5. Teaching Profession. Affords A Life Career And Permanent Membership

It is true that we have made much progress from the time when scarcely any one entered teaching except as a stopgap procedure or as a means of getting into some other line of work. Our problem, however, is complicated by the fact that so large a percentage of teachers are women. A great many of them will marry and sooner or later give up teaching for family responsibilities.Improvement in this area has come about for severalreasons:

1. The shortage of teachers which has led many women to stay in service longer than they otherwise would The increased acceptance of the fact that marriage

2.does not of itself disqualify a woman form teaching

3. The growth of tenure legislation

6.Teaching Profession Sets Up Its Own Standards

The Code of Ethics of the National Education Association, which is the teacher's code, has been revised several times. It is highly important that the student contemplating education as a career study the Code carefully so that he may know the obligations he assumes. Certainly no one should enter teaching without being in sincere agreement with the principles accepted by the profession at large. A code of ethics is not a series of laws. It was never intended to be such. Not many teaches do wrong "by degree" or on purpose, but errors of judgment are likely to happen unless a set of standards are available as a guide and are well known. It is a sort of light along the way for the professional conduct of members: and where personal judgement is uncertain, a code of ethics will often help the teacher to do the right thing deliberately. For the very few who do wrong by design, some measures of enforcement are necessary in order that both the children and the members will be protected. As in other phases of human living, it is true in teaching that wrongdoing by one individual can bring disrepute and injury to many who are innocent.

7.Teaching Profession Exalts Service Above Personal Gain

Many studies have been made of the reasons that have led young people to choose teaching as a life work, and again and again the one that stands first is that for the most part they wanted to help children. They felt too that they could be of much use in the world as teachers and they wanted to make their lives "count for something." They expected than that as far as financial rewards were concerned.