Marketable Skills Learnt From The Teaching Profession
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I remember the day when I have finally decided why I wanted to be a good teacher. I wanted to impact lives and make a difference. If you have been following my posts, you would have seen one or two posts talking about making a difference. You will also find the reason behind how I was impacted to be a teacher as well.
Its not a surprise that many people would associate our profession to rewards that are not monetary. However, some may be cynical about it and claim that being a teacher, you are chained to a lifetime of misery and boredom. I had a student like that. This was when I have started training teachers and this student claimed that teaching was just not 'cool' enough. Interestingly, I have found many teacher trainees with similar perception. Most of them join up due to their parents' strong encouragement or free tuition given at the university. In some countries, enrolling in a teacher training college exempts you from paying any tuition fees.
Over the years, I have started addressing this with my class. The question I try to answer is what do you get from being a teacher? I do this especially for those who are not looking to be a teacher for the long run. So here goes...
Leadership Skills
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Leadership skills can be rather subjective. In this case, I will be defining it as the ability to lead, being decisive and being level-headed in tough situations. The media has portrayed teachers to being incompetent most of the time. The number of bad teacher movies definitely trump the good ones. The teaching profession however is tough and most teachers I know are leaders in their own right. Some may lead better than others, but all teachers lead. I see this especially among my teacher trainees. After 3 months of being in school for their internship, they come back changed. They will tend to be more outspoken and decisive in their plans.
The change does not end there, you see a gradual change even in the most timid of all the trainees. Most, if not all of them can go in front of a noisy class of 40 and control it. That's leadership and its a skill that gets further developed throughout a teacher's teaching career. I can attest to that and I have found this skill useful, especially when it comes to leading a team to complete a particular project.
In terms of being level-headed. That skill develops over time especially if you are teaching a primary school class. You learn how to stay calm when one child has just cut himself, while one is running around a class with a lizard in his shirt (yes, this happened, unfortunately). A teacher will know how to calm the class down, apply first aid and untuck the child's shirt so the lizard would fall out. An experienced teacher can do all three simultaneously with ninja-like precision.
Being Unusually Resourceful
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Throughout my career one particularly annoying tagline that I have heard is 'ZERO BUDGET'. The term was used because there was no budget for most of the education activities. As such, we were all asked to source for our funding or run an entire program with money from our own pockets.
The ability to find funding to support different projects is a great skill. Furthermore, the ability to manage what limited funds available is an invaluable skill in any other job outside of the teaching field. Many who have been in the profession long enough know what I mean. It won't be far-fetched to see teachers setting an example by participating in the students' fund raising events to raise funds for school projects.
Becoming an Expert
I found that teaching forces you to be an expert in some subjects. You would have to research and learn before teaching it in the class. I have been teaching assessment for a few years and that has opened up some really great opportunities. This includes consultancy gigs at other institutions. If I were to stop teaching one day, I could likely find a job as a writer and consultant in certain subjects.
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I remember being asked to advice on certain assessment papers outside of my institution. This opens up some really good networking and professional opportunities in the future. I have known teachers who were given the opportunity to write books on their respective fields. They were given such opportunities due to the many years that they have been teaching a particular subject. Thus, their knowledge on how to help the students understand a particular topic is an extremely marketable product.
Conclusion
While I am not planning to leave the profession anytime soon, I am not against anyone who plans to. I think that if someone chooses to be a teacher, they won't have to stay one forever. When the day comes for them to switch jobs, they will find that the skills acquired throughout their career would prove to be extremely useful.
There are other more specific skills that a teacher will acquire, depending on what subject the teacher is involved in. However, one thing holds true, teaching may not be a cool job, but give it time and you will find the skills acquired throughout your career to be rewarding both monetarily and professionally.
Teaching was always my dream job growing up. I still sometimes miss the student teaching I did in college - right before I found out I was pregnant with my oldest son. I have done a lot of homeschool related activities with my two boys, and it has helped fulfill my desire to work with children. And I agree with you, teachers gain a lot of useful skills that could transfer to another career if they chose to leave the classroom behind.
Yes absolutely a teacher can change the whole society using his skills...
Great and insightul article. Never thought about our profession in this manner. Thank you @alvinauh
@alvinauh, it is always an eye opener to read your post, and truly benefited looking at the perspective of a teacher.
Thanks! glad you enjoyed it
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Master is a selfless hero
People forget, when they were children, it was the teachers who taught them.
I agree with many of your points, especially the one about learning to be resourceful: making do with limited resources was necessary many years ago in Taiwan (nowadays, teachers in bigger cities tend to be somewhat spoiled).
One point you didn't mention is presentation skills. I used to be terribly introverted, but after becoming a teacher, I find that I am much less shy about standing up before a group (even on a moment's notice) and articulating my ideas in a way that is easily understood. I have also learned to project my voice quite well without using a microphone.
I'm sure many experienced teachers have noticed similar improvements.
Have to agree with you on that one. Our voices can be heard a football field away..haha.. Do you teach in a rural area?
I don't know what you mean by "big city", but Taipei is big enough for me (2,000,000 people). When I first arrived in the early 1970s, life was much simpler: lights out at midnight in our university dorms, rice paddies all over the city, no air conditioning except in fancy hotels and upscale department stores.
Teaching was done with chalkboards and mimeographed handouts (written requests had to be submitted and approved days in advance). Tape recorders were a luxury available in a few privileged classrooms. I quickly learned to project my voice to the back of any classroom, but those were the good old days when students weren't constantly checking their social media.
Uh huh.. I do miss those days, though I try to adapt accordingly when it comes to technology. Are your students allowed to bring phones in the classroom? My administrators started banning it at school
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I am always amazed by a teachers ability to multi-task. Thankfully these days there are many companies that are willing and eager to hire teachers that have been in a classroom. The biggest fear schools have is that their employees get poached away by these companies that offer educational products and tools. I know several that have left staff to work for an assessment company and they now do much better for themselves than what they made at the school. It can be a big deal if money is your main motivation...
Wow.. You have that? It's not common in my country though, it would be cool but most think that teachers are limited to the classroom only and no good elsewhere. What's this assessment company? They specialize in exams?
Yes. Illuminate Education is the company and they actually have a policy that all of their trainers have to have been a classroom teacher at some point. I know many other education employees that have went on to work at sales or marketing businesses that serve the education sector. Many times teachers come back as subject area coaches as well. My mother in law was a writing coach for several years after she "officially" retired.