Sleep on it.

I went out for dinner and a book swap last weekend, and had a good discussion with an American friend about jobs back home. Both markets are discouraging, especially in the teachers field. The only reason to go back home is for family and friends. So this surplus of teachers begs to question: Why does everyone want to become a teacher? Let's travel back to Medieval Times, that era were nothing really happened, no one went to school, literacy was useless, the Earth was flat, and leaders were deities, and the staple of making your keep was the family business. If your father was a blacksmith and your mother was a maid then by basic principle their sons and daughters would be blacksmiths and maids respectively. This still goes on but its not as prominently. My family members still run a family business started by my grandfather but its not the only card my siblings, cousins, and I are holding.

Currently, we're pigeon-holed into school systems for too many years. So instead of following the path of your father the blacksmith or your mother the maid, you follow the path of your role model(s): a teacher. Everyone had a at least one favourite teacher out of the fifty a person has over the course of their academic career, too bad you only get two parents (just kidding Mom and Dad). There's more to life than school, but when you're there for six hours a day and doing school work for another two it dominates your schedule. There's an obvious need to go back to the drawing board, and a surplus in several job markets is not the only reason, with education systems, but you can also hold the zounds of people filling out application forms need to step back and get a bigger perspective too. Too many teachers, or educators, is not a bad thing, only when they're competing in one of the narrowest job markets; education is a life-long process and because there's a tendency to roll backwards as opposed to leaping forwards almost everyone wants to have a future tantamount to their past. Thus, they become a teacher.

Here's the thing: having a Bachelor's in Education (BEd) does not limit you to teaching children. Think of all the people who have taught you something in your adult life outside of school walls. Maybe your boss showed you the best way to wow a customer, file faster, or even make the best coffee with the cheapest grounds. It doesn't matter. A BEd has this huge connotation on it, when you hold it up it says to everyone, "Look at me, I'm a teacher." Wrong. You are an educator, but maybe that's too attached to teaching too. Oh boy, this is a problem. I don't think I have a solution that can be explained thoroughly enough to get a bandwagon going all the way up to the Premiers and the Senators, but something has to change. All I'm trying to say is that becoming a teacher isn't the only thing available to to people with BEds. So step back and look, maybe into a mirror if you're feeling dramatic, and ask yourself, is teaching adults any less rewarding than teaching children? My answer changes once and while, I'd like to think that I'd be happy either way. Sometimes I really wish I could just be a blacksmith and save myself the trouble, but I'm sure I'd have to go to trade school now anyways. Whatever, I'll take my BEd and sleep on it.

Thanks for reading,