So some serious time has passed since my last post on this blog and in that time I have had the opportunity to grow and develop a lot as a teacher. In the past few months I have started my last semester of uni for my degree ever! Completed an 8 week placement in a grade 3 classroom ( and loved every second) and begun to apply for teaching jobs for next year.

In applying for jobs I have had to really consider what I value as a teacher and try to visualise where I see myself teaching. Do I want to work in a primary school? kindergarten? public school? child care? private school? rural or surburban school or a school in the city?

Would I be willing to work in a huge school (1000+) students?
Or a school with under 100 students?

Would working in a primary school now make it difficult to work in early childhood in the future? what about the other way around?

Since my placement experience I have mainly focused on applying for primary school positions in public schools however I have applied for many jobs and unfortunately have not yet had much success. It has been hard to find the motivation to keep on applying despite having so little success
however I am determined that in some way or another I will be a teacher next year. Wherever I end up I hope that it will be a place that I can feel comfortable and confident to continue my learning journey.

I have to just keep reminding myself that today's decisions don't have to dictate the rest of my life and I have to hope that potential employers will see the merit in having any experience even if it is not directly related to the field in which I am applying.

Labels: decisions, ECE, job hunting, primary education, teaching

If I had the opportunity to ask all the teachers (and prospective teachers) I know one question it would be "what does creativity mean to you?" Last year I had a class on creativity and imagination in the curriculum and I must admit it has completely transformed the way I see myself as both a teacher and a learner. I feel sad for other student teachers who were not fortunate enough to take this elective because I think at the end of the day creativity is one of the essential elements to being human. As teachers we need to recognise that if we want students to be creative, act creative, and think creative, we must first understand what these things mean.

This is a topic that continues to inspire and change my thinking and something I hope to write about further in the future

Labels: creativity, teaching

Now that I am coming to the end of my teacher education there are a lot of different things weighing on my mind. The first and obvious thing I am nervous about is finding a job. It is scary to think about answering interview questions and submitting resumes for a job I am so passionate about. There is also the competition factor and the fact that there will probably be hundreds of other students graduating this year that I will be up against. I have to try and figure out what makes me so special and different from all these others in order to find a job.

Another major question weighing on my mind is whether I should teach primary or early childhood. I am really struggling with this decision because certainly their are elements of both that I really connect with. The beauty of doing a dual degree is that I have more options but it also makes it harder to decide where I'm heading. I figure to try and make this decision I should probably make a list of all the things that I love about both jobs and then go from their.

Pros for early childhood
- creativity is a major player in most early years classrooms more so than in primary
- more flexibility and freedom to develop the curriculum around students interests
- great structure of collaborative planning and team teaching
- Community focused and high levels of family engagement
- no national testing
- setting a foundation and love of learning that can set students on the right path for the rest of their education
- massive skill shortage and change of government subsidies means there are many early childhood education jobs available. 
- I am passionate about teaching in the early years

Pros for Primary school 
- Generally a greater opportunity for infusing technology into the classroom
- Greater in school support network, more teachers, more opportunities for advice
- Can see students progress through school and maintain a relationship with them for longer than your may in ece.
- clearly developed union support
- Many of my university peers are heading towards primary school education
- maybe one day I could instigate change and a shift towards the structure that I love about ece.
- there are many lead teachers to help with curriculum areas such as maths, English, science ect.
- the sorts of conversations and topics explored in the upper primary levels and very inspiring and enlightening.
-the days are longer but time seems to pass so much faster with the set up of primary classes
- I am passionate about teaching in the early years

 Ah! I just don't know even listing my favourite things about each makes me love them a little bit more. I realise that it may be possible to do both but I am sceptical about how this would go. I have also been thinking that maybe I would like to do a masters some day and that throws me as well because I don't know how that would fit with being a full time teacher. 

i think ultimate goal would be to work in a school that has both early childhood and primary education but unfortunately i don't know many schools like that around where I live.

So my question to you is what would you do in my position?

Labels: decisions, ECE, education, primary education, teaching

So i wanted to start a blog where I would be able to chronicle my adventures in learning to be and eventually being a teacher. I also want this to be a place where i may record any awesome resources i come across and save them for later.

Labels: me, start, teaching