When I was a kid, I always thought that teachers were pretty, female, and about 25. My five year old brain was pretty sure that was about all there was to it. And while I’m sure (or I hope?!) that most of us now are aware that that’s a whole lot less than true, there’s probably still a lot that we don’t know about today’s ‘average’ teacher.  We’ve wondered before about who teachers are and what they want and need in their classrooms, but I always find it interesting to take a look at the statistics behind our teachers – it helps answer those little internal questions like ‘are more men teachers now?’ and ‘are our classrooms attaining better teacher student ratios?”.

Take a gander at the infographic below to see how the actual trends in teaching match up (or don’t match up) with what you think is actually or should be happening in today’s teaching world.

A Few Takeaways

• Teachers are still quite predominantly female (~75%)
• Most teachers are white (83%)
• The pupil to teacher ratio has been slowly declining since the 1970′s and continues to decline.
• 8%-15% of teachers leave the profession each year, mostly due to personal life issues (as opposed to contract issues).