Did not work in formal ed right after graduation- how hireable am I? (careers, masters degree)
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My student teaching semester was a bad experience. I taught in an inner-city middle school and on week 3 my cooperating teacher left for the week on vacation, leaving me in charge. The rest of the semester mostly followed that kind of "sink or swim approach". Granted, I did learn a lot, and my performance evaluations reflected that. That said, after earning my teaching cert I promptly fled the classroom and went into the field of informal ed for 4 years.
Now, however, I'm looking at my experience with fresh eyes and am realizing that, not only could I be a classroom teacher again, I actually want to be a teacher. I've been working with kids of all ages consistently for the past 5 years, and the times I enjoy the best are those where I can work with the same group of students and see them grow, change, and learn throughout our time together.
I still have my teaching certificate up-to-date, and to get it reciprocated to my current state I'd just need to take one Praxis test. My question is, is my lack of formal education experience these last few years a big negative in terms of getting hired? I do have a lot of experience working with kids outside of the classroom (which comes with its own challenges), and I have worked closely with schools in designing curriculum for informal education programs (coordinating with teachers, aligning materials to state standards, pushing towards learner-centered activities, etc).
The other complicating factor is that I have a Masters degree in the specific field of informal ed that I was interested in. I've heard mixed reviews on if that would be a help or a hindrance. It is education-related, and I think I could apply what I learned over to the classroom, but it also isn't strictly a "Master of Education".
I also think I'd bring a lot to the table in terms of real-world experience. I've worked closely with conservation and stewardship organizations, and I think I could use that experience both to guide students interested in those fields and to organize extracurricular activities.
Anyways, before I start to make the plunge and start studying up on my Biology Praxis material again, I thought I'd get some opinions on if I've got a good chance or if I'm going to just be wasting my time. Thanks
I would not worry about your initial experience as a teacher. I am actually quite impressed that you made it through that summer, as A LOT of teachers (especially new ones) have difficulty with inner-city schools, and middle school is probably the most difficult grade level to teach. Many, many teachers have a bad experience like that and leave but then come back to the profession, renewed. It is actually what responsible teachers do--when you realize that you have no more to give, you do not waste anyone's time (especially that of your students) and you leave and do something else until you have the energy/desire to come back. There is something to be said for the teacher who can stick it out--I really respect them--but not everyone can do that.
I don't think that your lack of formal education experience will hinder you, as it has given you a lot of experience working with kids. However, have the kids that you worked with been the same age as those that you wish to teach? What specific ages/level do you want to teach? A lot of places will want you to have classroom experience but there are a lot of schools that don't require it--everything depends on where you are.
You mention Bio, so I assume that you are looking to teach middle or high school. My first question is: do you have a Bio BA? If so, I think that your chances are good, although they would be better if your MA were in Bio. The fact that you have an MA in an education-related field is a plus, although some schools will want you to have an MA in your subject area.
As for getting a job, it all depends on the state that you are in, what grades you wish to teach and what kinds of schools (public, private, charter) you wish to teach at, as that will determine how much demand there is for your particular subject area. I would research the demand in your area for the grade, skill level and type of school that you wish to teach at before moving forward.
My student teaching semester was a bad experience. I taught in an inner-city middle school and on week 3 my cooperating teacher left for the week on vacation, leaving me in charge. The rest of the semester mostly followed that kind of "sink or swim approach". Granted, I did learn a lot, and my performance evaluations reflected that. That said, after earning my teaching cert I promptly fled the classroom and went into the field of informal ed for 4 years.
My student teaching really sucked. It just did. Even my departmental advisors, both from the ed department and my major/content area of choice (I'm secondary) noted, when they would come to observe me, and communicate with my cooperating teacher, that I didn't seem to be getting a fair shake. Coincidentally, several weeks into my experience, as well, my cooperating teacher left the country for several weeks to chaperon a Spanish Club trip to Spain with her BFF, the Spanish teacher. So I was left with a sub who was basically just a warm body to keep things legal. I did okay, passed my practicum, but hated the experience, found it incredibly stressful, found my supposed mentor to be alternately dismissive and hostile, for reasons I never could figure out (my advisors agreed that her attitude toward me was puzzling and disappointing). I finished, got my cert, graduated from my undergrad program, and never once considered for a minute seeking teaching positions.
For a full DECADE, I worked exclusively in non-school positions. I did an urban service volunteer year, where I was assigned to an inner city nonprofit where I ran a tutoring and mentoring after-school program. After a year of that, the nonprofit hired me FT as director of said program I'd developed. Then I became a newspaper reporter and eventually editor, focusing largely on education reporting, and did that for a number of years. Then I became a paralegal at a poverty law firm, to see if I wanted to go to law school. Decided I didn't, but found myself working a lot with clients with disabilties. Became interested in special ed via this experience, and ended up adding a special ed credential, and going back into the classroom as a teacher for students with autism spectrum disorders and emotional and behavioral disturbance...a full ten years after student teaching and deciding I wanted nothing to do with the field.
My varied work experience was never anything but an asset in returning to the classroom.
Hiring administrators love real world experience, not just classroom experience.
If you know your content, exhibit a modicum of passion, and can speak to your unique skills and how they will contribute to the success of you as a teacher, your students, and the school as a whole, they won't care if you were shoveling dung at the LA Zoo.
After college I worked in a factory, for a railroad and started to fly jets in the Navy. I didn't start teaching until I was 30.
Haha good to know. How did the transition go?
Quote:
Originally Posted by StarlaJane
I don't think that your lack of formal education experience will hinder you, as it has given you a lot of experience working with kids. However, have the kids that you worked with been the same age as those that you wish to teach? What specific ages/level do you want to teach? A lot of places will want you to have classroom experience but there are a lot of schools that don't require it--everything depends on where you are.
I'd like to teach high school, but most of my recent experience has been K-8. I think I'd enjoy middle school as well, so that might be a more realistic option. I do have a BS in Bio, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TabulaRasa
My student teaching really sucked. It just did. Even my departmental advisors, both from the ed department and my major/content area of choice (I'm secondary) noted, when they would come to observe me, and communicate with my cooperating teacher, that I didn't seem to be getting a fair shake. Coincidentally, several weeks into my experience, as well, my cooperating teacher left the country for several weeks to chaperon a Spanish Club trip to Spain with her BFF, the Spanish teacher. So I was left with a sub who was basically just a warm body to keep things legal. I did okay, passed my practicum, but hated the experience, found it incredibly stressful, found my supposed mentor to be alternately dismissive and hostile, for reasons I never could figure out (my advisors agreed that her attitude toward me was puzzling and disappointing). I finished, got my cert, graduated from my undergrad program, and never once considered for a minute seeking teaching positions.
For a full DECADE, I worked exclusively in non-school positions. I did an urban service volunteer year, where I was assigned to an inner city nonprofit where I ran a tutoring and mentoring after-school program. After a year of that, the nonprofit hired me FT as director of said program I'd developed. Then I became a newspaper reporter and eventually editor, focusing largely on education reporting, and did that for a number of years. Then I became a paralegal at a poverty law firm, to see if I wanted to go to law school. Decided I didn't, but found myself working a lot with clients with disabilties. Became interested in special ed via this experience, and ended up adding a special ed credential, and going back into the classroom as a teacher for students with autism spectrum disorders and emotional and behavioral disturbance...a full ten years after student teaching and deciding I wanted nothing to do with the field.
My varied work experience was never anything but an asset in returning to the classroom.
Awesome, I'm glad someone with a somewhat similar story to mine has been able to jump back into the field. How are you liking it this go-around? I'm not expecting things to be perfect or easy, but it'd be hard to be worse than my student teaching semester...
Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxtheRoadWarrior
Hiring administrators love real world experience, not just classroom experience.
If you know your content, exhibit a modicum of passion, and can speak to your unique skills and how they will contribute to the success of you as a teacher, your students, and the school as a whole, they won't care if you were shoveling dung at the LA Zoo.
If anything, I've grown even more capable of relating to students, since I've often had to do that without any kind of office or administrative support. I also am still pretty on top of my content area.
Haha good to know. How did the transition go?............
Transition wasn't bad, factory work was soul destroying. I went to college so I wouldn't have to work there, had been doing it prior to college so I ended up back at it.
I did move off the floor fairly quickly into management due to my degree but I felt they were jerking me around. Which they were.
Went up the street to the RR, in management, which was the worst job I've ever had. Went to OCS/Flight School from there.
The biggest transition was when I got grounded and taken off flight status (flight physicals, body let me down). The Navy did offer me a Supply billet but my ego got in the way and I accepted separation. It was hard to switch mental gears from being a gunfighter to counting rolls of toilet paper.
That began a year and a half of unemployment until I found a school system willing to hire a broken down fighter pilot. It didn't help that it was the heart of the early 1980s recession.
As a note, during that 18 months I applied to 251 of PA's 501 school systems and garnished exactly one interview. I didn't get that job. I finally was hired in MD with application number 252.
Awesome, I'm glad someone with a somewhat similar story to mine has been able to jump back into the field. How are you liking it this go-around? I'm not expecting things to be perfect or easy, but it'd be hard to be worse than my student teaching semester...
It was a much, much, much better fit. I did specifically chose a specialized school with a cutting-edge program I could really get behind, not a traditional public school. I would not have been interested in returning to the field to do the same sort of teaching I did in my student teaching semester, no. I very much determined that setting wasn't for me. It went really well. Things weren't perfect or easy. I was very happy there for about a half-dozen years, and then an administrative shakeup drastically changed things. Many/most of the things I appreciated most and believed in most about the program were upended, and it became a program I could no longer get behind. By this point, I'd spent quite a few years there with many of the services I was pressed into being closer to therapy/counseling than instructing, and it struck me that there was a need for that that was not being met, and that I was quite good at it. So, since I didn't like the direction things were taking at all, and because my interest was piqued in this direction, I left and began a master's program in counseling psych, with the end goal of working with the same population in that context.
Nothing in my professional life was worse than my student teaching semester. It was a perfect storm of a lot of things, and it was pretty terrible. Going back into teaching ten years into an adult life spent in other careers was great,though. I was more assured, knew better how not to get pushed around in the workplace and how to effectively and professionally respond if someone tried, more confident of myself and my abilities, better organized, better able to shoot from the hip, there was more of a space between my students and myself age-wise, which in my experience made things easier, etc.
If most of your recent experience has been K-8, I think that getting a job teaching middle school Bio (provided you pass your Praxis !) is the most realistic, although it will not exclude you from positions teaching high school, so I would apply for both and see that pops up.
Personally, there is no way I would ever teach middle school--as far as I have heard from other teachers (and taking into account my one year of teaching 7-8), middle is the most difficult level to teach; with all of those hormones flying around, it is very challenging getting the students to focus and/or maintaining control of the class.
Middle school is my absolute favorite age group with which to work. Hands down.
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!) is the most realistic, although it will not exclude you from positions teaching high school, so I would apply for both and see that pops up. 
