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What is the most difficult part about being an elementary school teacher?

I am a high school senior looking to perfect my pathway for the future. I am accepted into Cedarville University in southern Ohio, and I plan to to major in Early Childhood Education. After college, I plan to become a teacher for a grade level between kindergarten and 5th grade. #elementary-education #teacher #cedarville #teaching

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Madison’s Answer

I am not a teacher yet, but I am in my final full time internship before becoming an Elementary School teacher. Through my own experiences as well as talking with all of my mentor teachers, I would say that the hardest part is finding the time to do all of the things that are required of you as a teacher. There is a laundry list of things that you need to do every day, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find the time or ability to do them all while keeping your sanity. I have been finding this to be true even in my internship. The best piece of advise I can give you if you find yourself in this position is that you need to let yourself breathe. There are many teachers who will stay hours and hours after school to get everything possible done before they go home. Please don't do this. You will get burnt out in your first year teaching. Give yourself a set time that you need to go home and stick to it. Get everything done that you absolutely need done by tomorrow, and then go home. Rest. Don't add more stress onto an already stressful job. Teaching brings so much joy, but it is also very difficult. Any extra bit of self-care you can do for yourself is so necessary to avoid burn-out. Take care of yourself!!
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Omer’s Answer

Soon to be teacher.

What's the hardest part about being an elementary teacher?

Remembering why you are doing this, and maintaining patience. And know that not all students will understand like the rest of the students, so be ready to have different teaching styles to help all students benefit! Trying to get everyone involved is something that requires a lot of effort!
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Dave’s Answer

Some teachers might say that the hard part is just securing a job. There's a lot of competition out there for these jobs. That's because the universities graduate a high number of candidates.
You'll have to understand also that kindergarten through third grade is different than fourth grade through eighth grade. In the early grades these students actually want to come to school. School is a really fun place to be because they love their teacher so much. It's always interesting for them.
Once you get to 4th grade and beyond School seems to be more of a tedious chore for the students. I think this is because they are more social and not so much into their classwork and because the teachers tend to give them a lot more homework.
The more flexible and creative you are as a person the more successful you're going to be as a teacher no matter what the grade level is.
Make sure you prepare well in advance. Normally you'll need about a week's worth of lessons ready to go. If you are not able to be at school or whatever reason a substitute will have to take over. Your lesson plans should be so clear that anyone could do it period by the way, your students hate it when you're not there. You provide a lot of stability in their life. So before you go home be prepared just in case you can't make it the next day . That being said you should have some projects to do as soon as you get to school waiting for you. Don't spend a lot of time at home or school preparing for these lessons. Try to be more efficient. If you spend too much time at school and too much time at home preparing for your job maybe you didn't realize that this job is not just an 8-hour job and you will not like it. Oh yes, teachers spend between 2 and 4 hours outside of school planning for the next day .
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Nicole’s Answer

I taught elementary school children for 4 of my 10 years of teaching. I think one of the biggest challenges is the large number of subjects that you have to prepare and lesson plan for: Science, Social Studies, Math, Reading, Writing, Spelling, etc. The amount of lesson planning can be exhausting at times.
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