Teachers' aides provide valuable support to educators in the classroom - and the experience they gain can be a good foundation from which to build their own teaching career. Diana Patzwahl recently started teaching at a new Catholic high school having previously worked as a teacher's aide, the News-Press reports. Although Ms Patzwahl said her new role is "much different" from being an assistant, the school's assistant principal, Colette Ott, believes it will stand her in good stead for making the transition from supporting role to running her own classroom. "She's been a teacher's aide so she has experience," she said. "We have great students too. She's going to be fine". For Ms Patzwahl, one of the biggest challenges of her new career has been dealing with the amount of paperwork teachers have to process. "That and just being organized so the first day you're not groping for materials," she commented. According to the Department of Labor, there were 1.3 million teachers aides working in the US in 2006, 40% of whom were employed part-time. In May 2006, average median earnings for a teacher's aide were $20,740.  |