On Teaching...

 I answered this on Quora...Why do teachers become teachers when the pay is so low?

Teacher salaries here in Ontario are pretty decent if you work for the public board. At the highest level you earn about 97 K and this figure can be boosted if you are head of department or choose to teach summer (which I often do) or night school (which I will never do). Vice Principals can earn about 110 K and Principals regularly hit the 120 K+ level. Some private schools match these levels. In addition as others have noted, you have summers off, strong union protection and a great pension plan.

However this is not why I chose to go into teaching. I worked in industry as an engineer for eight years before entering the education field. While I involved myself largely in design (which can be challenging) I personally never found the work to be that satisfying. What I did enjoy was explaining to the new recruits the ins and outs of the telecommunication network (my area of specialty at the time). The human interaction was refreshing and that started me thinking about changing my profession.

When the Dotcom crash occurred in the early 2000s I was laid off like so many others. Fortunately I had a decent severance package and I used this as an opportunity to refocus my career and in the grander scheme of things my life as well. I landed a job at a private high school and taught a smorgasbord of courses that included all the sciences with side orders of history and philosophy (the latter two being passions of mine). I then went back to uni obtained my education degree, was hired by the public board and have been teaching science (largely physics) for the last ten years or so. I also had two kids during the early stages which further impacted the transition, positively of course.

I haven’t as the cliche goes ‘looked back’. Teaching works for me. In Toronto High School teachers have much freedom in their classroom. You have a standard curriculum but there is considerable latitude in interpretation. I have taught at various high schools each with their unique strengths and weaknesses, working with students who have a rudimentary understanding of the key concepts to those that regularly win academic competitions at the highest level.

To be an effective teacher though is not easy. You need to be persistent, creative in applying varying methodologies to reach a broader audience, patient and focused. Even a technique like the Socratic requires much practice and refinement. I never rest and am always contemplating how I can improve on my strategy.

However teaching gives back so much more. I have had wonderful discussions with my students on the nature of spacetime, science and religion, Grand Unified Theories and subjective vs objective knowledge. Not a day goes by without a student asking me a question that really forces me to dig deeper to truly tackle the issues. I value their enthusiasm but what I most seek to cultivate is their love of knowledge.

In short I feel blessed and when students return years later telling me how the time that they spent having me as a teacher really benefited them later on in their studies, that is all the thanks I need. How many other professions can offer that?