Benefits of a Career in Teaching

Teaching is a challenging job, but the rewards of teaching are numerable. Some of the many benefits include the following:

Experience the Joy of Making a Difference
Teachers get incredible joy in seeing the difference they make as students gain new insights, become more interested in a subject and learn about themselves. Teachers foster creativity, develop character, give students lenses with which to view the world and provide students with the skills they need to reach their potential and lead productive lives. Many individuals are attracted to teaching by a sense of service, because they want to make a clear, tangible difference in the lives of others.

Benefit From Variety
Many people cringe at the idea of doing a job that involves repetition of a specific task over and over. Teaching is a job that offers a great deal of variety. Each year, teachers get to work with a new group of students with unique personalities, experiences and ideas. Teachers can introduce new topics into the courses, change the way they teach a particular topic, or design new classes to teach to keep things new and exciting each year.

Be a Lifelong Learner
You will never learn a topic better than when you start to teach it. Students ask interesting questions prompting you to dig deeper, and learn more, about the topics they are most curious about.

Have a High Level of Autonomy
While required classes have mandated curricula that teachers are expected to follow, it is the teacher who decides what will happen in the classroom each day. Teachers teach their curriculum in very different ways depending on their knowledge, personality, and beliefs. Not many jobs provide an individual with so much room to be creative and autonomous each day.

Spend More Time With Your Family
One of the great perks of a teacher’s schedule is that it matches up with a child’s school schedule. While you will likely bring some work home with you, you will be able to be home with your children in the afternoons. If you teach in the same school system that your children attend, you will have the same vacation schedule and will be able to spend your summers home with your children.

Enjoy Lots of Vacation
While some schools have moved to a year-round schedule, where teachers’ vacation is divided up throughout the year, most teaching jobs allow you to have a couple of months off in the summer where you can choose to get another job, teach summer school, or just relax and revamp for the next year. In addition to summers off, teachers typically get two weeks off during the winter and one week during the spring.

Be well Compensated

The average starting salary for teachers in California is over $40,000, and the average salary among all California teachers is nearly $70,000. These salaries are in addition to other benefits teachers often receive including health care and the pension they receive as a result of their participation in the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) .