The Job Hunt

I'm sure many of my faithful readers are currently on the job hunt for a teaching position for the following school year.

If you are one of those people I want to tell you not to give up.

I know it isn't the sam for everyone but I substitute taught for most of May 2008 - June 2013.  It wasn't always easy and at one point I did (kind of) give up and took a few months off to travel the country and do some ministry work.  Thankfully by taking the break I was able to be excited about substitute teaching again once I came back (and provide you with many hilarious stories about these substitute teaching days).

I also know that it isn't easy to find a job.  I can really only speak of jobs in Canada (I've been told that it is pretty much the same story across the country and even into the USA).  It really sucks that we have to put ourselves through 5 years of university (which is what you are required to do here) and not even get full time employment when you are done.

Thankfully Ontario has started to recognize that there is a surplus of teachers out there (and a surplus of teachers without jobs) and has put a cap on its enrollment for teachers college.

Where I live they have started to put caps on class sizes which is opening up new classrooms.  Not only is this a benefit for anyone looking for a job but it is a benefit to teachers across the province - smaller class sizes (the cap is at 20 students)!

I found an article by Macleans that pretty much says all of this (and I think the comments with the article do a good job at telling what the situation is like across Canada.  You can find the article here

Do you need a place to vent because of your lack of a job?  What's the situation like where you are?  Do you choose to substitute teach or are you doing it while you wait for your own classroom?

A reader recently emailed me asking to write about my experiences as a substitute teacher as a way to teach her students about what we [the substitute teacher] go through every day.  It was a few pages long (I've had a lot of experiences as a substitute teacher) but you can look forward to reading it in a short series this summer.