Interesting Questions to Ask a Teacher
Questions to ask a teacher about their job, whether you are a student with a career interview to write up, a curious parent, or someone thinking about teaching yourself. The 53 questions open with the ones nearly everyone starts on, then follow the work itself: the classroom, the working week, students and parents, how school has changed, and the career over the long run. They go at the craft of being a teacher more than the job description, so most of them can be answered with a story.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Start here
What made you decide to become a teacher?
Why ask it
Most teachers have told this story many times, so the first version comes out polished. Ask whether the reason they started is still the reason they turn up, because the distance between those two answers says more about the job than either one alone.
What do you teach that you're still learning yourself?
Why ask it
A warmer opener than asking what they teach, and it tends to get a real answer: a text they never liked, a unit added to the syllabus last year, a period of history they had to learn over one weekend.
What does an ordinary school day look like, from the time you arrive to the time you leave?
Why ask it
Ask for the clock times. Lessons are the part everyone pictures, while the duty before the first bell, the lunch spent with a student and the hour after the buses go only come out when you ask for the whole day.
What is the best part of being a teacher?
Why ask it
Leave it broad the first time and notice where the answer lands: on the subject, on a particular age group, or on the moment a student stops needing help. Then ask how many times in a week that actually happens.
What is the hardest part of the job that nobody told you about?
Why ask it
The second half of the question does the work. Grading and behavior are the difficulties everyone expects, so this steers a teacher toward the one that came as a surprise, such as the number of decisions packed into an hour or how much of a child's home life arrives in the room with them.
Which age group do you teach, and is there one you would never take on?
Why ask it
Teaching six-year-olds and teaching sixteen-year-olds are close to being two different jobs. Teachers tend to hold firm views about the ages they could not manage, and their reasons describe the daily work better than a job title does.
What training did you need to become a teacher, and how long did it take?
Why ask it
A career write-up needs this one, and the full reply covers more than a degree: weeks of practice in someone else's classroom, exams, sometimes a first year under supervision. Routes into teaching differ by country and state, so note theirs and then check what applies where you live.
Did you have a teacher who made you want to teach?
Why ask it
Some people teach because one adult noticed them at thirteen, and some because of a teacher they were determined not to become. Whichever it is, you get a portrait of the classroom they are trying to run.
In the classroom
Which lesson do you look forward to every year?
Why ask it
Someone who has taught the same course for years still has a week they would not swap. Ask what the students actually do in it, and whether any of it is on a test.
What's a topic students always find harder than you expect?
Why ask it
The sticking point is usually something adults have forgotten was ever hard, like negative numbers or two words that look alike. Ask how they found out it was a problem and what they changed the following year.
What's the most creative way you've had to explain something?
Why ask it
You get a story here where a question about teaching philosophy would get a speech. Props, bad drawings and analogies involving food all turn up, and a teacher can usually name the class it finally worked on.
What's the most unexpected thing a student has taught you?
Why ask it
Teachers keep these stories and almost never get asked for them. The good ones are small and specific, usually about a misunderstanding that turned out to be a better idea than the lesson plan.
How can you tell, halfway through a lesson, that it isn't working?
Why ask it
Experienced teachers read a room in ways they rarely put into words: the kind of quiet, who has stopped writing, a question that shows the last ten minutes missed. Follow up with what they do next, since changing course in front of thirty people is a skill of its own.
What do you do with a student who has decided they're bad at your subject?
Why ask it
A student who has quietly given up is a harder case than one who misbehaves, and every subject has them. Notice whether the teacher talks about changing the work or changing what the student believes about themselves.
How do you plan for a class where the strongest and weakest students are years apart?
Why ask it
No class is level, and there is no tidy answer to it. Ask what they physically prepare: a second version of the task, a small group at their desk, an extra problem for whoever finishes first.
How do you get a class to settle when it has come in loud?
Why ask it
This is classroom management reduced to one scene. The methods are often tiny, like where the teacher stands, a task already on the board or a voice that drops instead of rising, and many were learned by getting it wrong in the first year.
What does a lesson look like on a day you had no time to plan?
Why ask it
Asked with a smile, it gets an honest account of the fallback lesson kept in a drawer for emergencies. You also learn how much of ordinary teaching is preparation the students never see.
What do kids understand better than adults give them credit for?
Why ask it
Talk about schoolchildren mostly runs on what they cannot do yet, so a teacher has to stop and think here. Fairness is a likely answer, and so is how sharply a class reads the mood of the adults in the room.
The working week
Which part of the day is actually the hardest?
Why ask it
Few teachers name a lesson. You are more likely to hear about the joins in the day: corridors, the twenty minutes after lunch, the first five minutes of a Monday. Ask why, and the reasons are practical ones.
How much of the job happens outside teaching hours?
Why ask it
Asking for a number of hours makes the workload discussable without turning the conversation into a complaint neither of you can act on. Then ask which evening or weekend day the grading, planning and emails usually land on.
How long does it take to grade one class's set of work?
Why ask it
Multiply the answer by the number of classes they teach and you have the arithmetic behind a teacher's evenings. The useful follow-up is what they have stopped grading, or grade differently now, to make that sum bearable.
What do the school holidays really look like for you?
Why ask it
The long break is what outsiders envy and what teachers qualify. Part of it goes on recovery and part on planning, and in some places the weeks are unpaid or filled with a second job, so ask how it works under their contract.
What are you responsible for besides your own classes?
Why ask it
Start them counting and the list gets long: clubs, duty rosters, a homeroom, a committee, mentoring a new colleague, covering for an absent one. Whether any of it is paid differs from school to school, so ask.
Who do you go to when a class has gone badly?
Why ask it
Teaching happens alone in a room, so the adults down the corridor matter more than they would in an office. A name given without hesitation means a department or a friend is holding this teacher up. A long pause is an answer too.
How does pay work for teachers where you are, and does it keep up with the cost of living there?
Why ask it
It asks about the system and leaves their own payslip out of it. In many places pay follows a published scale tied to years and qualifications, but the rules differ by country, state and employer, so let them explain theirs and look the figures up yourself afterwards.
How much say do you have over what you teach and how you teach it?
Why ask it
Some teachers are handed a scheme of work down to the slide, and others get a list of topics and a closed door. Where theirs sits depends on the school and the subject, and it explains a good deal of whether they sound worn out or interested.
What have you bought for your classroom out of your own pocket?
Why ask it
Pens, tissues, books for the shelf, a snack for a child who arrives hungry. Not every teacher does it and not every school leaves them needing to, but the answer shows where the budget stops.
Students and parents
Which student surprised you years later?
Why ask it
The story is often about someone difficult at fifteen who turned up again at twenty-five with a job, a child or an apology. A teacher can wait ten years to learn how a student turned out, so the news counts for a lot when it comes.
What's the funniest thing a student has ever said in your class?
Why ask it
Teachers collect these and tell them with no name attached. A child taking a figure of speech literally is a typical one, and it hands a career write-up the line people will repeat.
How do you reach the student who never says a word?
Why ask it
Loud problems get dealt with because they are loud. This one is about the child nobody notices, and the answers are practical: a change of seat, a job to do, a written comment, a question asked on the way out instead of in front of the room.
What happens when a student tells you something serious about home?
Why ask it
Ask for the process and never for the story. Schools have set procedures and a teacher is usually required to pass a concern to a named person, though the rules vary by country and state. How it feels to hand it on is theirs to share or not.
How do you stay fair to a student you find hard to like?
Why ask it
Few teachers will pretend there has never been one. The honest replies describe a deliberate habit, such as grading with the names covered or starting each morning from zero, and they never name the student.
What do parents worry about that they don't need to?
Why ask it
Reassuring to hear if you are a parent, though the reply depends on the age they teach. A teacher of young children might mention handwriting or a comparison with an older sibling. Ask how they know that one sorts itself out.
What should parents worry about more than they do?
Why ask it
Save this for a teacher you trust to be straight with you. The reply may have nothing to do with schoolwork: sleep, attendance and late nights on a phone all show up in a classroom by nine in the morning.
What's the hardest conversation you have to have with a parent?
Why ask it
It usually means telling a parent something unwelcome about behavior or progress. Ask how they prepare: what they open with, what evidence they bring, and what they want the parent to leave knowing.
What is the most useful thing a parent can do from home?
Why ask it
Extra worksheets are seldom the answer. It is more likely to be something plain, like reading together, a regular bedtime or replying to the one email that needed a reply, and it changes with the age of the child.
Is there one class you still think about?
Why ask it
Most long-serving teachers have a group that simply worked, and few can say why in a sentence. The attempt is worth hearing: a mix of characters, a year when something happened in the school, a room where the jokes landed.
Then and now
What's changed in your classroom in the last five years?
Why ask it
Five years is recent enough to stay concrete. It could be class sizes, staffing, the behavior policy or a new screen on the wall, and a teacher can usually tell you the term it arrived.
How have phones changed things?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly and you are likely to get a mixed answer, not a lament. Phone rules are set by the school, and in some places by law, so ask what theirs are and then what they changed themselves: where phones go during class, how research tasks are set, what no longer goes home as homework.
What has AI done to homework and essays in your subject?
Why ask it
Nearly every teacher is in the middle of answering this one for themselves. Some have moved writing back into the room, some set tasks that use the tools openly, and many work under a school policy that is still being written, so ask what theirs says.
How are the students in front of you different from the ones you started with?
Why ask it
Invite a comparison and you may get a complaint about attention spans, so ask for something today's students do better as well. A teacher with twenty years behind them will usually have an answer to both halves.
What did your training tell you that you dropped straight away?
Why ask it
Training and practice part company fast. A lesson plan format that took an hour to fill in and a behavior theory that did not survive a real room are typical casualties. Ask what they kept as well.
What can you do now that you couldn't do in your first year?
Why ask it
The reply is often invisible from outside the room, like knowing what to ignore or finishing a lesson on the bell. For anyone considering the job, it shows which skills arrive with practice and roughly how long they took.
If you ran your school for a term, what would you change first?
Why ask it
The word 'first' forces a priority, which a general question about education policy never does. What comes back tends to be unglamorous: fewer lessons in a day, smaller classes, less testing.
The career
What do you remember about your first year in the classroom?
Why ask it
A first year tends to stay vivid, down to the class that gave them the hardest time. Ask what got them through it: a mentor, a kind class, a neighbor along the hall who shared every worksheet they owned.
What keeps you in the job?
Why ask it
Short enough to get past both the complaint and the speech about vocation. The reasons people give are rarely grand: a colleague, one class, the week a quiet student finally spoke up.
Have you ever come close to leaving teaching, and what was going on that year?
Why ask it
Only worth asking once the conversation has earned it. A teacher who has thought about it can usually say what was happening: a change of leadership, a timetable that went wrong, something at home. You learn which pressures belong to the job and which belonged to one school.
What should someone find out about a school before accepting a job there?
Why ask it
One for a reader who is weighing the career. Teachers point at things no job advert mentions, such as how long staff stay, who backs a teacher up over behavior and whether a newcomer gets a lighter timetable.
What kind of person should not go into teaching?
Why ask it
Kinder than it sounds, and more useful than asking who would be good at it. You might hear about people who need to finish a task before going home, or who take a flat lesson personally, and you can hold the answer up against yourself.
What would you tell someone who is thinking about becoming a teacher?
Why ask it
Too broad on its own, so follow it at once with a narrower one: what would they do this year in your place? Time in a real classroom as a volunteer or an assistant is a common suggestion, and a term of it tells you more than a prospectus can.
What's the kindest thing a student or parent has ever written to you?
Why ask it
Many teachers keep a folder or a drawer of these and know exactly which one they would pull out. It takes no courage to ask, and it is a relief to both of you after the harder questions about hours and leaving.
If you were starting again, would you still choose teaching?
Why ask it
Hold it until you have heard the costs and the rewards separately. A yes with a condition attached, such as a different subject, a different age group or a later start, tells you more than a plain yes.
What's one thing you wish people outside education understood?
Why ask it
Leave a silence after this one. It is where a teacher says the thing they most wanted said, which is often about the gap between how schooling gets discussed in public and what an ordinary Tuesday contains.
Having the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
When and how to ask
- Not at drop-off or pickup. Those minutes belong to logistics and to thirty other parents.
- Avoid the first week of term and the weeks when reports or exams are due. The calendar differs by school, so ask which week is a quiet one.
- If you want a proper conversation, ask for one and say roughly how long you need.
- One question at a time, and let the answer wander. Teachers manage conversations all day and notice immediately when they are being interviewed.
If this is for a class assignment or a career interview
- Thirty minutes is room for about eight questions once the follow-ups are counted. Take the first five, then pick one each from In the classroom, The working week and The career.
- Before you leave, check the grade and subject they teach, how many years they have taught and how they would like to be named in your write-up.
- Write down one story in their own words. A report built around a single lesson that went wrong reads better than one built around a list of duties.
- If the teacher is your own, ask outside lesson time and say what the interview is for. Questions about pay and leaving land differently when they come from a student in the class.
If you are the parent
Say whether this is curiosity or concern
A teacher who suspects a friendly question is the opening move of a complaint answers defensively, and you both lose the conversation. One sentence of framing prevents it.
Ask about the day, not the grade
What your child does in the fifteen minutes before class starts is often more informative than a mark, and teachers usually know the answer.
Do not ask them to compare children
They will not, they should not, and the request changes how carefully they speak to you from then on.
If you are thinking about teaching
- Ask about the first two years specifically, and what changed after them. A new teacher is planning every lesson from nothing, which a tenth-year teacher is not.
- Ask how they trained and whether they would take the same route again. Routes differ by country and state, so treat theirs as one example.
- Ask how many hours a normal week takes, then ask about the worst week of last year.
- Ask what they would want to know about a school before accepting a job there. The answer is a checklist you can use.
Common pitfalls
Leading with pay
Many public school systems publish their salary scales, though private schools and some countries do not. Where one exists, looking it up beforehand is more respectful than asking someone to say their own number out loud.
Treating them as a spokesperson for education
Most teachers have views on policy and no influence over it. Questions about their own classroom get better answers than questions about the system.
Fishing for stories about difficult students
Confidentiality stops them telling you, and asking puts them in the position of refusing. Ask about a student who surprised them instead.
The joke about those who cannot do
It is not new to them and it quietly ends the conversation, along with any chance of the good answers further down this list.