ENCORE TEACHERS: Classroom calling
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Teaching appears to be the encore career of choice, judging from the boom in articles and studies about people taking up the challenge of public school classrooms.
“Clearly it’s not for the money,” writes Meg McConahey in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. “For many, it is a calling that went unheeded early in life in favor of a more lucrative career. For others, it is a chance to reconnect with a subject they once fell in love with, whether it be art, literature or history.”
The story highlights Dave Donnelly, who co-founded a successful biotech company, sold it to a Japanese corporation, and returned to his first love — teaching. “Students are amazing. They’re funny. They have incredible insight. I write down pages of things I’ve learned from students,” the economics teacher at Sonoma Valley High School told McConahey.
Education, and teaching in particular, topped the list of desired encore careers in the MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures Encore Career Survey of 44-70 year olds, released earlier this year. That finding was confirmed by a survey for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, N.J., which found that 42 percent of college-educated adults ages 24 to 60 would consider teaching as a career.
“There are many people of this generation who are extremely idealistic and who came out of the spirit of all that was going on when they were growing up and had a great desire to make a difference in many different ways,” said John Gomperts, president of Civic Ventures, which publishes Encore.org.
“But a lot of people get diverted, and life intervenes and you end up being something you never thought you were going to be. And yet for some, there is a little flame that still burns with idealism and their dreams deferred.”
Joan Shinkle, 59, was a surgeon and health care executive before taking several years off to spend time with her son. Shinkle now teaches ninth-grade science at Casa Grande High School in Petaluma, Calif.
“I have been gainfully employed, which is not just about making money but about being useful, for all of my adult life,” Shinkle told McConahey. “I suppose I could have decided I wanted to learn about ancient Chinese tapestry. But I was interested in being of use to the community.”
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NY Times Features Career Switchers Program, Fast-Track Teaching
An article in today’s New York Times features the story of Wylie and Katie Schwieder, two Boomers who recently turned to teaching as a second career. Virginia’s Career Switchers program, a grantee of the Encore Community Colleges initiative, provided a fast-track pathway for the Schwieders to apply their previous professional experience to new jobs teaching high school math and middle school English.
Nearly all states accept some form of alternative teacher training; Virginia has “one of the most streamlined programs for career changers,” says NYTimes reporter Elizabeth Olson. According to the US Department of Education, there are about 600 alternative education programs contributing about 20 percent of the nation’s new teachers.
Elizabeth Olson also wrote last year about “Second Acts in American Lives,” including community-college pathways to encore careers.
Encore teachers can help ease looming shortage
The New York Times highlights a new report from the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future that warns of a worsening teacher shortage as baby-boom generation teachers retire.
NCTAF has been at the forefront of encouraging second-career teachers. At the Encore Careers Summit in December, Tom Carroll, president of NCTAF, pledged to create cross-generational learning teams to link younger and older educators and would-be educators.
“These teams will open new opportunities for millions of non-teaching Boomers who are eager to pursue Encore careers in education,” he said, specifically citing a plan to recruit scientists retiring from NASA into science teaching encore careers.
David Bank
Editor, Encore.org
Many schools have difficulty
Many schools have difficulty finding planning time for teachers of self-contained special education classes that include two or more grade levels of students. This problem also occurs when we have combination classes (i.e.) a K-1 class, usually created because there are a few more students in each grade level, but not enough to warrant two new sections, one for each grade level, thus the mixed class. Because schools generally want students to go to encore classes (specials) with their age peers, when the kindergarten students are out to PE, the 1st grade students may still be in the classroom; thus no planning time for the teacher. Often the solution is to send the whole class together with one or the other grade level.
( home ged and distance learning courses )
Getting California credential as 2ndry / Cmty College teacher
Am 66 yr old lawyer with extensive business experience nationwide in labor and employment law representing employers, with an undergrad dual major in biology and history. With over 16 years adjunct faculty experience in all aspects of HR, management, supervisoion, regulatory compliance, performance management and related subjects, plus nearly 20 years of adult education curiculum development and delivery, and years as a scoutmaster, I’d like to continue teaching where it can have more impact. How might I obtain the necessary certification and teaching opportunities to realize this goal.
P.S. I can even mentor the districts and teachers on more effective collective bargaining; I’ve done it for decades!
A New Idea for Certification
Judy Goggin, Vice President, Civic Ventures
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. published a report in June, 2008 on the Passport to Teaching program http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/pdfs/passportteaching.pdf
It’s a new pathway for certifying teachers but it’s only accepted in seven states so far. The project attempts to address some of the certification issues raised in this stream of comments by creating a nationally recognized, portable, high quality pathway to teacher certification.
“The American Board Passport to Teaching certification (ABCTE) was formed through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to develop an alternative certification for teachers who needed to earn certification as well as for professionals seeking to change careers and become teachers. The goal was then and continues to be to provide an affordable, flexible, and high-quality route to certification that is also nationally recognized and portable. Unlike many other alternative routes to certification, ABCTE does not require any formal course work or classroom-teaching practice prior to certification. Rather, the certification centers on a set of exams, one in content and one in pedagogy.”
Useful national web links on teacher certification
Judy Goggin, Vice President, Civic Ventures
Certification requirements are set individually by states and some have reciprocal agreements to accept one another’s certification processes.
Some useful information about teacher certification is available through the Troops to Teachers website:
http://www.dantes.doded.mil/DANTES_WEB/troopstoteachers/RECIP-text.asp
Another good source for info about reciprocal agreements among states is the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. The following link provides information about the exact relationships among the states: http://www.nasdtec.org/agreement.tpl
Another online source for alternative pathways to teacher certification is TeachNow.org http://www.teach-now.org/ hosted by the National Center for Alternative Teacher Certification
New local pathways & national conversations in Washington DC
I just learned about a new alternative certification option, open to career-switchers, for people interested in teaching positions in Washington, DC. It’s sponsored by the Center for Inspired Teaching, and more information is available at http://certification.inspiredteaching.org/about.php . Scholarships are available to cover the majority of tuition and fees.
If you’re interested in the policy and best-practice conversations that are shaping alternative routes to certification, there’s a national conference coming up soon — also in Washington DC. It’s sponsored by the National Center for Alternative Certification. See http://www.teach-now.org/tneventdisp.cfm?tneventid=18 .
Finally, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future is doing some exciting work on creating cross-generational learning teams in schools. Check out their research and materials at http://nctaf.org/CrossGeneration.htm .
too much red tape
It’s the same here in Missouri. Even teachers who are fully credentialed moving in from other states have to take a year or more of coursework to qualify to teach in Missouri and, believe me,there is nothing better about K-12 education here than there is anywhere else!I know more than a couple of teachers from other states (New York, Colorado, for example) who just moved on rather than go through what was expected of them here.
Teaching in California: Too many hoops
I have a BA in Education, a MS in Public Administration and I could not obtain a clear teaching creditial in California. I came here in 1989 and I just gave up because there was always another class another something required. I don’t think it has changed.
Terri
Teacher Credentials
The frustration here in Minnesota, where several highly educated and conscientious SHiFT members would love to teach, is that there is no way around the lengthy credentialing education process except a portfolio review which demands prior experience in classroom teaching.
What is the difference in California that allows Dave Donnelly and Joan Shinkle to teach in public school classrooms? How did they obtain their teaching credentials? Or is there a waiver process?
Jan Hively
(Janet M. Hively, PhD)
HIVEL001@umn.edu
California teaching credential
Since you’re talking about me, I’ll speak up. My credential coursework took a year. Three classes in the summer of 2006, another four classes in the fall of 2006 and one the spring of 2007. I also passed a competency examination in chemistry (my primary subject) and was granted authorization to teach biology on the basis of my medical degree. It sounds like “portfolio review” is a lot like the California waiver process that only applies to someone with previous school teaching experience.
Other than the summer classes and teaching as an intern instead of student teaching, my experience was pretty typical. In California it is easy to get a secondary credential in a year. And, many of my non-coursework expenses (testing fees for example) were reimbursed by a state grant because there is a real shortage of science and math teachers here. Schools that need teachers NOW can hire a someone without a credential as an INTERN (that happened to me), but that person must be enrolled in a state approved credential program and, then, coursework is usually spread out over a longer time.
I was hired to teach part time in November, 2006, and worked as an intern for the rest of the year. This is my third year in the classroom, and I’ll receive a clear credential at the end of this year. California requires two years of classroom teaching before granting a clear credential to anyone.
I worked .4 my first year, which was just right for my first time in the classroom. Full time last year and now I’m working .6. .6 is about right, as this is the hardest job I’ve ever had. What I saw was that my encore colleagues who went directly to the classroom full time without coursework prep didn’t last.
Teaching
How ironic!! Many of us spent decades (38 years myself) and retired reluctantly from public education. Now after 2 years of "rewirement", maybe I will go back at least part-time.