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I just graduated from graduate school for a masters in education (I was supposed to get a teaching license too in language arts, 5-12K, but failed my student teaching and was not recommended for licensure as a result).
As anyone knows, finding a job right out of college (or grad school) is a challenge. Some students are lucky enough to have a job lined up for them prior to graduation, whereas others like me are forced by financial circumstances to take the first thing that comes along.
In my case, I'm 42 and single, so I don't have a spouse or rich family member to financially support me. It's humiliating but I was approved to receive monthly food support in addition to state health care while I job search.
Recently I joined a temporary agency that actually found me a 6 month long temp job that pays about $12/hr. It's not great pay, but it's better than the minimum wage jobs at least. Well, the job itself requires me to perform calculations all day long as I work in a tax department. The only thing is, I have a liberal arts and education background. Numbers are not my game. At all. But nonetheless my resume was accepted as the previous temporary employee there was also from a liberal arts background and did a great job.
I have terrible math anxiety and almost didn't last the first week on the job. My supervisor commented that I either did the calculations 100% correctly or I made erroneous calculations. As far as I know I still have the job, but in the meantime, I'm emailing resumes out regularly to jobs that I'm more interested in. However, I haven't had any requests yet for job interviews.
The other challenge for me is that my supervisor is dying of cancer. She talks about her health incessantly, takes 2 hour lunches, comes in late in the morning, or leaves early and has a bag full of pills that she has to take while at work. My father died of cancer, so I feel like I'm reliving my father's cancer struggles, having to listen to this woman lament about her failing health, doctors, tests, treatments, side effects. I feel sick to my stomach and I've only been there one week. When I get home I'm so emotionally drained I just sit on the couch and zone out in front of the tv, feeling sorry for myself which I know is not a very proactive approach to fixing my situation.
How do I survive this horrible job (and do it well) so that I can financially support myself and pay my rent and living expenses until something better comes up? I have 6 months (if I can make it that long in this job) to find a better job. I know I shouldn't complain because I was lucky to find this job. But it's not a job I'm very good at and there's that pressure to perform well, along with the pressure to hurry up and get a job interview for a job I'm more suited for. I'm also going through a depression about failing my student teaching and not being able to get a teaching license, since that was the whole reason I went back to grad school. Now I am so in debt, I can't fathom going back to school yet again to get training for another line of work. So I feel like I'm really stuck in the mud as far as what direction to take my life.
Can anyone relate or offer any insight or advice? Please, no criticism. That's the last thing I need right now.
First figure out why you failed student teaching. Ask your self which aspect of it caused the problem . You can take it again unless you have discovered that you really don't like teaching. .Sometimes in another school with another mentor things can be different.
If you still want to teach also look into applying at private schools . I think in your state they do not require teachers to be licensed. Look also at parochial schools. You do not need to be Catholic to teach in them. You may also be able to be hired as adjunct faculty at a community college. Not a lot of job security at that but it may keep you going while you try to get an actual teaching job.
Other possibilities include working as a tutor at a learning center for young people or adults or at a testing center.
I started another thread about what to do with just a masters in education here. The feedback I received from other posters was the same as yours; tutor, teach in private schools, or as an adjunct at a community college.
Unfortunately, in Minnesota the Catholic Archdiocese has changed the hiring standards for all private schools to only hire licensed teachers. So that option's out. The tutoring centers here also require their tutors to be fully licensed, so that option is out. I do have previous community college teaching experience, but that was in English, not education. To teach English I'd have to get a masters in English which I have no desire to do now (or did back then either). I got the part-time comm. college job when the hiring standards didn't require a masters, and got laid off when the hiring standards at that school changed to require a masters degree.
I didn't fail my student teaching for lack of content knowledge or for lack of teaching experience. It was more due to a personality conflict and age difference between myself and my mentor teacher. But that is not something I'm willing to delve into in this thread as it's irrelevant now. Teaching is only a career option if I were to get a second masters in English which I'm not willing to do, due to the student loans I now have, that I would have to take and pass the GRE and Subject GRE just for the admissions process for the schools here that offer masters degrees in English, and it would mean another 2 years of my life living in poverty which I'm not willing to do anymore.
What I really want to know is how do I hang onto this temp job that is making me miserable until something better (which remains to be seen) comes along?
I'd like to hear from others who had to endure a horrible job situation and how they were successful.
Honestly? You are going to have to figure out a way to make the job that you have now last until you are able to find something else. It really is that simple. The rest of it, all the excuses you mention, are just that...justifications to make yourself feel justified in either quitting or getting fired from this job before you have something lined up.
You went to school to get a teaching license and somehow managed to fail the student teaching portion...and as you were a student and there is supposed to be a learning curve, I am not honestly sure how you managed to fail it, but that is what it is and has contributed to where you are now.
So, stop making excuses, make the best of the job you have now and find something else.
The reasons why I failed my student teaching aren't excuses, but the reason why I failed. Anyway, that's moot since it's all over with.
I'm not making excuses although it seems like I'm doing that, from your perspective. The last thing I want to do is to quit or be fired from this temp job.
Then go to work with the attitude that instead of hating the job you are going to stop being your own worst enemy. Embrace the challenge of the math aspect as something that pushes you in a new direction and use the experience of the cancer loss in your family to bring empathy to the situation of the woman in the office...you say she is dying of cancer and drags bags of pills to work, yet she is still there...there must be a reason. And, if she is dying of cancer and still forced to work, well, her life is a heck of a lot worse than yours....
Is enduring a horrible situation what you want to be successful at? I think you need to figure out exactly what you want your life to look like and work on a plan on how to get there. To me it seems like career wise:
-You don't really want to be a teacher. It sounds like a fallback choice to me.
- You don't want to be around sick people which rules out direct health care jobs.
I don't know what else but if you had some sort of goals that excite you this job could be seen as a stepping stone to something better and more easily endured. Don't forget to add your social and personal desires as well. Good luck!
I think that you are limiting yourself. There are many "teaching" type jobs, that do not require a teaching certification. I worked for many years, at a substance abuse treatment center, for young women with children. I taught pretty much everything from how to keep house, to how to bathe a baby. These girls were clueless. I worked there part time, after my teaching job, so, I was on nights and weekends. There was not much in the way of qualifications for the job, just that you were drug free. And the pay was pretty good.
Or, teaching how to work...be a job coach, this is a great job, and lots of fun. Or do case management, lots of companies are hiring now, to be "mentors" for veterans going to college.
I think you are just really depressed now, and not really looking at the possibilities of your life, you were so focused on one thing. So, now, re frame it, and look for something that will meet your skills, as a teacher. And, I think that you would do great as an employment counselor, helping people find jobs. That is a skill, you teach adults how to look for work, fill out applications, do interviewing, how to keep a job, dress for a job...
So, all you can do, is look for something else. There are plenty of opportunities out there...seek them.
Can you do the student teaching over again? Or, can you tell prospective employers that teaching wasn't really your bag, yet you liked such and such aspect of it and are looking for jobs related to that "positive" aspect of it? Just kinda spin it to a positive. I would think a Master's in Education could translate to different types of job besides just teaching.
Tolerate the horrible till you find better--it's just something you're "passing through" tell yourself.
Take it one day at a time, that's all that can really be done. Get through each day.
I'm a licensed teacher - age difference/personality conflict? Those are not reasons to fail someone out of licensure. I wouldn't just walk away from that ~ work on the real reasons (and that might be hard to face because someone who says they failed due to age difference/personality conflict to me suggests several things that are worthy of flunking the practicum). Do it again, don't give up years of grad school.
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