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Teaching, the profession of those who give instruction, especially in an elementary school or a secondary school or in a university.

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Key People: Mamie Till-Mobley Vincent Scully François Delsarte
Related Topics: teacher education computer-assisted instruction test of teaching knowledge programmed learning monitorial system
Measured in terms of its members, teaching is the world’s largest profession. In the 21st century it was estimated that there were about 80 million teachers throughout the world. Though their roles and functions vary from country to country, the variations among teachers are generally greater within a country than they are between countries. Because the nature of the activities that constitute teaching depends more on the age of the persons being taught than on any other one thing, it is useful to recognize three subgroups of teachers: primary-school, or elementary-school, teachers; secondary-school teachers; and university teachers. Elementary-school teachers are by far the most numerous worldwide, making up nearly half of all teachers in some developed countries and three-fourths or more in developing countries. Teachers at the university level are the smallest group.

adult education class
An adult education class.
The entire teaching corps, wherever its members may be located, shares most of the criteria of a profession, namely (1) a process of formal training, (2) a body of specialized knowledge, (3) a procedure for certifying, or validating, membership in the profession, and (4) a set of standards of performance—intellectual, practical, and ethical—that is defined and enforced by members of the profession. Teaching young children and even adolescents could hardly have been called a profession anywhere in the world before the 20th century. It was instead an art or a craft in which the relatively young and untrained women and men who held most of the teaching positions “kept school” or “heard lessons” because they had been better-than-average pupils themselves. They had learned the art solely by observing and imitating their own teachers. Only university professors and possibly a few teachers of elite secondary schools would have merited being called members of a profession in the sense that medical doctors, lawyers, or priests were professionals; in some countries even today primary-school teachers may accurately be described as semiprofessionals. The dividing line is imprecise. It is useful, therefore, to consider the following questions: (1) What is the status of the profession? (2) What kinds of work are done? (3) How is the profession organized?

The status of teachers
Teaching enjoys average to high status, depending in part on the amount of study required to prepare for employment. Since this ranges from a relatively brief time to many years, the levels of social and economic status span a wide range.

The economic status
Salaries
The salaries of elementary- and secondary-school teachers have generally been relatively low, particularly before 1955, at which time they increased sharply in some countries. When salaries are too low to provide what teachers regard as necessities, they add other jobs. Men are more likely to do this than women. In 1965–66, male municipal schoolteachers in the United States derived 84 percent of their total income from their salaries as teachers; 7 percent from summer employment; and 6 percent from “moonlighting,” or working at a second job, during the school year. Working at a second job is much more frequent in countries in which the school day is less than seven hours or the teaching load (for secondary-school teachers) less than about 25 classes a week. In Brazil and other Latin American countries, for example, where the average teaching load of a secondary-school teacher is about 12 classes a week, many teachers take two full-time teaching jobs, and some are forced to go beyond that to earn a living.

The salaries of university teachers and others who teach in postsecondary institutions have traditionally been substantially higher than those of secondary-school teachers. This reflects the fact that university professors generally have spent more years in preparation for their work and are more highly selected. But in the 21st century, university salaries have not increased as much as those of other teachers. Though North American university salaries are among the highest of their kind in the world, they fall below the average incomes of medical doctors, dentists, lawyers, and engineers. Salaries in higher education in Russia are higher, in relation to other comparable occupations, than in the United States. A teacher in a Russian pedagogical institute (which trains schoolteachers), for example, is paid slightly more than an engineer who has completed a university course.

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Fringe benefits and other advantages
Vacations and leaves of absence give a prized flexibility to teaching careers. One of the attractive bonuses about teaching, for instance, is the long annual vacation, usually in summer, which can be used for recreation, for further study or training, or for earning more money.

Leaves of absence are also more frequent than in other occupations. The sabbatical leave is a widespread practice among universities and is even available in some school systems. Formerly a fully paid leave for study or research every seventh year, it is now often reduced to a fully paid leave for a half year or half-salary for a full year. Maternity leave is generally available to women teachers, and in the United States many teachers are provided with paid maternity leave. Sick leave and short-term leave for personal needs are also often provided—with continuing salary for teachers validly absent for a few days.

Other benefits are becoming quite common; some of them, such as pensions, have been in practice in Europe for many decades. Life and health insurance, another fringe benefit, is usually paid partly or wholly by the school system or the university.

Seniority rights, enjoyed by teachers in many school systems, give them preferential treatment in transfers to other schools and in class assignments within their system.

Social and occupational status
According to a number of sociological surveys, university professors generally rank high in public estimation, comparable to medical doctors, lawyers, owners of large business and industrial establishments, bankers, and officials of national government. On a scale ranging from 1 (high) to 7 (low), a university professor is ranked 1 in most countries and 2 in others. A secondary-school teacher is generally ranked 2 or 3 on the same scale, sharing the level with journalists, clergy, business managers, accountants, insurance agents, real-estate or land agents, and substantial landowners. A primary-school teacher is generally ranked 3 or 4 on the 7-point scale, on the same level occupied by social workers, office managers, bank clerks, small independent farmers, and foremen.

Occupational status in the teaching profession is generally related to the degree of selection involved in obtaining the teaching post and to the amount of training necessary to qualify for it. In a country with a selective university-preparatory secondary school, such as the lycée in France, the grammar school in England, and the Gymnasium in Germany, teachers must have the equivalent of a university education and must pass rigorous examinations or selective screening. These teachers have a higher occupational status than teachers in other branches of secondary education, such as industrial or commercial schools, which are less selective and require less training and accept lower examination standards of their teachers. Whenever a secondary-school system is divided into a number of branches or types of schools, the teachers and the public both make status distinctions among them.

Throughout the period from about 1850 to 1925, when schooling was becoming universal in the more developed countries, the elementary-school, or primary-school, teacher had lower status than the teachers of the more advanced schools. Still, there was a good deal of variation between countries. In Germany, for example, the primary-school teachers were more frequently men than women, and the male Volksschullehrer had relatively high status. If he taught in a rural school, he usually had a comfortable house adjoining the school and was above peasant landowners in social status. If he taught in a city, he could look forward to becoming the head teacher or school director. The German schoolteachers had a series of about seven status positions, from the classroom teacher in the primary school to the department chairman in the Gymnasium, or academic secondary school. The four- to six-year primary school was followed by a set of middle schools that were related to the occupational destiny of the student, and the middle schools were followed by a variety of higher secondary schools, some leading to employment and some to the university. Teachers were ranked in this sequence. Many Gymnasium teachers—that is, teachers of college-preparatory schools—were scholars of some distinction, almost with the same status as a university teacher. Oswald Spengler, for instance, with his broad-gauged historical writing (The Decline of the West), was a history teacher in a Hamburg Gymnasium and never a university professor.

In Japan the evolution of the teaching profession has been somewhat similar to that in Germany. Both countries traditionally have had more men than women teaching in elementary schools, and as late as 1964 only 22 percent of Japan’s secondary-school teachers were women. Women were not encouraged to become teachers in Japan until after 1874, when the first Women’s Normal School was founded. Both countries had several clearly marked status positions within each school level, depending on the amount of training and on seniority. The moral stature of Japanese teachers was regarded as an extremely important part of their qualification.

In most modern countries, where the goal of universal schooling has been extended to the secondary level, distinctions in status between primary- and secondary-school teachers have moderated. In such situations, secondary-school teaching has become relatively less selective as additional teachers are sought for, at the same time that primary-school teachers have increased their training level and, therefore, their salary and status levels. In a growing number of countries, including Germany, England, and the United States, primary-school teachers must have as much university-level training as secondary-school teachers, and a single salary scale has been established, based on the amount of training and years of experience. By 1981, for example, the average annual salary of primary-school teachers in U.S. public schools was about 95 percent of that of secondary-school teachers, indicating that the occupational status differential was being eliminated. France, on the other hand, still maintains two different systems of training and has different names for the primary-school teacher (instituteur) and the secondary-school teacher (professeur).

Whatever the status distinctions may be, the teaching profession in general is an important avenue of upward social mobility. Because teaching does not require capital, property, or family connection, it provides a good opportunity for the economic and social advancement of able and ambitious young people. A study of Chicago public school teachers in 1964 indicated that approximately half of them had come from families of skilled, semiskilled, or unskilled workers. A study of the social origins of middle-school teachers in Brazil in 1963 showed that approximately half of them had moved up in social class as a result of becoming teachers.

Within the profession, the degree of status mobility is not great, at least in the primary and secondary schools. A classroom teacher is likely to remain a classroom teacher unless he or she seeks out an administrative post or follows some specialty, such as curriculum work, counselling, or the teaching of handicapped pupils. In university teaching, on the other hand, there is a hierarchy of three or four steps within any institution and of prestige and salary among institutions. Thus, a university teaching career in the United States normally leads from the rank of instructor or assistant professor to associate professor and to full professor; in Britain the titles are assistant lecturer, lecturer, senior lecturer or reader, and professor; similar rankings occur in other countries.

Geographic mobility of teachers
The high mobility of university teachers within their country has been noted. They also move from one country to another with relative ease, so that the profession of university teaching has a cosmopolitan character unique among the professions. Most educators at this level belong to international professional organizations and tend to think of themselves as members of a worldwide profession.

For several reasons, there is less geographic mobility among primary- and secondary-school teachers. Because these teachers are licensed (whereas university teachers generally are not), they usually cannot secure a teaching job outside their own country, unless the receiving country has such a severe shortage of teachers that it seeks out immigrant teachers and gives them licenses to teach. Many African nations and India have, for this reason, a relatively large number of North American and European teachers. Language differences also interfere with geographic mobility.

Where there is a national system of state schools, as in France and England, teachers are licensed for the entire system and are able to move from one locality to another more easily than they can in countries in which there are multiple school systems organized on state or provincial lines. In the United States, where each of the 50 states has its own licensing laws and standards, teachers tend to be held within the state (though some states do have reciprocity with each other).

Subjects

  • Maths Grade 2-Grade 12

  • Social Grade 2-Grade 11

  • English (A Level)

  • Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) Grade 2-Grade 12

Experience

No experience mentioned.

Education

  • Barch (Jun, 1999–May, 2004) from Tanjore, Periyar maniyammai polytechnic college–scored L
  • Narch (May, 1999–Jul, 2004) from Periyar tanjore

Fee details

    ₹250–300/hour (US$2.95–3.54/hour)

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