YES to the quote below as far as ESL teaching is concerned. It's not a real job under the present conditions in training centers and also at certain colleges/universities.

I also agree that someone with just a TEFL cert is not a REAL teacher. Real teachers have degrees plus professional postgraduate, recognized teacher training.

The employers who hire REAL teachers? In China, most of the latter don't know what professional language teaching in a West context is and therefore do not provide a teaching environment where REAL teachers can do their best for students, mature and grow.

In China, when the pay is shit, the teaching environment is shit, then also the "teachers" they can find are shit because the latter are not teaching professionals and lack an appropriate personality attitude that makes them come across as REAL teachers.

BEING A REAL TEACHER also essentially includes reflective and critical thinking not only for self-assessment with regard to one's own teaching performance but also about the teaching environment and society as such.
Whether you call that "leftist" or not; it's a part of real teacher's personality: A teacher should know why a student does not perform too well, and instead of beating a student for bad performance, he should help the student mature and grow. To do exactly that, a teacher needs to have a critical view of the society in which he lives. Unprofessional student treatment can be best be left to the drunkards and other pretenders in China who call themselves "teachers" although they are none.

The best path for any new teacher today? Do something better than teaching.