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[prytania3]

I cannot imagine doing it for much longer than I did, though.  It's mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting, and it pays for crap...rather like teaching high school?

High school teachers in my area make the same as I do. Across the state line in NY (i.e. Scarsdale), they make a lot more.

[wsr88d]

While the pay for teachers in general is appallingly low in most states - my salary next year as a VAP with a 4/4 at an R2 will be less than what I would make as a full-time high school teacher in my local school district. And from what I understand, my state is among those with the lowest salaries for public educators. Where I live, pay wouldn't really be the deciding factor. Though for other locations, there could be a bigger gap. 

   

I see your point, my state is one of those too (are you a coastal state near the Gulf of Mexico?), because it sounds like we are really talking about the same scenario here.
Though, I am adjuncting for the extra money right now, but primarily for the post-secondary teaching experience so that I can move into this area full time. High School teaching is to me, right now is about experience, experience and learning various techniques for later down the line, not mention a springboard to fulltime cc teaching. Sure the pay right now is decent for HS, but with my state's severe budgetary cuts, our salaries will more than likely be frozen.
However, my wife and I discussed the situation of advancing my career....if I land a FT cc position in a year or so, and the pay is $5-7K lower than what I make now.....then it will be about the opportunity, but with my doctorate almost being completed by that point, I am sure that the salary cut will more than make up for it in the long run.

Though I am just lucky I have a job now that helps pay the bills, and I am not one of the 500+ (probably more) teachers losing their jobs in June!!!!

[educator1]

I teach the top 5 - 10% of former high school students who have chosen to come here because they want to learn. I teach two days a week and get paid well for that amount of time. I have a great consulting practice that benefits from my association with a good University.
Teaching High School (as I did many years ago prior to achieving a Phd.) involved five days a week (no consulting) and a much different set of students (no University students yet has yelled at me, much less physically threatened me - see if many High School teachers can say that). I haven't got half the paperwork nor the stress.

[omkar]

What about getting that certificate, teaching in a high school, and then getting into a tt community college position? Wouldn't that set one up with more post-graduate units? Experience? Not-having-to-have-adjuncted-and-to-have-stressed-out-over-not-having-classes-next-semesteredness?

Or, is this a fool's mission?

I'm abroad now, trying to get my plan for making it State's Side again. Which is wiser, in your opinions:

1) Grad Cert in TESOL
2) Grad Cert in Comp.
3) Certification to teach public school

(I have a BA in Philosophy, an MA in Literature, experience adjunct comp. teaching, four years experience teaching efl/esl, and I speak both Russian and Korean. . .I've been floating around a bit. . .)

My goal is to get a position teaching in a community college. . .

[lotsoquestions]

I can adjunct in the evening when my husband's home watching the kids.  If I were teaching high school, I'd have to put my kids in daycare and pay for daycare.  Adjuncting offers lousy pay but more flexibility.

[punky_brewster]

Having done both, I'd have to say that teaching high school was 67 times harder. I worked 80 hour weeks, 60 of which took place at the school, and I hated dealing with the parents.

Pay is lower for an adjunct, but I only work a 40 hour week, 15 of which take place on campus, and the parents can be told to shove off if they decide to appear.

There are other differences and benefits, but these were the decision-makers for me.

[mountainguy]

I would rather teach a 6/5 load at Arctic Tundra University or drive big-rig trucks across the country than be a high school teacher. Heck, I'd even consider becoming an accountant, and I say that as someone who hates math.

Several friends of mine from undergrad are now high school teachers. Their jobs are far more time-consuming and stressful than mine. I don't have the patience to deal with disciplinary issues, the paperwork, standardized testing, and helicopter parents on a regular basis. Working conditions are better at certain independent schools or boarding schools. However, these positions are relatively rare and come with their own set of issues.

[t_folk]

I'd deal crack in Little Rock before I'd do either ...

[dolljepopp]

Because of my geographic location and a need to stay in a particular area once I finish, a tt position in my field is extremely unlikely. So I am keeping my mind (and I hope my options) open.

The educational system here and the one in the next-door country where I'll be living have different educational systems than in the US. I couldn't realistically teach full-time in most public schools -- I speak the language, but not well enough to teach in it. But there are some private and semi-private international schools within my commutable radius and I will certainly look into what upper school options there might be. I'd be fine with part-time, in fact would in some ways prefer it, as there are opportunities in my field outside of an educational institution I'd like to pursue.

I won't have to be the larger wage-earner (wouldn't be even if on the tt) and there are no kids to support.

As long as the phrase "Fries with that?" is not involved, I am fairly open to using my degree in creative ways.

[omkar]

Teaching high school can't be as bad as many of you suggest, can it?

Why not get a certificate, teach in high school for a few years, then apply to CC's for a full-time position?

[scheherazade]

Teaching high school can't be as bad as many of you suggest, can it?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

[big_giant_head]

Teaching high school can't be as bad as many of you suggest, can it?

Why not get a certificate, teach in high school for a few years, then apply to CC's for a full-time position?

A lot of folks here seem to have the impression that CC teaching is just some sort of slightly more advanced high school.  I will grant that many of our students--at first glance--fit that mold, but the way to get hired at a CC is pretty much the same way to get hired at any other kind of higher education institution, except that the emphasis in the cover letter changes.  CC's are about teaching rather than research, obviously.  But they are still colleges.  Having taught in a high school will not generally make you a more attractive candidate at a CC.

(Actually, this is not always true: my dean, in fact, likes to have a few former high school teachers on his payroll, but that is because HE is a former high school teacher.  He still believes that most college professors have never been taught how to run a classroom, and that the former HS teachers can work as mentors for us.  My own feeling is that the fewer former HS teachers around, the better.  They tend to ask less of the students, know less about their own subject areas, and be happier with edu-speak.  But that's a prejudice on my part and my sample size is small.)

What I'm saying is, that if you really want to teach at a CC, take the same professional track you would take to teach at any other kind of college, but be sure that you are not as much in love with your research, and seize every chance to can to teach freshman/sophomore classes.  Know the student demographics of the particular CCs you have in mind--they can be very different.  At my own institution, the different regional campuses cater to very different student populations (mostly returning adult vs traditional undergrad, or military, or student/athlete, or depressingly remedial, for instance). 

Also keep in mind that whether or not you ever get hired as a FT instructor at a CC depends on your discipline.  In the humanities, the job market at CCs is the same as it is anywhere else: cutthroat.  My department has about 15 FT instructors and about 75 adjuncts.  Most of those adjuncts would seriously consider killing us and hiding our decomposing bodies for a chance at our jobs.  None of them have taught high school.  They're all ahead of you on the list.

[omkar]

Thanks.

Yeah, what a crazy little dance this is!

I've got a favor to ask of you. While I'm getting my stuff done here in South Korea, kill a few of the adjuncts who are ahead of me on the list. . .Then, the guy with the big office, who may remind us of Ivan Illich, yeah. . . off him!

[big_giant_head]

Thanks.

Yeah, what a crazy little dance this is!

I've got a favor to ask of you. While I'm getting my stuff done here in South Korea, kill a few of the adjuncts who are ahead of me on the list. . .Then, the guy with the big office, who may remind us of Ivan Illich, yeah. . . off him!

Some of them I would be happy to "remove" for you.  :-)  But I doubt you would want to work in this part of the US.

[jdougher]

I would rather teach a 6/5 load at Arctic Tundra University or drive big-rig trucks across the country than be a high school teacher. Heck, I'd even consider becoming an accountant, and I say that as someone who hates math.

As with so many things in life, our fear of something is often incongruent with the reality of it. I, too, was apprehensive of high school teaching--indeed, I dreaded it--but circumstance found me needing a high school position, which I accepted. Turned out that the teaching situation in which I found myself was far more rewarding than any I experienced while teaching in college.

I have no doubt that there are some loathsome high schools; I also now know that there are some superlative ones, as well.