Unemployment Status for Teachers Increases as Budgets Fall

As most "Western" educators have becoming increasingly aware, finding a teaching job is becoming increasingly difficult task in the in their home country for a myriad of economic factors and reasons. A recent article from "Education Week's" web page revealed some interesting statistics about the status of declining budgets and the "trickle down" for American educators struggling to find a job or those who are under employed seeking to find additional work.

The total numbers of unemployed citizens in America (not including those who are underemployed or those who have given up looking) since 1990 according to Bloomberg on line was listed as follows:

 More and more teachers are finding employment opportunities by becoming TEFL Certified English instructors and teaching internationally where the demand for Native English Speaking teachers continues to skyrocket.

Outrage Over Teacher Unemployment

By Walt Gardner

 on May 24, 2010 7:46 AM

Once eagerly awaited as a time of relaxation, summer this year for as many as 150,000 teachers nationwide will be a season of angst. That's because the recession has forced districts to issue pink slips even to teachers in once hard-to-fill subjects such as special education, chemistry, physics and math. The desperation is seen in the lopsided ratio of applicants to openings. This imbalance applies to traditional public schools as well as to charter schools.

Recognizing the implications, the U.S. Senate has a pending bill aptly titled Keep Our Educators Working Act. The best estimate is that it will take at least $23 billion to avoid an educational catastrophe in the fall. As Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, argued in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal: "The federal government didn't let Wall Street fail. Why would we do less for our public schools, which undeniably are too important to fail?" ("Public Schools Need a Bailout," May 20).

Advocates of an open educational marketplace see things differently. They maintain that at last teachers are facing what others face in the "real world." While painful, the experience will make them realize how sheltered they have been for too long. It will help change their attitude toward their hitherto protected profession. Advocates claim this can only be a positive experience in the long run. They further point out that schools now have the opportunity to pick from the best talent out there.

But this reaction sounds like schadenfreude to me. I don't believe that teachers will be more effective when they live in fear of losing their job. Those who choose teaching as a lifetime career do so because they see it as a calling. They are not doing less than they are capable of doing. As a result, threats of firing cannot and will not motivate them to be better. It's a cynical strategy.

We'll all know once and for all this fall if there is a double standard at the federal level about bailouts. If recent events are any guide, we can expect to see teachers unions making even greater concessions in order to get the emergency funding to adequately staff public schools. It's a deal with the devil that will come back to haunt teachers.

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Many of those who already have experience as TEFL instructors are finding that becoming a certified TEFL trainer is another opportunity and feather in their cap in terms of meeting the demand of TEFL instructors (who are leaving their home countries and working abroad) by teaching others how to teach TEFL effectively. Whatever plan of action unemployed educator decides to take, in general, the more accredited certifications, flexibility toward global relocation and related experience one maintains, the easier it becomes to find work.

We at TEFL Chiang Mai English Language Certification  (a fully accredited and globally recognized TEFL program) strive for our students  to learn conversational English with the latest proven strategies and methods, but share up to date pedagogy and strategies as part of our teacherscareer development through the latest teaching paradigms.

As part of TEFL Chiang Mai's goal to increase cultural and religious sensitivity among our participants, we also offer a TEFL Buddhist Exchange program where future TEFL teachers have the opportunity not only to become certified instructors but to participate as student's of the Buddhist philosophy and tradition with daily monk chats and dharma talks to better understand the religious beliefs which permeates our student's lives through out many parts of South East Asia. For more information and registration for this, or any of the "Paradise TEFL" franchise programs, please don't hesitate to contact ustoday!