Teacher's college does seem like the logical next step in a teaching career, but is that the career that I really want? Will teacher's college help me to become a professor at a college or a sessional at a university? It might - formal training in how to educate would be something useful and something grand to put on a resume.
But do I want to just chase resume gems until I get a good job that lets me settle in a city, sees me write some, and live on like that until the end? Or do I want to move on from all of that and actually become something more?
What's really at play here, keeping me down and keeping me back from wanting to go to Teacher's College? What fear is there? What despair? The fact that I'll be jobless for another year at least? The fact that I'll be unable to write as much as I do now? Writing and teaching definitely aren't incompatible, but do I have the gumption and the drive to do both?
I can cite a few examples of writers who started off (and continued) as teachers: Stephen King, J.K. Rowling (who taught EFL (a variety of ESL)), J.R.R. Tolkien, Nick Hornby, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce.
But can I count myself among them? Or am I more of a one-track doer?
Plus, if I'm splitting myself between writing and teaching for a living then what's different from the desired end of a PhD? That degree could get me a job teaching and researching, or, if I worked at an undergraduate institution, teaching with some time for writing. And what's different about working at a college? What makes teaching college desirable despite there being no real hard and fast difference between it and high school or university teaching in terms of time left for moonlighting as a writer?
Honestly, very little. Prestige mostly, something to hide behind while I secretly gain cred as a writer so that to a family of steel and service industry workers I can have something more concrete than writing to show. To identify myself with.
Aside from that, what's at the heart of the issue here? Why is deciding on teacher's college such a struggle for me? Why do I want to be a certified teacher?
Because my job prospects aren't good already? Because I've got no marketable skills? Neither of those are true.
An MA - even in English - is going to pull down some serious clout in the right circles and in the right job hunts.
I think the issue that I'm running into when I do slip into job hunt mode is that I'm living in Small Town Ontario, where people may have advanced degrees in things unrelated to their job (places like this seem ideal for the janitor who studied astrophysics), but where these degrees also mean precious little. After all, what really matters in small towns is connections, but since I've been out of town for the last seven years, I haven't much to go on in that regard.
The state of my connections is slowly changing, but more as a result of having been in town for a while rather than because of my on again, off again job hunt.
Nonetheless, I might need something to pick up the financial slack left by freelancing. Going to school in September or saving up to go overseas, or saving up just to move to a dream town where I have a job as a writer or journalist all takes money. And that's something in short supply right now.
Things are on an upswing though and if I work really hard, then I can probably raise enough by September to pay for a semester of teacher's college, or the full cost of going overseas (minus the wedding), or six months worth of living expenses.
Of course, I'm still waiting on acceptances from these teacher's colleges. And that's another thing.
A lot of the papers and columns keep declaring that teacher's colleges should ease up on training teachers that aren't in demand. My credentials lead me to believe that I'd be able to get a place in any of the institutions I applied to. But maybe I won't get into any since English and History are my teaching areas (and the two facing a large part of the oversupply).
But why teacher's college? Why does it matter? Why does it need to be the next step? Why not bang on as a temp college prof? Or go overseas again? The latter definitely seems like a sweet proposition. The biggest difficulty I'd expect to face would be having to readjust to the real Korea rather than the ideal image that my first trip left me with.
As per the former, I think that temping as a college prof would be great, but at 6000 a semester (assuming I'd be teaching two courses and each would pay 3000) and each semester being some four months long, writing on the side would help to cover my costs (by my estimates, 18,000 a year for a one bedroom apartment, utilities, groceries, and enough to treat myself every now and then). This could be a fine arrangement, but I'd need to get my writing off the ground first.
Ultimately, what makes me wary of teacher's college is the fact that there's no guarantee of immediate employment. As naive as it was, I thought that getting my MA would just draw jobs to me (or me to jobs) but such simply hasn't been the case. As my mom puts it, "I furthered my education" but I didn't really think much of the career that might stem from it aside from a professorship (Anglo-Saxonists, alas, are in small demand).
Going further back, majoring in English for my BA stemmed from success in English classes through Grade 12. Then graduate school stemmed from the idea in fourth year that becoming a prof would be good and easy and lead to a life of teaching with periodic bursts of research - the perfect cushion on which to sit and write my novels and poems.
But the MA shattered that myth and showed me the intensity of the research required of profs. This turned me off - not because I don't like research, but because I'd rather spend my extra time writing things that a large audience (or a large niche audience) could enjoy, rather than maybe another hundred, or thousand, or million people with specialized degrees of their own.
Genre fiction also seems like it has more reach and importance than essays on what happened to the Celts after the Angles and the Saxons settled old Britain's shores.
Anyway. I have the MA and no job. Yes. I should have been more pro-active with job fairs and such. Yes I should have had an attitude of, look for work where I am, moving back to Ontario is not inevitable. But I didn't. do I regret these moves to inaction? No.
Why? Because, in spite of the usual things one expects parents and relatives and people in the small town community to say to someone who's starting out as a writer (of all things), living at home gives me the financial freedom necessary to start write professionally and the training in working from home that any disciplined freelancer needs.
In spite of my writing, teachers college looms over me still because it's another described step on a way to success that's more familiar to my parents. Both got jobs that aren't necessarily related to what they trained for, but still they say. So really, I think that's the big reason why teacher's college is even an issue for me. It's what I'm supposed to do. 6 years of being told that, as an English major, what I'll be doing is teaching seems to have taken its toll.
But then we get into what I feel like I've been called to do. I remember the rush experience from my first good ESL class in South Korea. And I remember the rush I get every time I get paid for having written something. Are both the same? Is one more of a rush? One more positive?
Writing and teaching in essence are compatible, and in practice, too. But my feeling is almost as though I've had enough formal education for now, and that maybe I should just stick with freelancing, and take it from there. Work hard at it and see where things wind up.
And teacher's college? Well. We'll see about that next week. Acceptances might've arrived by then (via post or email) and I'll take another look at the question from a logical standpoint.
If you've got your own stories of struggling with compatible/conflicting choices, feel free to share them in the comments. Also, go ahead and follow my blog, I'll follow you back if you've got one!
And check back here Wednesday for my thoughts on a recent attention grabbing article and on Friday for my review of the Donnie Darko sequel S.Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale.
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