Start with yourself first!
Outside of healthcare workers and people working to keep grocery stores stocked, few professions have been as impacted by Covid-19 as educators. Already overworked and underpaid, they are now being asked to work more hours, in conditions that could well be unsafe, and with a looming uncertainty about what comes next.
Despite all this, teachers are expected to be highly trained professionals, with requirements that don’t only include certification, but also, in a growing number of districts, a masters degree in their field.
Spend any time on YouTube or social media and you’ll see the ads for universities that offer online masters degrees to teachers. They romanticize the long nights and weekends that teachers will put in earning their degrees.
Except teachers already put in more than their fair share of long nights and weekends. Seriously, the people who write these ads were clearly never in a classroom.
I was a middle school teacher for a number of years, and it remains one of the most fulfilling roles that I’ve ever had. However, the last thing I needed was some Madison Avenue jerk telling me how I wasn’t living up to their archetype of an educator.
So how about this instead.
In a year, you can get a masters degree in the UK or Ireland for a little more than those canned advertisements suggest. You’ll be able to finish your degree in a year, which is already faster than many online programs. Additionally, you’ll be able to focus on classwork, meaning that you’re really investing in yourself as a teacher. You shouldn’t have to choose between a set of readings and a few sets of grading, after all.
That means higher grades, which combined with the international experience, will make your resume leap in the hands of principals and district officials.
More importantly, you’ll be able to recharge your batteries and come back having seen the world that you want your students to experience. Remember, as a teacher, you’re a source of inspiration for your students. If you want to inspire them to change the world, shouldn’t they see that you have traveled around it?