Being an elementary school teacher
is a lot of fun when done correctly! Playing a part in molding young minds is a rewarding and sometimes challenging experience—but you can never call it boring! Unsurprisingly, there are lots of perks to choosing to teach elementary students.
Elementary school teachers enjoy a range of benefits, including working consistent hours, substantial health insurance benefits, eliminating childcare expenses, and, of course, feeling like they’re making a real difference in their students’ lives.
Children between 5 and 10 are at a great age, and teaching them is a responsibility with many rewards. There are many other benefits beyond the engagement with enquiring young minds—some that you may never have considered. Let’s start looking at these.
1. Elementary Teachers Work Consistent Hours
In today’s world, so many jobs require you to work outside of the range of regular hours. Some careers require you to work nights, weekends, and even overnights. In addition, there’s no consistency in your hours. The schedule changes from week to week, sometimes even daily.
One of the enormous benefits of working as an elementary school teacher is that you perform regular hours. You work Monday consistently through Friday, and you should always have your evenings free.
These regular hours leave you free to make plans, spend time with your family, and dedicate personal time to yourself. You don’t have to get caught up in the chaos of an ever-changing environment.
In many other positions, holidays are some of the busiest times of the year, and employers require that you be available for them. You miss a ton of time with your family and miss out on making memories that last a lifetime.
2. Elementary Teachers Get Excellent Insurance Benefits
More and more jobs are restricting the benefits of their employees. As an elementary school teacher, however, you’ll always have benefits such as health insurance and pension plans.
Most elementary teachers have a full range of benefits, including medical, dental, and vision insurance. In addition, teachers receive extra time off work throughout the year and paid sick days.
The majority of the insurance plans for elementary school teachers provide more than enough coverage for their yearly health expenses. Tragedy can strike at any time, and you can rest assured that you won’t have to pay out of your pocket as a teacher. You’ll be covered, no matter what takes place.
3. Elementary Teachers Love What They Do
Realistically, how many people love what they do as a career? Many teachers, nonetheless, feel passionate about their role and find satisfaction and stimulation in the position.
Every day holds an adventure as an elementary teacher. Because you’re working with school-age children, there’s always something new to experience. Rather than feeling stuck in the day-to-day monotony of a different kind of job, you always look forward to what new things the children will say or do.
Every child is unique, and each year you meet a new group of children to inspire—and to inspire you!
As an elementary teacher, you get the stimulation of constant interaction with other people. For many people, especially those with extroverted personalities, there’s nothing better than spending the day surrounded by people.
Not only do you interact with the students all day, but you also spend time brainstorming with other teachers and staff members.
4. Elementary Teachers Shape Young Minds
Do you remember looking up to your teachers in elementary school? Most of us do, and the students today are no different. They still see their teachers as role models.
As an elementary school teacher, you get the choice to be a leader instead of a follower. Your students look up to you and form lifetime attachments to your guidance.
One of the most significant benefits of working as an elementary school teacher is the feeling that you are making a difference in the lives of young people. Children may experience great hardship and adversity outside of school, so it can be a welcome reprieve for them to attend school and be in the presence of someone with an inspiring disposition.
You aren’t just teaching the students. You are setting the example in what direction they should follow. You are showing them a better way to live, especially if they don’t have that direction in their home life.
5. Elementary Teachers Get Reduced Child Care Expenses
If you have children of your own, working as an elementary school teacher can provide you with tons of benefits—namely that you end up eliminating many of your childcare expenses.
Many schools allow you to bring your children with you—especially if you get a job working at a private school. This often means being able to enroll your children at the school for free, saving you thousands in tuition fees. Of course, this is assuming that your children are of school age.
Even if you work in a public school, you benefit from always keeping your children with you. In many cases, if you have a child the same age as the group you teach, the school may permit the child to be in your class.
Through this, you get the opportunity to build a bond with your child while still pursuing your career and earning an income.
Even if your children are in a different school, you get to work the same schedule as your children. This schedule means you don’t have to pay for additional childcare during the weekends, holidays, or nights.
6. Elementary Teachers Become More Knowledgeable
As an elementary teacher, you are constantly learning new things. In most cases, we learn best when we can teach. As you educate your students, you’ll find yourself learning more and more every day.
One of the most significant benefits is becoming an expert in the subjects you teach. As you review and work from the curriculum, your knowledge base develops to the point where you can spout information about a wide range of topics.
In particular, you will have a more robust understanding of the core elements of Math, English, and Science than the average adult.
You also learn new ways to do things outside the norm and grow as a person through teaching. With every new philosophy you encounter, you expand your mind and how you view the world and, in turn, offer this to those around you.
7. Elementary Teachers Share Their Passions With Students
One of the other enormous benefits of being an elementary school teacher is sharing your passion with the world. While schools mandate a curriculum, for the most part, elementary teachers have the opportunity to practice their passions and interests with their class.
In many other jobs, you may feel constrained and held back. In contrast, you get the opportunity to research what you care about and introduce it to your students.
Of course, you still have to fit it into the school’s curriculum, but how you do that is up to you. You can create fun projects, crafts, and more for your students to do, allowing them and their parents to share in the things you enjoy.
8. Elementary Teachers Enjoy Summer Vacation
What other job allows you two to three months off work every summer? This luxury is one of the biggest perks of being an elementary teacher.
Once the summer months come, you can spend as much time with your family and friends as you want. Of course, you still have teacher workdays throughout the summer here and there, and usually, the teacher’s summer ends before the students return to school, but there’s still a good bit of time off of work.
This time allows you the freedom to plan vacations, even extended ones, throughout the summer. You can also spend the time preparing for your entire next year, which reduces the pressure when next year starts. Instead, you’ll be prepared and ready to go when the new academic year begins.
9. Elementary Teachers Have Job Security
One of the other significant benefits of becoming an elementary school teacher is that you know you aren’t going to be replaced any time soon.
While different requirements are dependent on what state you live in, once you’ve established yourself as a teacher, typically, the job isn’t going to go anywhere. This privilege can be lost if you aren’t abiding by the school district’s requirements for their teachers.
However, if you stick to what the school district has established, you are promised a stable job.
Elementary school teachers, especially, are in high demand right now. More and more teachers have gone on to teach middle school and high school. Some have even moved on to college. This movement is partly due to the prospect of higher earning potential as a middle or high school teacher.
However, if you love this type of work, and meet the teaching standards, you can rest assured that it will be available for as long as you want.
10. Elementary Teachers Experience Tons of Variety
Another huge benefit to being an elementary school teacher is that you always experience variety. You have diverse activities to choose from and faces to see—this is true day-to-day and year-to-year.
As an elementary teacher, you teach every subject. In addition, you end up with many other projects that are art-based or even science experiments.
Many teachers for older students become tired over time with the monotony of teaching the same subject again and again. Also, many of these teachers teach the same students for multiple years. While this can sometimes be a benefit, it becomes difficult reasonably quickly.
As an elementary teacher, you will likely meet a new group of students every year. While it can sometimes be emotional seeing your students move on to the next grade at the end of each year, it is exciting to be able to welcome new faces into your class.
There are so many personalities in young children, and there’s always an abundance of laughter in elementary.
11. Elementary Teachers Decide How To Manage Their Class
Another benefit to being an elementary teacher is deciding how your classroom gets managed, decorated, and so on. The school board does not have the resources to be micromanaging every staff member, so, for the most part, teachers are left to their own devices.
While you aren’t your boss as a teacher, you certainly have more freedom than you would in another position. You can choose what activities to do (within reason) and when to do them.
The classroom community you build with your students is also dependent on you. You might decide to give your class plenty of autonomy and independence, or you might decide that it’s better to provide a rigid set of expectations for them to follow – entirely up to you!
This freedom also extends to how you decorate your classroom also. If you visit an elementary school, you will be amazed to see the diversity in how rooms are set up. Each teacher brings their own creativity and ideas, meaning that no two rooms ever look alike.
12. Elementary Teachers Get Field Trips Galore
Our final perk of being an elementary school teacher is the insane number of field trips you are likely to go on.
Schools arrange trips to museums, parks, beaches, theme parks, etc. Since students always need a teacher accompanying them, you get to be part of these trips for free throughout the years you operate as a teacher.
The best part of this is that while you are chaperoning the students, there’s not much to do, allowing you to join in with all kinds of activities while on the field trip.
In honesty, it often ends up being as much a vacation for the teachers who are chaperoning as it is for the students on the trip.