I was formerly a health care professional who changed careers
and went into teaching. I am also over 40. Statistics show
that adults over 40 fare better than younger ones, and my
professors always emphasized that fact. Adults pay for their
own education and are more serious about studying than their
younger counterparts. I went back to school and earned my
masters degree in education, later in life, when most people are
beginning their plans to retire. But I enjoy learning and
believe life is always about learning new things.
Student teaching was wonderful and there was no problem with my
age. Higher education is a the great leveler, and when you are
in school, you are treated as an equal and valued for what you
can do, and how hard you work, for the most part, not to say it
was at all easy, but a great challenge.
When you become a student teacher in the education system, you
are not a threat to anyone (supervisors), you are an asset,
regardless of your age. So as a student teacher, again I was
not a threat to anyone and did not encounter any hostility with
administration. I was hired as a probationary teacher shortly
after I graduated. Although I was on tenure track, I was
terminated in my last month before I was to be granted tenure.
It was then that I found out what “At Will” employment meant. I
found out that the school did not need a reason to terminate
you, but that they had this right as long as you were not
tenured. I found out that the union would do nothing to stand
up and speak for a teacher as long as they are untenured, even
though you paid dues.
After I was terminated, it was totally impossible to think of
being hired again as a real teacher, so I had to work as a
substitute. I met more and more new aspiring teachers, young
and old, who could not get hired, some who had been working as
substitutes for years. I met older teachers who had been
substitutes for years, yet the school would not hire them as a
legitimate teacher. And saw other things, that added much to
my “real education”, too dark and unsavory, and too numerous to
mention here. Many new teachers seemed much more qualified and
educated than the tenured teachers who were secure in their
jobs. As undergraduates, you are inundated with class
management techniques, so you can recognize when teachers do not
follow the most basic class management rules. You get a bird's
eye view of what is going on in the schools, because you are
always being shifted about in different schools and different
areas. As an educated teacher, you see that some of many of
the teachers in violate the most common sense class management
rules, yelling at their class, not implementing consequences,
rewarding negative behavior, etc., etc., etc.
When I met another substitute with a PHd who was working as a
substitute, who told me that she could not get hired in NY after
looking for 2 years, something clicked. That is when I
cancelled my plans to further my education to get a doctorate
degree, even though I had looked forward to doing this even
though I knew I could be successful in accomplishing this. I
needed a job, and was not at liberty to earn degrees in higher
education just for the sake of my own fulfillment.
The truth of the matter is, there is no practical use for higher
education in our present education system. Clearly, our
education system is not about education. We are more involved
in the systematic dumbing down of teachers and children in our
schools than we are interested in “education” in this country.
All for the financial benefits of those who are running the
system.
And yet people still ask what is wrong with our education
system?
There are real problems in public education, but those are being hidden from public view while everybody is talking about "standards" and other such nonsense.
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