Will Being a Furry Make a Career in Teaching Difficult?

So for as long as I can remember I've really wanted to be a teacher; they helped me so much in school and I knew I wanted to be able to help others.

The problem is being furry. I'm not public and any videos of me at fur cons is limited to my face (which I'm not worried about).

I'm more worried about my being linked to my actual account. There IS adult art/stories attached to it, and I know how people outside the fandom tend to overanalyze it as something more than it is.

Any advice, or should I look into doing something else with my life?

Vojeto (age 21)

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Dear Vojeto,

It’s certainly possible to be a furry and have a career in any number of fields, but this can be a little trickier if the job involves minors, such as being a teacher at the high school or lower level. The issue there isn’t so much that you’re a furry but that it can be perceived that you are some sort of pedophile. Of course, if you have any babyfur preferences, that would be a huge red flag. But even without that, many people consider furry some kind of fetish thing, and that can, indeed, cause you headaches.

All 50 U.S. states require school systems to do background checks on teachers (both current and potential hires). They check, of course, for any criminal history, but also credit history, bankruptcies, employment records, medical records, civil records, education certification, driving records, history of where you have lived, and so on. Schools might hire independent agencies to do background checks, and prices vary depending on how deeply they want to go into your history. I honestly don't know if such services scan the Internet to see if they find any prurient website accounts, but you never know.

I’d like to pause here and ask you this: is it essential that you be a teacher in a public school system in order for you to be happy? Before you answer that, I would advise you to talk to some actual teachers (especially retired ones who can speak more freely). The ones I have known who have worked in public schools have been extremely unhappy, many of them quit or retire early. It’s not because of the students (they love the students), but, rather, the administrators they deal with and the government interference in the education process. The bureaucracy and the restrictions on the freedom to teach have become so heinous that literally every teacher I have known who taught grade school through high school said that they couldn’t take it anymore.

Now, this improves somewhat at the college level, but not much. My sister is a college professor, and while she has more freedom to teach she spends so much time on administrative work—as do her colleagues—that the joke among them is “teaching is something we do when we have spare time.”

While I don’t want to discourage you, and I think teaching is a noble profession, I do advise you to look deeply into what you are getting into. The American education system is a shambles. If you do go into that setting, you should definitely, at minimum, keep any and all furporn off sites associated with your account.

Alternatively, you could have a very different experience in a private school setting, so you might want to look into that. And there are many other ways to have a fulfilling career outside the public school system (take a look at the list here). If you become a private tutor, help with home-schooled children, or teach GED students, you could not only find a career that avoids the hazards of dealing with public administrators, but some of these alternatives could be less likely to interfere with your furry life (although, when working with any education company, there will still be background checks).

In addition to the above, teaching is, of course, not limited to the ‘Riting, Reading, ‘Rithmetic trio. I’m not sure what subjects interest you, but teaching can involve everything from being an acting coach to a yoga instructor. Again, if you pursue a more private, independent career you are less likely to have people nosing around in your furry life. Oh, and don’t ignore the possibility of teaching adult students, too!

Hope this gives you some ideas. Good luck!

Papabear

P.S. I would love to know if any of my furry readers are also teachers and what their experiences have been!