Elementary School Teaching as a Career

in this chapter:

A teacher's impact

Numbers of elementary school teaching jobs, with prospects

for the future

TEACHER

Changes in the nature of the job

Teacher education and licensing

INSIGHT

Teacher pay

Everyone remembers his kindergarten teacher, the person

–

“

I love meeting new

–

most often a woman

who presided over his first uncertain steps

outside the home: someone older and imposing, kind or

students every year and

domineering or thoughtful, but, in whatever form she took, a

unique and unforgettable presence, and a symbol of the scary,

having old students return

then accepting, then not-so-scary outer world. We are less likely

to visit really reinvigorates

to remember our first insurance agent or our first barber, or to

treasure their memories. Elementary school teachers, along with

me. I thrive in an

kindergarten teachers, retain for most of us an out-sized

importance that has made the work a magnet for new recruits

atmosphere of change and

into the profession in spite of its occasional drawbacks