Since graduating from the Faculty of Education, I’ve found myself repeating the same phrase: “you should get a Bachelor of Education!” Few people know that although teacher’s college prepares students for teaching, it also sets them up for a diverse set of opportunities in post-grad life (especially women). Teaching in a classroom can be more important than you think, and that’s without considering several other amazing ways of using a teaching degree. Within 1-2 years, you study a little bit of pedagogy, do some placements in schools to get some real-life experience with students, and graduate with the potential to work anywhere in the world.
Publicly funded schools in Ontario offer teachers stable and comfortable employment because of the unions that protect our jobs. Everyone knows that teachers get much more vacation time than others, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Schools, for the most part, are safe spaces for female employees because the field is so heavily dominated by women. Compared to my friends’ experiences in a career path like commerce, teaching has offered me a safe, female space to collaborate with likeminded women in effort to provide the best possible education we can for our students.
Beyond the classroom, the B.Ed is incredibly diversifiable: think of any company or organization that needs to train their employeesafter hiring them: that’s teaching! As a teacher, you can market yourself in almost any job setting. Teachers can work in the corporate environments designing and delivering training, within HR departments as consultants for training, and deliver all kinds of different management and professional workshops.
In order to understand just how vast the amount of potential teaching jobs are, you must consider the places where teaching happens. Colleagues and friends within the Faculty of Education work with educational technology companies, collaborating on new technology to assist with instruction, within prison systems with inmates and in outdoor education settings. Think scuba diving or ski instruction, outdoor camps and field trips, and leading educational field trips in a variety of outdoor settings as examples.
The best opportunity that has come out of my B.Ed is the opportunityto go abroad. Many international schools across the globe use Canadian curriculums in their schools, and Canadian teachers are desirable internationally. I know teachers in Australia, Taiwan, Sweden, and the Caribbean, and I’m hopingto find a teaching job in Mexico. Once hired, international schools help Canadian teachers obtain visas and set up all of the nitty-gritty life details that come with moving abroad, as well as figure out housing (which can be on or off campus). Consider how fun it would be meeting a bunch of new young teachers while educating youth and spending your free time exploring a new country or continent (I’ll take that over backpacking any day)!
Post-grad can be a difficult time for many students, and if you find yourself wondering what kind of job you will want to work, I highly encourage you to consider a Bachelor of Education because of the diverse and exciting opportunities that it will open up for you.