Pros and Cons of Being a Teacher in 2025

Is teaching a good career choice? There are many pros and cons to consider before pursing teaching as a career.

Having recently left my teaching career after being in it for almost 10 years, I spent a lot of time contemplating the pros and cons of being a teacher.

I journaled about them, and discussed them with trusted friends and therapists, and I spent a lot of time trying to decide if it was the right career for me.

I am going to share my honest, no-nonsense pros and cons of being a teacher to help you decide if you should become a teacher, based on what you can expect from the role – good and bad.

By the end of this article, you should have a more clear idea of whether becoming a teacher is a good career choice, and a job that suits your skills and personality.

So, let’s get to it – the honest pros and cons of being a teacher.

Pros of Being a Teacher

Being a teacher is worth the hard work and challenges in many ways. I’m going to share with you in a nutshell what you would have to look forward to by becoming a teacher.

1. Watching the students’ improvement

It’s so rewarding to watch your students be able to do things that they weren’t able to do months, or even weeks ago because you taught them.

This is especially true if you teach early elementary school, and can see a drastic difference in what your students were capable of in September vs what they can do by the end of the year.

Regardless of which grade you teach, watching the development and improvement of your students is the main thing that makes being a teacher worth it.

2. Being a part of something meaningful

The impact you’re making on students’ lives, and the bigger picture of what you’re doing, isn’t always something that will be obvious in the moment.

Being a teacher means you’re educating the next generation. You get to inspire students, sparking their interest in different things and influencing them to choose certain careers.

You are shaping students’ memories about school, and teaching them things that will stay with them for years to come, or even a lifetime. As a teacher, you are likely to be remembered by these kids as they grow up, and well into adulthood.

In addition, you’re apart of something that is so important. Aside from healthcare, I can’t think of anything more important than a good education. Contributing to society and to the future in this important way is an honour.

3. Working with other teachers

I can’t promise you’ll always have great coworkers, but working with teachers generally means working for kind, educated, and inspiring groups of people.

I met my best friend from being a teacher, and a number of other good friends. Part of what I enjoyed about working in education was the people I got to meet.

Being apart of a school team is also very rewarding. I still cherish the staff morale boosting activities we used to do at the schools I worked at. They helped us bond as a team which made our job easier, and more fun.

4. Staying active.

It sounds silly, but one perk about being a teacher is that it’s not a desk job. You get your steps in, and are up and moving for most of the day.

After I switched from teaching to working from home, I noticed a dramatic difference in how much physical activity I was getting.

As a teacher, you’re naturally more active because of the nature of your job. It gets built into your lifestyle.

5. It’s never boring or dull

Every year is different, every class is different. Heck, every day is different. Teaching has its challenges, but one thing it isn’t is boring.

This can be challenging sometimes, especially if you’re the kind of person who prefers consistency and doesn’t like change. But it has many perks, too.

If you don’t like your school, boss, or class – at least you know that it could be very different next year.

6. The job security

There will always be a need for teachers. While technology advances means that some jobs disappear while others are created – teaching is generally a ‘safe’ career, where you can feel pretty confident that your skills will always be needed somewhere.

Wherever in the world you move, you could put your skills and expertise to use.

Even if you taught elementary or high school for a while and then decided you didn’t like it and left – there are still so many other ways to use your teaching degree.

7. The teacher gifts

I feel a bit superficial bringing up teacher gifts as a perk of the job. But, it is a perk.

Of course, you should never expect teacher gifts. But I felt so appreciated every December and June, when families sent in so many thoughtful cards, treats and gifts. It wasn’t about the gift – it was the reminder that they appreciated my work.

There were families that went to the trouble to hand make gifts for me; such as a bottle of maple syrup from their own trees, a heating pad that they hand-sewed, plants, and many other thoughtful things.

To this day, it touches me how families went to the effort to show me that they appreciated and were happy with my efforts and how I strived to help their child.

I feel deeply thankful for how they brightened my day and reminded me that I was doing a good job.

8. Good pension with benefits

This will vary by region, but being a teacher generally comes with a benefits package for extended healthcare, as well as a good pension.

My benefits plan as a teacher covered more than what some of my friends got from their benefits packages – hello massages!

9. It keeps you ‘with the times’

When I graduated high school, my teachers told us at the ceremony that we ‘kept them young.’ After now having worked as a teacher, I could see what they mean.

As a teacher, I knew what the current things were that kids were into, and what was popular. From the fidget spinners to the LOL dolls and Snapchat, I was one of the first adults to be aware of them.

It helped me stay up to date on trends and know what my own child was exposed to.

9. The vacation time

The vacation time, or ‘summers off’ is the first thing that most people think about when they think of the perks to being a teacher.

Teachers have more time off than other jobs, when you add the summer vacation to the few weeks that you’re given during the school year (usually Christmas, and spring break.)

The exact amount of time off you’ll get as a teacher will vary by region and school board, but generally, it’s more than what you would get in a corporate position.

Pro Tip: It’s important to add that the ‘time off’ isn’t necessarily paid time off. Where I live, teachers aren’t paid during the summer. Depending on their financial situation, some teachers look for extra work (remote or in person) during the summer months.

10. Professional autonomy

Being a teacher, especially if you work for publicly-funded schools, allows you a certain amount of professional judgement over how you run your classes.

You can decide on what resources you use, classroom decorations and set up, class seating plans, and many other things.

Many teachers find a rhythm that works for them, but it also helps to sometimes be flexible.

Pro Tip: The job is less autonomous now than there was decades ago. Many aspects of your job, including what you teach and how, and assessment methods, are mandated from higher-ups.

11. Having the same time off that your kids do

This of course, only applies if you choose to have children. If you do, it helps having your vacation time automatically coincide with their school breaks.

While you can still put your children in camps and childcare during the school breaks (I did from time to time, to get a break) you at least you know you’re not one of those parents who has to scramble because they can’t be off at that time.

In addition, as a teacher and a parent – you understand your child’s teachers more.

Cons of Being a Teacher

We’ve gone over the advantages to being a teacher – it’s time to be brutally honest about the downsides to teaching

1. You need to be “on” all day.

Being a teacher is like being on stage, under the spotlight all day.

You need to deliver effective lessons, constantly use good critical thinking and judgement skills, and support your students academically, socially, and even emotionally.

For these reasons, teaching is a very hard job to ‘fake’. You can expect to be busy from the time the bell rings until after dismissal.

If you have any lack of enthusiasm in your job, or don’t feel 100%, it’s likely to show in your work performance – both your students, and other staff members may pick up on it, especially if its ongoing.

This is a big part of why I don’t recommend teaching to people who don’t want interact with human beings all day long, because thats a big part of what the job entails.

2. Restricted to only the school holidays for vacation

We are pretty lucky getting almost 3 months off per year, but most people don’t understand being only limited to those holidays.

Your best friend’s having a destination wedding in April, or you want to see the cherry blossoms in Japan, or Europe in the fall? These kinds of things may have to wait until retirement.

As a teacher, you get used to naturally having to plan your own life events around the school year schedule.

Pro Tip: It varies from school district to school district how easy it is to get additional (usually unpaid) time off from extenuating circumstances, like a destination wedding. But it is generally not easy to do. As a teacher, you need to commit to the school year schedule for the 20-30 years of your career.

3. Rigid daytime schedule

It isn’t just during the school year and not going on vacation. Your entire day is very structured as a teacher, which means you always have to plan around your teaching schedule and when your breaks are.

Need to make a phone call to your insurance company, book a doctor’s appointment or go to the bathroom? Some people can simply do this from their desk at work, but as a teacher, these are things you need to save for your break.

When I started working from home, it was a nice change to feel like I could suddenly go to the bathroom whenever I needed to instead of having to hold it until the next recess bell.

4. Not a lot of ways to climb ‘up’

Although I mentioned that you have some professional autonomy as a teacher, you definitely are still an employee – with a boss to answer to.

Unless you want to open up a private school, there’s not a lot of ways to really be your own boss, or have more power or say in things as a teacher.

Other than being a principal, there aren’t really a lot of opportunities to climb the latter, for those that want to.

5. Sometimes, it isn’t about the academics

If part of what being a teacher interests you is to teach a subject that you’re genuinely interested in and an expert at – I’m telling you to readjust your expectations a little bit.

I originally became a teacher because I loved the French language, and wanted to share my passion and knowledge with students by teaching it to them.

What I realized over the years was that this motivation for becoming a teacher had been a bit misguided and unrealistic. You see, teaching academic material is not the main part of a teacher’s job.

Teaching is much less about the academics, and much more about:

• classroom management
• managing behavioural issues and conflict, including fights, cell phone abuse, vandalism, bullying and many other issues
• customer service (keeping your students and their parents happy)
• supporting a diverse range of learning and behavioural needs
• many tedious tasks that take hours (some of which now can be streamlined with AI)

I found that more of my time and energy went towards putting out fires, calling parents, de-escalating situations, and problem-solving, more so than it did getting in-depth with the learning material.

Part of the reason why some teachers end up disappointed with their careers and want to quit is that they’re doing much more of the above than they are teaching the material that they hoped would be their focus.

If you prefer the academic side more than the management side, then you may prefer being a tutor to being a teacher.

6. Behaviours

Most people agree that there is an increasing lack of supports with the school system in helping teachers deal with student behaviours.

I found the behaviour of students pretty shocking at times before the pandemic, but many teachers find that they’ve gotten even worse since then.

Articles from the US, Canada and the UK report a rise in violence in school and an increase in behavioural issues. There are teachers who are facing aggression (both physical and verb) and bullying from their students.

The severity of the behaviours you experience from students as a teacher can vary depending on which grade level you’re teaching; but they can be pretty shocking sometimes, depending on which school you’re at.

7. Lack of consequences for student behaviours

The hardest part about student behaviour isn’t the behaviour itself – its how the school system responds to them. There is a huge lack of support for teachers in managing behaviours.

This may vary from region to region. I am seeing that in North America wide however, there are not a lot of consequences for bad behaviour on the school’s end.

When students learn that there are no consequences for their bad behaviour, it can be very toxic to the learning environment, as they have no reason to try to improve or be better.

As a teacher, your hands are tied on this. If you’re not supported by your principal or the parents of the child, then there is very little you can do about behavioural problems in your class.

8. There is a lot of pressure

As a teacher, there are a lot of different people that you need to keep happy – your admin, your students, and the parents of your students.

You need to maintain good, effective communication with all three of these parties, and deal with any issues as they come up.

Dealing with parents is similar to working in customer service – you want to keep them happy, but they aren’t always very reasonable.

Hopefully, you have a good principal, which doesn’t solve all problems but helps a ton. If you don’t, then the job will be even more challenging.

9. It has a high burnout rate

It’s estimated that more than half of teachers burn out during their career.

This has consequences for their mental health and their families, and of course students too.

Some end up quitting, some bear it and fake it (which my opinion, is almost impossible with this career) and some find ways to mange burnout. Regardless of how you deal with it if it happens, teacher burnout is a hard thing to deal with.

Can you Handle the Pros and Cons of Teaching?

The bigger question to ask is – is teaching a good career choice for you? In the end, I decided that the cons outweighed the pros for me. This was largely because of my personality not being suited to the demands of the job.

Here are some qualities that people who do well in teaching typically have:

✅ You need to be organized and have good time-management skills.

✅ You need to work well under pressure

✅ You need to have good judgment and decision-making skills

✅  You need to generally be a ‘people’ person. (People with extroverted personalities tend to fare better in teaching.) Of course, there are introverted teachers too, but the job will take more out of you if you’re a more introverted person.

✅ It helps if you’re decent at customer service. Communication with parents resembles customer service in a lot of ways.

✅  You have to be able to handle stress reasonably well

Sometimes, the pros and cons of teaching come down to your personality.

Depending on your own limitations and expectations, the way you perceive these ‘pros and cons’ may be different from someone else.

I recommend doing a free personality test with 16personalities (the free version of Myers Briggs.) If you answer the questions as honestly as possible, you should get a good idea of whether your personality is suited to the demands of teaching.

Pros and Cons of Teaching FAQ

Here are the most commonly asked questions about the upsides and downsides to being a teacher

What advantages do teachers get?

Teachers generally get good job security, more time off than other professions, extended health insurance and benefits packages, and a good pension.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of teaching?

There are so many advantages and disadvantages to teaching. It can be a very rewarding job in some ways, but also very challenging in others.

What are the pros and cons of being an elementary school teacher?

Being an elementary school teacher has many pros and cons. Pros are that you get to work with and inspire a new generation, usually with a secure salary, benefits and pension. Some cons are that it can be a very exhausting and challenging job.

Is teaching a good career choice?

Teaching is a good career choice for some people, but not for others. You need to have the right skills and personality to truly enjoy the job and be able to manage the highs and lows. It’s a demanding career with many challenges, but also rewards.

Final Thoughts on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Teaching

I hope that this article has adequately communicated to you what the pros and cons of being a teacher are, and deciding whether teaching is a good career choice for you.

As someone who is passionate about education, and once thought my dream would be to be a teacher – I hope that I have uncovered the pros and cons relevant to you that would help make your decision easier about whether to go into teaching or not.

Teaching is a rewarding career with good job security and a chance to shape the next generation. It is also very exhausting and these days, comes with more challenges than ever.

Whether or not to go into teaching is a big decision, and I hope that I’ve made it a little easier for you to decide whether its a worthwhile career for you to consider. Feel free to read my article on why I left the teaching profession.