Pandemic Has Students Reconsidering Whether or Not to Be Teachers

now add in the perceived increase in risk. Emma Goldberg, reporter at the New York Times, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Emma, thank you so much for having me on. We've talked a lot on the podcast about how the pandemic has affected schools and our students, you know, teachers as well. One of the main things. Obviously, the falling behind in the academics is one thing. The mental health of students and teachers has been another issue.

But now we're also seeing kind of an exacerbation of something that was already happening before the pandemic, fewer people wanting to be teachers, or at least people apply trying to programs to be teachers, and we're just kind of seeing that intensify with the pandemic. There's been a lot of things. Fear for your health obviously, and then just kind of all the added things that have come along with the remote learning, hybrid school learning. It's just really

been a difficult go. So I'm gonna tell us a little bit about what we're seeing with fewer students wanting to pursue their teaching degrees. So I think we know the pandemic has up ended a lot of different professions, but as you kind of alluded to, just now do

more so than teaching. You know, people are either going into work in person and there's not concerned for their own safety and health, or their teaching remotely or into the hybrid format, which can be really challenging in terms of getting the results you want to see for your students.

So I spoke with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which did a survey of all their member institutions, and they did find that Enroland is down at both undergraduate and graduate level teaching programs for under good to A levels. That's almost for graduate level, just about ten percent of a decline and enrollment this year. So tell me now a little bit about why they think enrollment

is down. You know, as I mentioned, a lot of things having to do with the pandemic, but historically also there's a lot of dissatisfaction with low pay, the working conditions, and the tough teachers that are put in having to take care of so many kids. Really expand on that, if you could please, This is a long running problem.

For years, enrollment has been dropping at both graduant undergraduate level teaching programs, and that low pay compared to other professions that require a similar level of education is often cited as one of the main reasons. So a public school teacher might make around six dollars a year, but that's lower than people with similar levels of education, including

advanced degrees. So that's been a long running problem. But then suddenly you add the pandemic, which brings a whole slew of other problems for teachers from you know, having to go in in person and be potentially exposed. Although you know, there is that research showing that there isn't as much of a risk of transmission in schools and with kids, but it's still you know, is a challenge. It just having to go in and do your work in person when other people are teleworking, and then the

other it's just all the challenges of remote teaching. Teachers said. A lot of the trainees as they spoke to said they had looked forward to being in the classroom, being able to form real emotional personal connections, and that's a lot harder to do when you're on zoom with your students. So some of the motives for why they wanted to go into the profession in the first place might have been kind of taken away during the pandemic, right. And there's a lot of students also that are in flux.

They've gone through maybe half of a program or half the years of schooling that they need to get their credentials in all, and they might be stuck. They might be considering other avenues, other types of employment where skills can be transferable, or they say, hey, I'm I'm so far in this, I gotta finish now. And then after that the training that comes with it. You know, you have to be placed in classrooms and be trained, and some of that has been taken away altogether because of

the pandemic. If it's remote schooling, I mean how can you get into classroom and start working with kids. So that's been another difficulty for students and people trying to become teachers. Exactly. I spoke with a lot of different students across the country who are studying to be teachers right now, and I heard a real ranto reductions. I mean, some of them really are considering switching to different career paths.

Some of them are looking for career paths that have transferable skills, like human resources, because they're saying, you know, I realize this is not what I want to do. I want to I want to take my skills and apply it to something else that might be easier or higher playing. And some of them are sticking it out, and they're saying this is actually reinforced the reasoning for

wanting to go into the profession. I did talk to a lot of students who said, more so than Aubury this year, they're aware of how deeply teachers are needed, and so this is only reinforcing their desire to do it. So I heard a broad range of responses. Yeah, I mean, even mid endemic, we're hearing stories about teacher shortages only because teachers didn't want to go in. They were scared

for their safety, didn't want to catch the virus. And you know, school districts were turning to bus drivers, other attendants, janitors even to watch kids in the interim until they can get substitutes in there, and and even rules relax for substitute teachers so that they can take over classrooms. You know. So there's been a lot that has been going on throughout the pandemic. This decrease in in teachers and and people applying to these programs hasn't been happening everywhere, though.

I think in California, California State University Long Beach still saw some enrollment climb up for them, So it's not everywhere. But this is just kind of looking forward towards a

possible shortage of these other trends continue exactly. And you know that is a little bit of a problem when you consider that actually, a schools begin to open more and more in person, we're actually gonna need more teachers, basicly because a lot of schools are hoping to have small out costs I do to allow students to social distance from one another, especially while children still are ineligible

for the vaccine. So you know, you are looking to have smaller class sizes, and at the same time you might have fewer teachers to draw from a smaller pool, So it's hard if you want to bring on more staff that you're facing a potential shortage. We saw that there was a lot of money being poured into schools through these COVID relief bills that were just recently passed. Is anything being appropriated to help with this, to get

more teachers. I know a lot of it was focusing on vaccines and testing, but has anything any been any money been thrown with regards to this part of it. The COVID relief package to prove by President and and does include a hundred and twenty nine billion dollars in

funding for K to twelve schools, which is great. Some of that can be used to increase staff, and actually the new Secretary of Education due to recently call for all kinds of things that are needed to reopen schools safely, including bringing on more employees, So it looks like some of that can begin to up and there might be some money coming from the release pocket. I mean, it's been such a roller coaster for schools, for the children,

for the teachers, administrators, everybody. Really. I'm hoping that once we start getting a little bit back to normal, this stuff will start to normalize as well, because it's an important part of our students lives, so and you know, we need the teachers there to support them, so hopefully this will all turn out. I'm a Goldberg reporter at the New York Times. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm Oscar

Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's big news stories. You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast