Behind the Scenes: What it Takes to Become a Teacher

Being a teacher seems like it’s all fun and games until you discover the amount of effort that they put into their lesson plans and activities. Students only see the finished product: the actual lesson plan for the day. What they don’t see is the time taken into gathering research for powerpoints, grading tests, and other various assignments. On top of that, keep in mind that those awful tests, quizzes, projects, and assignments aren’t fun for neither the students nor the teachers. Students have the pleasure of completing those tasks, but teachers have the pleasure of grading all of them. For some, many students get wrapped up in what they’re assigned and do not understand or cannot appreciate the time and effort that teachers put into their classroom.

To go behind the scenes of what it’s like being a teacher, I asked Mrs. Gordienko how she prepares lesson plans and activities for her classes. Just for one lesson for her Journalism Honors class, she sifted through three large journalism books to gather information and compose it into a powerpoint. I asked her if this was a normal routine for putting together notes to give to her classes, to which her response was a yes.

“It’s not just the students that have homework”, Mrs. Gordienko informed me. “Teachers have homework, too.”

To get a different perspective from another teacher, I reached out to Mr. Murphy to compare how he assembles his lesson plans and activities. Mr. Murphy teaches anatomy and physiology, as well as criminology. For his criminology classes, he sets up crime scenes which requires him to gather the props for the scene, assemble and disassemble the scene, and create the clues that lead to what happened at the event. Not only that, he creates the criteria for large crime lab reports which can range anywhere from 8-16 pages. Inevitably, with assigning projects comes time for grading them as well.

“Putting in all of the effort for my classes is so worth it”, says Murphy. “If you don’t put in the effort, what’s the point?”

With all of that said, it is clear that teachers put in more time and effort than students think. This is a good thing to keep in mind the next time any of your teachers assigns a project or gives you more notes. Think about the time and effort they put into lessons and activities; understand that teachers have just as much work as students and their time and effort should not be underrated.