I would second this opinion. The nation was told that we
would be in a huge deficit of teachers right now. But...
People didn't retire. Life is expensive. And teacher
reirement benefits became so much better if you just stuck it
out an extra 5 years.
Teachers became better paid. It became a desirable job.
Colleges began shoving their weakest students into education
so they could graduate them instead of lose their tutition
money.
Colleges began offering "easy endorsements," like ESL or
Special ed., allowing people to pile on extra teaching areas
and quickly glutting actual shortages.
I do not know of true shortages anywhere in the country in any
teaching field.
> First off, and I don't mean to be harsh but, you seem a
> little lost in terms of your direction in college. You say
> you're majoring in Secondary/Middle Education and English
> but you're interested in Math as well. You seem to have a
> lot on your plate. I'm sorry, but it shouldn't take 6 1/2
> years to graduate college. Are your parents funding your
> education? Or are you? If I were your parents I would have
> cut you off at 4 years. This is why so many families go into
> debt just to put their kids through college.
>
> The current trend in education is to combine fields for
> teachers to teach such as Spanish/History, History/Math,
> English/History and so on. However, I don't think you should
> buy into it. It's a ploy. There's a huge surplus of teachers
> right now in the fields of English and History/Social
> Studies (I'm in this field) and no matter what year you
> graduate you'll be facing steep competition from not only
> your fellow graduates but other more senior teachers.
>
> I think that you need to deeply reexamine why you're going
> into teaching. I've noticed that many students get
> hoodwinked into education because education programs
> continue to deceive them into thinking that there's a
> deficit of teachers when this is simply not the case. It is
> very hard to find anything in English or History and you'll
> most likely be subbing rather than teaching your first
> go 'round.
>
> I wish you good luck, but I think you'll be like many of us
> right now in education: looking for a job and waiting for
> years to get one while we sub to impress people who neither
> like us or look out for our best interests.
