Transitioning to high school teaching

I teach in a rural school (400 total) that has a vo-ag program. Most of the students enrolled in that know that as soon as they get their HS diploma, they're heading to their family farm and that's where they're going to be for the next 70 years (this is in eastern Connecticut).

In some of the larger high schools, yes, you can get students who will not give you any respect. My girlfriend teaches at my alma mater, which is five to six times larger than my school (and they are one town apart). The running joke we have is that on the same day one of her 15-year-old students showed her an ultrasound and said, "Miss, I'm going to be a father," we had an agricultural fair where the vo-ag kids brought in their tractors, horses, sheep, etc.

It's all about where you find a teaching job. Sure, you might have to start at an urban school, but if this is truly what you want to do, you'll find a way. My students are not all saints. They talk too much, they can be pains in the asses, but that's everywhere. I laid down the hammer on cell phones and eating in class on the first day — you have to do that; if you take teacher certification classes, one of them will be on classroom management, I can guarantee you that — and halfway through the school year, I haven't had any problems in that regard.

 

As said earlier, my biggest consternation is discipline; it's apathy. I have one class of 18 honor students. All of them are going to college and could probably do well if I just handed them something and said do it. I have another class of 27, 24 of whom leave my class and go to the vocational school (auto body, cosmetology, etc.). They aren't discipline problems at all, but every day it's "I don't need to know this to weld."