Ivy educated teachers?

collegealum314
Mon, 11 Nov 2013 16:07:25 +0000

We talk about networking as a perk of these schools, but you can become a teacher anywhere, without killing yourself in HS. Are the ivy leagues one kind of school for the affluent and already networked, and a different kind of school(super nice teacher college) for everyone else



I see this thread is still alive.

Frankly, I think it may be more likely that ivy leaguers that come from upper middle class to high class backgrounds are more likely to become teachers than people who come from lower class backgrounds. When you grow up with money, it may not be such a big deal to pass up careers that are more likely to be lucrative. It might not be a conscious choice from the beginning, but for instance, a student from an upper class background may major in Romanian literature, go to grad school in it, then find that they can’t get a faculty position but still want to teach. So they might end up a very qualified high school teacher.

I’ll add, though, that many of these teachers from the ivy league end up at the better high schools. The pay is not necessarily more, but the students are typically more engaged and many times the curriculum is more advanced–that is, it is more like teaching a college class.