There was a thread on
reddit.com/r/learnmath from a math undergrad who considering becoming a teacher but is worried about 'being bored with the content'. Here it is in full: "
Is Teaching Math Monotonous?"
Below is my reply.
I've been tutoring my friends in math and science since I was in elementary school. I majored in math (B.S.) in 05, got my masters in teaching math (US Grades 7-12) in 06. The year of my masters, I did a full time internship teaching at a public school, then I worked as a public school teacher until spring 08. In fall 08 I started working at JHU CTY Online as an instructor, supervisor and course developer for AP Calc & College math.
I love my content and I know my content, but teaching and tutoring is not about content alone. In my (short, limited, singular) lifetime of experience, I've found that
a significant portion of the personal & professional satisfaction associated with the career of teaching & tutoring is being a facilitator of learning. Figuring out ways to engage your students with the content, technology, and each other is key. Knowing that the aforementioned engagement results in some struggle, eventual realizations, a sharpening of skills, and "the lightbulb going off" is a huge reason why I'm still in my field (instead of some other field making three times as much money, say).
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I'm currently an undergrad math major planning on being a teacher. I wanted to know if you math teachers out there ever find teaching math to be a monotonous task. Doesn't it get boring to teach the same material every year?
No. Because teaching is not all about the content. (see comments above).
I taught algebra and geometry as a high school teacher in public schools in the USA. I had no time to be bored because of all the other things going on in the classroom (largely discipline issues springing from the individual family circumstances of my students as well as ambient local culture). The classroom management aspect of the job was one of the main reasons I left public education. (Awful education policy robbing the curriculum of meaning and teaching of professionalism was the other.)
I now instruct, develop and supervise online courses in AP Calc & College level math. The content is broader and deeper than high school algebra and geometry, but it's still "just" the first one or two years of advanced undergraduate math. The thrill of my work is working directly with my students and finding new ways to use technology to communicate mathematics.
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After a while, you must know the answer to every question before it's even asked. How does it feel to have taught the same class (say Algebra 2) for 20 years?? I'm worried that as a teacher I would feel stagnant after a few years.
I've been teaching professionally since 06, so it's hardly been 20 years, but at this stage in my career I've already reached the point where I know the kinds of topics which will be asked about over and over again. I am still enjoying finding new ways to visualize and articulate those concepts and seeing my students go from being unfamiliar or confused to being able to understand and solve problems about those concepts.
Teaching is not all about the content.
I care about my students and wish them all the best in their endeavors. I take great professional satisfaction in knowing that I am helping push them to their intellectual limits and get a little farther toward their ultimate goals. Reading vector calc texts for four years might get a bit dull. Helping my students go from not knowing the subject and writing HW sets by hand to using LaTeX and advanced graphing software to create a variety of professional PDF documents full of beautiful illustrations... That has not yet gotten dull, for me anyway.
