Ideas for Newbie Teachers

Are you a new teacher wondering when - or if - you’ll ever get the job you trained for?

If so, I've got something to share.

Katie Hyslop, a knowledgeable education beat reporter with Canadian online newsmagazine The Tyee,” has published an interesting piece full of ideas and information that could help new education grads.

It could also help if you’re currently considering or now studying in this field.

Hyslop focuses on the challenges for new teachers in BC, rather than looking at the whole country. But the challenges – and potential workarounds -- are similar for young teachers in the rest of Canada.

You could sum the workarounds primarily as:

- teach in the north

- teach privately (eg tutoring)

- teach continuing ed

- use your teaching skills as part of a non-teaching job (eg staff training) OR

- teach ESL overseas.

No teaching certificate is required for that last option, by the way. As for ESL certificates, there are certainly schools that require one, but other ones do not. Your pedagogical training would be impressive in itself.

There are also a range of options for ESL/EFL certificates. If you've already trained as a teacher, you should be fine with a shorter and more affordable one.

I did a teaching stint myself in Asia, as a young journalism grad. Go see the world! 

There's much more to say than this little list, of course. You may be interested in some of the details Hyslop provides, such as the development of Canada-based overseas education programs that hire newly certified Canadian teachers.

One commenter for Hyslop's article makes the following remark about that:

"It's a bit of an understatement to say that there are "several" BC overseas schools that hire BC certified teachers. There are 41 of them. As a recent grad in Education, I know a lot of people who are choosing this route to start their careers instead of trying to make ends meet and get a foot in the door in a district in BC."

Hmm...so there's some hope for underemployed teachers wondering how they’ll ever pay their student debt.

If that new teacher is you, or soon could be, check out Katie Hyslop’s article for yourself!