Career Corner

The national newspaper USA Today recently ran an article about the coming tsunami in hiring teachers. I thought this was an interesting article since we are in the middle of a sharp downturn in the economy and there are layoffs in education. Many districts are cutting staff and laying off teachers, so how could this article be correct?

After browsing the article and pausing for a moment of thought I realized that this headline was correct. We will soon, maybe it will take a year or two, have a great need for new teachers. This will be a result of the delay in retirement for those who recently planned to retire but could not because their retirement savings were depleted by the stock market downturn. It will also be caused by the huge need to replace those teachers who were laid off this past year due to the lack of state funding for education.

The bright spot on the horizon of this problem will be the fact that in times of economic distress more people chose teaching as a career. Teaching is seen as more stable and less prone to the ups and downs of the business world. Hopefully this influx of new teachers will offset the outgo of those retiring from the teaching profession.

Bob Maxfield
Director
BYU-Idaho Teacher Career Services

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Does the law of supply and demand apply to teachers? The reason I ask this question is because we have a shortage of math, science, and special education teachers. Will schools eventually join the free enterprise system and reward teachers in these high demand areas with commensurate salaries from the non-teaching world? Recently I have seen signing bonuses for student teachers graduating in these fields. Will these bonuses continue for the career of the teacher?

The reason I mention this is twofold. First, I was visiting with an excellent junior high school science teacher who had been the teacher for my children when they were in school. He was taking classes to become a school administrator to increase his salary and unfortunately leave his position as a science teacher. He commented that if he were in industry he could make three times his teaching salary. Second, I worked at a university where the salaries of the engineering, math and science departments were forced to adapt to the real world. Too many of the faculty from these disciplines left on sabbatical to work with industry and were offered two to three times their salary. When they did not return the university took notice and was forced to accept the market value of their faculty.

Is this the reality for our school system? Is this the answer to our teacher shortage in these areas?

Bob Maxfield
Director
BYU-Idaho Teacher Career Services

Posted by AAEE at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A few years ago I attended an AAEE (American Association for Employment in Education) national conference. The conference attendees were abuzz over a statement made by a recruiter. The statement was in essence that a teacher is hired because of his or her personality.

College and university faculty and career services personnel were very upset. How could someone think that a teacher was hired because of personality? What about the years of training and education? Didn’t those years of education mean anything?

After pondering the idea of personality as the reason for hire I came to the following conclusion. Both the recruiter and the faculty were correct! The student was hired because of personality. The teacher had reached a certain level of expertise as defined by the completed level of education. That level of expertise was a given for each graduate. In other words, the knowledge needed to be a good teacher had been achieved through education, but the intangibles were defined by the person himself or herself. If this were not so the teachers that had the highest GPA would be hired and there would be no need for an interview process.

This may be the reason that passing a Praxis test does not necessarily qualify someone as a good teacher. It does acknowledge a level of competency but it does not measure the level of a teacher’s compassion and care for students, ability to reach students, ability to nurture students, etc. This is also the reason that robots or computers do not teach classes.

I believe that the hiring process still boils down to the handshake, the presentation, and the warm feeling that is generated by a personal connection.

-Bob Maxfield, Director
Brigham Young University - Idaho Teacher Career Services

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A few years ago a student came into my office to discuss his teaching career. He said, “I just finished student teaching. I graduate in two months and I hate teaching. What do I do now?” I was stunned. How did this student get so far in his education without getting experience in the classroom to find out if he would be a good teacher? Was his teacher preparation program so rigid about his in-class studies that they missed the most important part of his education, real time in the public school classroom? How could the teacher education program better prepare this young man for the shock of having his own class?

I have also met students who seemed groomed to be teachers, from their time in high school until their graduation from college. Their resumes were chock full of teaching experiences ranging from tutoring while in high school or college, volunteering with special needs students, working part-time as a para-professional aide during college, working for the after-school program, teaching in a summer school, and other excellent teacher preparation experiences.

Why was there such a disparity in preparation between these students? Why was one student so unprepared for a career in education and other students so well prepared? Is it possible to prepare students for their careers in education by requiring or highly recommending volunteer work, part-time work, or summer work in a teaching setting while they complete their college education?

Speaking at a career services conference, Jaime Escalante explained his philosophy on hiring teachers. He said he told his principals that when interviewing potential teachers they should ask what the candidates do in their spare time. If the interviewees say they go motorbiking or go bar hopping they should not be hired. If they say they volunteer at the local YMCA, work with their church youth groups, etc. they should be hired.

The same is true of students graduating from college. They should have related volunteer or paid teaching experience to back up their choice of education as a career. They should NOT have student teaching as the only teaching experience on their resume. They should NOT have to realize after student teaching that they are not good teachers.

Bob Maxfield,
Director
BYU-Idaho Teacher Career Services

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