The Wild Wild West - Or - What's a Nice Teacher Like You Doing In a Place Like This?

NOW I get it! It's taken me awhile to figure this out, but I'll try to explain it as I understand it.

When one graduates from Uni (university) with a teaching certificate (which takes the usual 5 years or more), one tries to get a job, right? Well, here in Australia it ain't that easy.

One seems to earn points for the teaching positions one has. One is hired based on the number of points. You get a lot of points for teaching out west or in the middle of nowhere. You really have to "do your time" (and they seem to call it just that) in No Man's Land before you're eligible to teach in paradise where I am, or anywhere on the eastern coast, at least.

What does that look like, as we teachers like to say? In the west it looks like young, vivacious, excited, naive, energetic and enthusiastic people working hard and preparing, creating, stenciling, laminating, and making everything for their wonderful new students. In No Man's Land.

It looks like teachers who are settling for substitute work, for literally years, to earn smaller increments of points in more desireable areas, like the eastern coastal regions.

It looks like older teachers finally landing a real-live classroom they can call their very own in the town of their (and their family's!) choice. It also looks like a lot of older teachers working in schools in the desireable regions, which as we all know, as it's pros and cons.

What about an older person who decides to go into teaching for the first time? Perhaps a mom whose children are finally school age and she's gone back to earn her degree? Does she leave her (by now) tweens at home with Dad (if he's there) to go west to "do time?" Yup. Hey, it's only for 18 months or 2 years. !!

I remember seeing huge banners at the job fairs in Oregon and California advertising big salaries to come teach in Palm Springs, San Jose, Arizona, and some others. Why? The turnover was huge. It was difficult to keep good teachers at the troubled schools. What if we had to "do time" at an inner city L.A. school in order to come to beautiful Liberty?

Food for thought.