The advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher

An essay about the advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher

School takes up a very important part in students’ life. There they spend twelve years of their life. The school becomes like a second home to them. There they grow up, learn to love, to forgive and to be a friend. The school is the first step to life. The most important person in school is the teacher. He/she helps students to know life; he/she opens the door to unknown worlds.

The profession of teacher is one of the oldest in the world. In ancient times the most educated person was a teacher, he/she was teaching not only one or two subjects what teachers do now, but he/she taught four or five different subjects. A teacher used to have a lot of authority over students. He/she was held in high respect by the community. The students respected him/her but at the same time were afraid of his/her stick. In ancient times physical punishments was used at students. So if students did not listen to teacher, did not work or learn they were punished.

Times are changing so the system of education has changed too. Now physical punishment is forbidden. In ancient times teacher was like orchestra conductor, nowadays a teacher is like a friend or adviser of students, who shows or advises the students how to learn or to do something. Teachers use many metaphors to describe what they do. Sometimes they say they are like actors because ‘they are always on the stage‘, or they are like gardeners because ‘they plant the seeds and then watch them grow’. Dictionaries also give a variety of meanings about teaching. According to the Cambridge International Dictionary of English ‘teaching’ means ‘to give (someone) knowledge or to instruct or train (someone), The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English suggests that it means ‘to show somebody how to do something’ or ‘to change somebody’s ideas’.

A teacher’s job is very interesting, but at the same time is very difficult. Teaching is a multi-faceted profession and because of this, there are a lot of advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher. The first advantages of being a teacher could be – it's an interesting job. Teachers always meet and communicate with interesting people. Sometimes a teacher has to go to seminars or he/she can go to abroad and see how foreign students learning, so he/she has a chance to see a world and there to meet interesting people too. Teachers can organize excursions and together with students go to visit some interesting towns in their country or other countries. So a teacher can do a lot of innovative things in his/her job.

On the other hand, teaching can be a complex job. The teacher not only has to teach students, but he/she is expected to be a friend to them. He/she should be interested in the students’ world: their problems, fashions, views to life, enjoyments. If a teacher works for a long time, he/she must not lag behind the students’ interests because times change and students lives change too. So the second advantage of being a teacher is that the teacher’s profession does not allow to become set in their ways. The third advantages of being a teacher could be that teacher can have a lot of children. All his/her students can be like his/her own children. It is good for a teacher especially if he/she has not got his/her own family and children. Then his/her students are a family for him/her and teacher does not feel lonely.

Some disadvantages of being a teacher could be these: a teacher has not much free time for his/her family, he/she forgets his/her own children, he/she has to work not only at school but at home too, a teacher’s pay is not very big. So a teacher has not much free time for himself/herself and his/her family. Sometimes teachers forget their own children. They spend more time with students than their own children. Sometimes teachers are strict with own children, but indulgent with students and they agree with students but they can not understand their own children at home. That is because teacher spends a lot of time at school with students and has not enough free time for his/her children. But a good teacher has to coordinate his/her job with family and has to find free time for them.

Teachers spend a lot of time at school and even they have to work at home: to make lesson plans, to grade papers, to do all those reports about their classes. Sometimes they have to visit their pupils at home, to check their living conditions and so on. A teacher has many responsibilities and the reward for that is not always appropriate. We all know that teachers’ pay is not very big. For good teachers, salary is not a very important thing to them in life. These teachers do not worry about money. The important thing for them is students and their age. If teacher is good at his subject and he/she want to make money, he/she could give private tutoring lessons. He/she could have a few groups of students and he/she could have a second salary from his/her private lessons.

Overall, teaching is very difficult job because a teacher has two jobs. The first job is to impart his/her knowledge to students and encourage them them to have enquiring minds. The second job is to be like a compass in their students' lives. It means that a teacher should be able to give directions to students. He/she should direct them towards an honest way of life. The best pay for his/her hard job is to see his/her ex-students become honest people who go on to have satisfying careers.

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For learning	English
Base language	English
Tags	Intermediate Writing
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