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Teachers college. Should I go, or should I just duck out of it and take another route to get into teaching?
Today's entry is the second installment in my four part series all about that question.
Specifically, now that I've had a week to mull over the facts and the figures, it's time to take a more logical look at them, and at one of the options for my future.
Starting with the financial aspect of things, teachers college is a pretty sweet proposition. In the long term.
That's not a bad term for something to be good in, but it seems that all of the honey of this decision can only be enjoyed after I've endured the stings of the swarming bees of time.
As a person who would get certified to teach English and/or History at the Middle/High School level, I'd not be in great demand. And because I'd be one of the many extras bopping around in the teaching market in Ontario, I might not get something solid and sturdy until five years after graduation, until 2018. Until then I'd have to supply teach, work part time, or do something unrelated to pay back whatever loans I took out, or whatever my current cost of living would be.
Talk about an exercise in self-denial.
Nonetheless, once employed, if I could live on half of my salary ($40,000-$55,000) and spend the rest to pay off my debts, they'd be gone in 2-4 years. Of course, not knowing clearly just how much I'd need to borrow (banking mostly on awards, bursaries, and such might not be stable, but that's what paid for my MA) makes guessing how long I'll be indebted difficult, but I think that 2-4 years is still accurate.
The worst case scenario, then, would be that I'd be starting work in 2018, and be debt free in 2022 - a solid ten years from now. After that - despite having gotten married at some point within those ten years, and probably having had a kid - my salary (increases and all) would be nothing but gravy - matters of mortgage, any other loan repayment, and/or raising a child aside.
So financially, this is certainly a stable option. Wife, 2.5 kids, small dog, house in the suburbs type stuff.
Socially this is also a fair deal since my social life would change, but also remain similar.
I'd be likely to move out of South-Western Ontario, but I'd still be within the province, so get-togethers would continue to be doable, even if they were treks. And I'd be exposed to new environments and new people, so things would be energized in that way, even if I stuck with South Western Ontario. Not to mention, there'd also be my cohort from my teachers college program. New bonds formed, new learning had, and new ideas (hopefully) encountered.
This all sounds great.
This all sounds like Teaching ESL - though much more formalized. At least in the sense that I'd need to go to a school for a full year, and then I'd be able to stay in province (or country) and work.
As per my personal life, going to teachers college would delay wedding my fiancée for a year or two. At the same time, it could see me stepping out into the world once more, and not boomeranging back as I did before.
But with a wait time of up to five years, and part time/supply/unrelated work being what can be done while I wait for a full time teaching job, I also need to face up to the fact that it's possible that I would boomerang back. And Small Town Ontario cannot be mistaken for a city.
Even Twin Peaks, as long as it is a typo on the town's sign so that it should read 5,120, is smaller than my Small Town in Ontario.
And living in a place where the only way to go to other towns is by car, and you lack a car (though not a license) doesn't make it easy to co-ordinate interview times outside of a one hour radius. This limitation is problematic, since I'm aiming to settle in a place like Guelph or KW.
However, amidst all of these considerations and all of these different possibilities, I am forgetting one major thing.
After I have finished my stint at teachers college, I could go and teach overseas. That experience could fill in the five-year gap that stands between most new teachers college grads and full-time employment, could see me get some hands-on time teaching, could see me continue to encounter new people, places, and things, and it could see me make the money needed to pay back whatever loans I'd taken out in the process of going through teachers college.
Honestly, that could work. I could go to teachers college. Take on whatever debt I had to take on, then go off to Asia the next year. I could probably get myself debt free in three years or less, and I'd be able to start that in earnest right after graduation. So I could be completely free of most financial worry by 2016, only four years from now.
Getting married somewhere in between teachers college and going overseas would also work, since paying back that debt would merely increase my and my fiancée's stay overseas. Hardly a high price to pay.
Yet. Being across the ocean would make it even more difficult to interview for teaching jobs in Ontario (at least if they insist on in-person interviews) than moving back to my home town.
Nonetheless, going to teachers college could work as a combined opportunity. The extra teacher training would give me an advantage and earnings increase were I to teach overseas, and I'd be able to hit the ground running as soon as I'd graduated.
This all sounds like a solid proposition to me. As if it could form the basis of a solid career - something that I can do in the light of day while at night I continue with the writing of such things as this blog.
However, the question of teachers college isn't resolved just yet. Check back next week to see my less logical, more streamlined response to the points that I've laid out here and to the facts that I dredged up last week.
In the meantime, Wednesday's entry will be the last of the food-related Wodnes-dæg entries for a while (avocado fries, anyone?), and on Friday I'll post my attempt to redeem the movie The Seeker: The Dark is Rising.
Do you have any thoughts on writing while holding down a day job? Let me know in a comment below.
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