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Teaching is definitely fun, because you can see real results. A lot of my students last year could not correctly answer the "gotcha" style questions on the state standardized test, but every one, and I guarantee this, every one of them can tell you, given the choice of four poets, the correct writer of any poem by Dickinson, Frost, Whitman, or Shakespeare - based on the style alone. For final projects, we did things like "rewrite a Frost poem in the style of Whitman." Is it on the state test? No. But the unit covered a lot of things that were, and most importantly, it got them excited about learning and literature. In the middle grades, I think drilling the test questions just fosters a sense of apathy. ("Staying low on Bloom's" as you might call it in your classes!)

I think the most jarring aspect of education is realizing that you cannot ever be the teacher you envisioned when you were in high-school or college. Everything I had planned to do as a "pre-teacher" would eventually (1) hurt my classroom management, (2) cater towards only one or two learning styles, or (3) end up being more "fun" than educational. It sucks, but in order to be a truly effective teacher, you have to look at what have been empirically proven to be good teaching techniques, even if they're something you hated doing as a student. You have to make new role models for yourself, like this guy, or this guy, and practice what they teach - even if it means working as many hours as they do (over 60).

If you are interested in educational policy, you should definitely give this book a gander. It basically takes every educational debate in the country, explains both sides, and gives examples of laws/precedents/statistics to support each side. Great stuff. In order to get my master's degree, I had to write an actual district/state/federal law and try to get it on the ballot. I used that book to make sure my case was air-tight!

Keep up the good work, the enthusiasm you're showing now is what makes great teachers. Many teachers get into the job because their parents did it, or because they thought education would be an easier major than math. Idealism leads to innovation.

is this what you are saying can be traded in for $5?