Teacher. I like control. Plus I could never teach younger kids, which (at least in my district) is where all the Teacher's Assistants are.
I'd still choose teacher. Like HistoryVA said, I like to be the one in control! My para has been in her position for over 20 years and IMO can instruct just as well as I can, but because she's a para she often gets pulled away from instruction to do more menial duties, like recess/lunch supervision or monitoring behavior students. For 2 1/2 months at the beginning of the school year she got stuck essentially "babysitting" a student with severe needs all day long, every single day (dealing with toileting and dressing, safety monitoring) while we waited for the severe needs program to finally accept him. She was bored out of her mind and I would have been too- I would absolutely hate to be stuck in a role like that, even if I were getting paid above the level of my duties. She said a situation like that has happened almost every school year. I'm able to use her for more instruction now, but she still has to spend about 1.5 hours a day "safety monitoring" two behavior students in addition to about an hour's worth of recess and lunch duties.
I'm leaning towards assistant for the same reasons. I know if the question was same salary, but either SLP or SLPA, I'd think pretty much the same way, although w/ that, I'd probably want to do some of each, just to have the experience.
First off, I want to know where teacher's assistants get paid the same as teachers! lol. I would definitely be a teacher. I was a para for a few months once. It was a super frustrating roll for me because, as others have said, I wanted control! And as waterfall said, you never know where you're going to get pulled and what you'll be asked to do. It's the same reason I like teaching SO MUCH BETTER than student teaching. I want to be the one ultimately in charge, even though it's so much more work.
I wonder if our answers may be influenced by how long we have been in our career? A person relatively new to teaching would certainly want to retain control of their classroom. A person like myself, nearing the end of the career, may appreciate the chance to ease out of the responsibilities. Those of us who have been teaching for a long time remember when teaching was more about teaching and less about testing. Speaking for myself, I really don't appreciate my worth and my job being decided by a score on one test. I hate that many districts don't put children first anymore.
I'll let you know my decision when a district offers over $100 K with benefits, tenure, ongoing quality pd, and pension for TA....
Teacher. Our district is not all about testing. I have complete freedom to teach what I want as long as we continue to work with the standards. I love how my classes are. We are very discussion based, and I let the students decide the direction we go in our discussions. A lot of that is based on the books we read though, something that I couldn't decide as a TA.
Teacher. I like running my classroom the way I feel is best and being able to bring my personality into my classroom. Our TA's jump around the school a lot and I wouldn't want that. I like having the same schedule everyday, being in my home away from home and being the boss in my room. I went to school for many years (as we all did) in order to do all of that. TA was never appealing to me.
If the salaries were the same, I'd go TA and wouldn't even think twice. All the joy of getting to work with kids, all the salary and benefits, but my day starts at 8:30 and ends at 4:00 with a guaranteed half hour lunch? Sign me up for that.
I'd go TA in a second. As others have said, less stress, although I imagine a raise in pay would lead to a raise in duties, which would lead to a raise in stress.
I would have said teacher until you mentioned gossip. Umm, teacher assistantyour school. Our T.A. is always pulled and get paid 15,500 per year.