Thursday, July 14, 2011

An Urban Teacher's Education: Finding a Teaching Job Not So Easy

An Urban Teacher's Education: Finding a Teaching Job Not So Easy

Finding a Teaching Job Not So Easy

When I decided to leave New York City, I felt a completely unjustified sense of confidence that I would find a teaching job somewhere else (or maybe I was just too stressed out to think straight). Now that it's mid-July and I haven't been so much as contacted by any of the districts I've applied to, I'm starting to think I better consider alternative options for the coming year, which is too bad, because I was really hoping to do National Boards this year - also, I REALLY LOVE TEACHING!

Today Miss Eyre over at NYC Educator published a post on the same topic. She tells the story of a friend who's been trying to get a longterm teaching position in a small district for a few years and has been passed over time after time. Add that to the knowledge that gaining tenure is getting more and more difficult, which makes it easier and easier to create a system that takes in teachers, chews them up, and spits them out, and it makes for a pretty bleak picture. It's a picture in which real teachers who care about real learning and the importance of real