- Work-life balance
- Student and colleague relationships
- Financial stability
Day-to-Day
STEM teachers were asked to write what gave them day to day satisfaction, six themes emerged:
- Overwhelmingly, student interactions was mentioned the most, including student learning and seeing them grow over the year.
- Teacher also listed their day-to-day work schedule: They can take care of other life things during business hours from 3:30 – 5 which other jobs typically can’t; their work schedule aligns with their kids’ including holidays and breaks.
- Teaching is a science; teachers constantly use their STEM skills as teachers!
- Strong relationships between fellow teachers, “other committed teachers make amazing coworkers and friends”
- Learning content: Always learning new and emerging areas of my content. “Teaching provides the drive/reason to explore new and challenging areas of my content.”
- Teachers get to decide what happens in their room. There’s a lot of responsibility but it’s nice to be able to make all of the decisions (within basic guidelines) in my room.
