Teachers see their work as a 'calling,' study suggests

May 24, 2000
Web posted at: 9:49 p.m. EDT (0149 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- New school teachers are motivated and bring a high sense of commitment and morale to their work, but many believe they are not fully prepared to handle the stresses of a classroom, a new study shows.

"They would much prefer to spend more time in the field while they were in a teacher preparation program, rather than (sitting) in the classroom," said Steven Farkas of Public Agenda, the organization that conducted the study.

The study found that an overwhelming majority of teachers believe they are responding to a calling in choosing the education field, which Farkas said challenges the stereotype that teachers aren't satisfied in what they do. In fact, only one-fifth of the new teachers surveyed said they plan on doing something else in the future.

VIDEO Maria Hinojosa reports on a study showing that most teachers love their jobs. Windows Media 28K 80K     MESSAGE BOARD Share your thoughts on the challenges teachers face Is teaching a "calling"?

"So rather than having a vision of teaching as a kind of unmotivated, uninteresting teacher core, actually we get the exact opposite," Farkas said.

The study showed that 96 percent of the teachers that were surveyed said love what they do, even though 78 percent of them believe they are underpaid.

Slightly more than half of the teachers surveyed, 52 percent, said increasing teacher salaries would be a very effective way to improve the quality of their teaching. A decisively larger number -- 86 percent -- said the best way to improve teaching quality would be to reduce class size.

Teachers also said they should be better prepared for how kids act in the classrooms.

"They (teachers) come in with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, well prepared academically," said Susan Bartonlone, principal of Heritage High School in New York City. "But the most difficult element is discipline."

Approximately 60 percent of the educators surveyed said that most new teachers start teaching in a classroom without the needed experience, with 63 percent saying that teaching programs do a poor or fair job preparing them for disciplinary problems and the stress of teaching.

"Many new teachers haven't worked with kids before," said Greg Hamilton, a professor at Columbia University. "When they hit the classroom all on their own, they feel very alone."

The new study mirrors many of the concerns outlined in a recent survey of 400 winners of national and state teacher of the year honors.

In that study, eight out of 10 survey respondents cited the need for more competitive pay and better benefits. But an equal number wrote -- many at length, filling the margins and backs of their survey forms -- about the need for greater respect from school administrators, legislators and society at large.

Another recent classroom survey suggested that one in five teachers -- often the brightest of their colleagues -- leave the profession after only three years.

That study, performed by Education Week, suggested that the teachers who graduated from college in 1993 and had left teaching by 1997 were twice as likely to have scored in the top 25 percent of their class as those who stayed on. Poor working conditions, student misbehavior and low salaries were the most common reasons for their career change.

The new study by Public Agenda was compiled from interviews with more than 2,000 teachers, administrators and recent college graduates about their attitudes towards teaching. All the teachers had been teaching for five years or less.

Public Agenda, which authored the study, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that conducts research and educational programs.

CNN reporter Marie Hinojosa contributed to this story.

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Public Agenda
Education Week
American Association for Employment in Education
U.S. Department of Education
National Education Association

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