out which ways they learn best, whether that be visual, auditory, etc. and find a way that I can tie it all together so that each student is learning in their own unique way, but still gaining the same general knowledge.
7. "Why don't you do a smarter major?"
That's an interesting question. What exactly makes something a "smart" major? Is teaching our future generations how to read and write not beneficial? What about math and science classes? Last I checked engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc wouldn't have the knowledge and information they need to perform their jobs if it weren't for a teacher.
8. "Why do teachers even have to go to college?"
Oh so you think just cause you went to school that means you know everything teachers do? Think again. There is way more going on in the background than you'll ever know. Just because you went to a public school does not mean you are qualified to teach at one.
9. "You know what they say, those that can do, those that can't teach."
This has been said to me on multiple occasions and in case you didn't know, it wasn't funny the first time, it wasn't funny the second time, and it's still not funny now.
