In this interview, Sonia Nieto shares what she has learned from her long career in teaching, teacher education, and research about what motivates teachers to continue coming to the classroom each day. She shares the story of her early years as a teacher and how professional relationships helped her to thrive. And she describes the varied ways that…

The policy reforms over the past 15 years have placed all the responsibility for reading achievement on teachers, with little, if any, support. What many have achieved is declining achievement in comparison with other countries. Moreover, there are increasing teacher shortages, as promising individuals choose other careers and teachers leave the…

When the author retired from teaching after thirty-seven years, he had taught elementary school, junior high school, and thirty years at Johns Hopkins University. He always loved being in the classroom with his students. They energized him, inspired him, humbled him, and taught him in many ways. He learned more from them than they learned from…

Carol Pilgrim received her PhD from the University of Florida in 1987 with a specialization in the experimental analysis of behavior. She is currently Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. She has been honored with a Distinguished Teaching Professorship, the…

This paper draws on interviews undertaken with second year student teachers. They describe their motivations for wishing to enter the profession and imagine the type of teacher they wish to become. These student teachers express a desire to make a difference as strong motivation for wanting to enter the profession. This is not uncharacteristic.…

Current statistics show that roughly one quarter of all classroom teachers are male: this proportion sinks to approximately ten percent in the elementary grades. A scarcity of men in teaching is not a new phenomenon and has remained relatively constant through more than a century of various educational reforms. This brief discusses the historical…

Describes one high school teacher's path toward becoming an educator. She never dreamed of becoming a teacher, nor did she study teaching in college. After college, conversations with friends led her to a graduate teacher education program, then into teaching. For years, she was not convinced that her career choice was appropriate, but eventually…

A grandfather who devoted his life to education writes a very special letter to his granddaughter, a future teacher.

This hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry of the meaning of choosing to teach explores the experience of the author, her grandmother, her grandmother's cousin, and her great-great aunt. It highlights women's limited career choices, the need to nurture, and the concept of responding to a calling. (SK)

Most business schools expect faculty members to be good researchers or good teachers, but not both. Groomed to be successful at a research institution, there was little emphasis placed on the author's development as a teacher. In her first full-time job, she found that there were few rewards for effective teaching. Based on her own experiences in…

This article discusses recruitment approaches, relevant perceptions of the teaching profession, and the design of recruitment efforts. (MT)

Two hundred thirty-four education majors ranging from 19 to more than 35 years filled out questionnaires describing their reasons for becoming teachers. Explanations other than altruism for choosing teaching as a career are suggested, and implications for teacher education are discussed. (MT)

The teaching profession is facing a dramatic crisis as it attempts to deal with both "quantity" (teacher shortages, rising student enrollments, teacher persistence) and "quality" (teacher competence, teacher certification, teacher testing) problems. (CB)

The ten finalists for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education's annual Professor of the Year award affirm that teaching is the right career choice for them, and give their reasons. (MSE)

In this article, the author relates some of the memorable points in his career as a teacher. He also recounts the specific events that led him to choose the teaching path. Now that he is in the verge of retirement, he shares some of the valuable lessons he had learned in his teaching career for other teachers.