When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Describe teachers' motives for teaching.
2. Identify variables affecting the supply and demand for teachers.
3. Describe conditions and variables influencing teachers' salaries.
4. Identify the major components of preservice teacher education.
5. Describe the variation in certification requirements across the United States and alternatives for obtaining teacher certification.
6. Describe trends and current issues in the design of teacher education programs.
7. Identify major issues and concerns involving the testing of preservice and current teachers.
8. Identify efforts to assist beginning teachers.
9. Identify the satisfactions and dissatisfactions of a teaching career
10. Describe ways to cope with stress
11. Discuss national and local reform efforts to improve the status, salary, and quality of teachers within the larger context of improving educational quality.
12. Identify key recommendations from the major reform reports.

Focus and Refocus Questions:

When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions from your textbook:

Focus Questions

• What are the usual reasons for becoming a teacher, and how do your own reasons compare with them?
• What are the employment trends for teachers?
• What do teachers earn? How does this compare with other occupations?
• How are teachers prepared? How are they certified?
• What are the trends in teacher education?
• What is satisfying and dissatisfying about teaching?
• What developments are taking place in the quality of the teacher work force and the conditions of teaching?

Refocus Questions

• How do your reasons for becoming a teacher compare with those of the teachers surveyed? Does your list rank in the same order? Are there other reasons that you would add to this list?
  • If you are a member of a minority group, what attracted you to teaching?
  • What do you think might make teaching a more attractive career option for today's college students, minority and non-minority?
• How will you prepare to work with students who may have a different ethnic or socioeconomic background from your own?
• Are you preparing to enter one of the teaching specialties with the highest demand? If not, what can you do to improve your employment prospects?
• How much do you believe you can expect to earn in your first teaching position?
  • Does your state participate in a regional agreement with other states? If yes, can graduates of your institution be automatically accepted for a teaching position in cooperating states? If not, are there nearby states in which it would be easy for you to obtain a teaching certificate?
• Do you know what the certification requirements are in the state where you wish to teach? How can you find out? What can you do to prepare yourself if you'd like to have geographic mobility during your career as a teacher?
• Are any of the trends described in Chapter 1 especially descriptive of your teacher-education program? Do any of the trends describe directions in which you wish your program would head?
• Are teachers in your state required to pass a test? If yes, what are the requirements?
• What are the passing and failing rates in your state and at your institution?
• Which of the reform efforts described here would you most like to see implemented by a school district in which you wanted to teach? Which of the reforms do you think might cause teachers dissatisfaction or stress? Why?