Understanding Teaching

The Day to Day Life and Career of a Teacher

No two teaching careers are the same. The way you teach and pursue your career is unique to you. By choosing a teaching career, you bring your full self to the school community: your personality, your experience, and your ambitions.

Teaching Enables You To

elevate your life, transform others’ lives

give back to your community

expand your career and work path

experience a diverse community of future Minnesotans, be a part of the solution for education in this state

"If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes.”

Guy Kawasaki

“A mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery."

Mark Van Doren

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Henry Brooks Adams

If you plan for a year, plant a seed. If for ten years, plant a tree. If for a hundred years, teach the people. When you sow a seed once, you will reap a single harvest. When you teach the people, you will reap a hundred harvests."

Kuan Chung

Teachers are our greatest public servants; they spend their lives educating our young people and shaping our Nation for tomorrow.

Solomon Ortiz

"Be all that you can be. Find your future--as a teacher."

Madeline Fuchs Holzer

Teaching is One of the Happiest Professions

Myth 1

Anyone Can Teach

Wrong! The idea is nonsense - try organizing a child's birthday party or chaperoning a high school dance!

Myth 2

Teacher Preparation is Not Much Use

Wrong! Studies over the last 30 years show that fully prepared teachers are more highly rated and more effective students.

Myth 3

Teachers Don't Work Hard Enough

Wrong! Teachers have little time during the day for planning, locating materials, talking with parents, meeting individually with students, or grading papers, they do all of these things after school hours, typically well into the evenings or on weekends.

Why Choose Teaching