After five years, I really started to feel I knew who I was going to be as a teacher. I was very happy with the direction my teaching was taking. I had procedures and routines that worked well for me. I started to establish solid beliefs about how I want to teach and on the direction of education in general. This is a wonderful place for a teacher to be as she enters into the "veteran" status.
But, job hunting after seven years out of education is not just starting up another school year in September.
Ideally, I want to find a school that matches me and what I believe and want to accomplish. But, and this is a big one, I have other responsibilities now. I need to find a job to bring us back to two incomes. Sure, we saved and are getting by on one now, and could cut and manage for longer on one if we really had to. But, we want to save for the kids for college. We want to be able to take some real vacations as the kids get older. And there is plenty of work on the house that we want done or that just keeps popping up needing to be done. When I go on my interviews, my primary goal is going to be actually getting an offer.
Now, this is really scary for me. Right out of college, I applied for maybe twenty jobs. I got one offer. At the time, this concerned me, but now it is frightening. What if no one wants to higher me? I've been told that my lack of offers previously was mostly likely because I was from "away" as Stephen King will tell you Mainers call non-Mainers. While you need to live here for like 50 years to finally be called a real Mainer, no one will know I'm from Massachusetts when I send in my applications this time. My undergrad degree is from Framingham (not Farmington), but many kids go out of state to school.
I also shouldn't sell myself short. I know have five years experience. And it will be clear I chose to leave, and was no asked to resigned. Additionally, I have a new degree: my Master's in Literacy Education. Sometimes I feel guilty that my old district paid for 90% of that degree and then I left, but they did get the benefits as I was learning. In fact, it was pursuing that degree that made me a better teacher. My undergrad work taught me how to survive teaching, but it was my grad work that taught me how to flourish.
Other stay at home moms who are / were teachers (are you ever not a teacher once you've become one?), worry me about what my resume will look like when I return with a huge gap in emploment, particularly away from education. This worries me, too, and it increases every time one of them mentions it. I'm also worried about explaining a lapse in my license. Maine has a law that all teachers must take a specific course on special needs. I never received any notification from the state saying I needed to take the course, so I assumed that a similar aspect of a course in my undergrad work out of state fit the requirement. Then my application for renewal came back six weeks before William was born. After crying over the phone to someone at the department of education, I was told that it I just need to take the course, submit the transcript, and my license will be renewed. Well, its a year later and I'm just looking into taking the course. Breastfeeding William exclusively has hindered my ability to take a class. I still worry how Mike will get them both to bed alone if I were to take one this fall.
At the root of all this worrying is that I need to get hired to help take the financial pressure off of Mike.
But that isn't the only way this job search won't be ideal. Before, I only had to worry about myself when getting a job. I wasn't yet married or even engaged. I didn't feel any obligations to Mike that would restrict where or how I worked. This is completely different now. Just yesterday Mike and I were trying to figure out how we will get the kids to and from school five says a week. I used to stay after for hours since Mike didn't get home until much later. Now, I'll be running out the door to meet the kids on the bus. I used to get to school half an hour before my duty. Now, I have no idea how it will work, not to mention where the kids will go when I have to stay after roughly once a week. Any new job I have is going to have to be able to meet the family's needs before my preferences.
Yet, even if I took away my obligations to my family (both money and time wise), where I am as a teacher makes finding a job harder now than it did fresh out of college. When I graduated, I was happy to get any job. Now, I know what I want. I am very worried that I will have a difficult time finding schools that match me as a teacher. The first time around, I asked no questions during the interviews, but I'm already thinking about what I will need to ask when I start searching. (Which is the idea that got this post started).
Ultimately, I'm worried about having to settle for a position that I know I will dislike to tide us over until I can find one I do like. I want returning to work to be positive and exciting, but if I know it isn't going to be a good match, I'm afraid dread will be my main emotion. With all its hassles and headaches, I enjoy teaching and want a job that will allow me to keep enjoying it, but even more so, now that I am a mother, I want a position that will not make me feel like I am wasting my time. It will be seven years since I taught when William starts Kindergarten; just in the three that have already passed, I identify myself as a mother before anything else. Teaching, especailly ELA, is time consuming and potentially emotionally draining. I do not want to take the time and energy away from the hours I have at home with my children for a job I dread going to every morning.
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