Editorial: Dodging a bullet with current teachers glut

Ontario's teaching colleges see record number of applications, fortunately, none mine


Unlike more than a few of my peers, the latest survey on the number of would-be educators applying to Ontario’s teaching colleges this year provided a bit of relief for me.

The Ontario College of Teachers reported two weeks ago(March 13) that a record 16,000 undergraduates are currently being assessed by college registrars for next fall, while fewer than half that figure will eventually be accepted.

Teaching was a professional option I seriously considered a couple of years ago, as I pluckily thought about what I’d do after college.

In light of the study, I’m glad I didn’t.

The report revealed that although figures for admittance were tight across all subjects, most openings were – surprise, surprise – in the maths and sciences, as well as French studies; disciplines that I, being a history graduate, have almost no training in whatever.

The report states that the prospects for liberal arts majors, like history or English, are faring considerably worse, as a rash of new hires a few years ago has refreshed current staff levels in those areas with young teachers that aren’t going anywhere soon.

Beyond my initial relief from ducking that bullet, the findings had two other effects on me: the first, being that the report confirmed a suspicion I had developed during my undergrad years. And secondly, I find the current direction of education in Ontario somewhat disheartening.

The suspicion began with a simple question. I began fielding this almost immediately after my first lecture at Queen’s during my first September in Kingston: walking back to residence with a few engineering friends, I was asked, “so, are you gonna teach, than?” As if there was no other practical use for a history degree beyond converting it into a job teaching others about history (so they could presumably grow up, go to school…rinse and repeat).

It’s a question that, until recently (as I pursue a career as a journalist), I frequently had to answer for.

Beyond the fury this typically invoked in me, I began to form a realization; if I was cornered into answering the ‘history question’ time and time again, it was likely that the hundreds of other history students at my school were too (and, I would learn, they were).

If they didn’t have designs on teaching before, they were slowly being told that there were few occupational alternatives for history grads outside of education.

Add to that assumption that roughly half of the one-million or so university students in Canada in 2004 (another record [Stats Can]) were enrolled in some kind of liberal arts program (social sciences or humanities) and to me, a maelstrom for teaching college applications was forming.

Roughly two years on, and the proof is in the pudding.

Aside from the sheer glut, I found the findings a bit disheartening as well. As mentioned, applicants with math, science and technology backgrounds are finding greater success in being accepted to teaching colleges as well as getting jobs – a reflection of the current economy, according to a source in the study.

The University of Toronto, one of the largest education schools in the country, is currently enlarging its numbers in those “high-priority subject spheres,” at the expense of liberal arts positions, the study said.

But will this lead to a reflection worth seeing?

Although not as tangible as say, a bridge or medical research, the social studies provide us with equally valuable ends – history, culture, context and purpose are things that a society can not easily function without as much as bricks and mortar, adequate medical care or broadband communication.

My personal relief that I didn’t choose to throw my lot in with the recent graduates facing a problem that isn’t likely to dissipate in the near term, is in part replaced with a bit of anxiety. I find the waning of esteem for subjects like history, English and other social sciences disquieting.

However, there may be a silver lining for both the poor folks left at the gates, as well as the disciplines in decline within Ontario’s education colleges.

The report also said that the current situation is the opposite of what was happening a decade ago when there was a dearth of teachers and the humanities held a more prominent place in the curriculum.

There is hope than, that it may just take a bit of time before both problems resolve themselves.


-JS

It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated. - Alec Bourne

Editorial: Web works -- I've got a job

Roughly six months ago, I set out to establish some kind of presence on the Web in order to attract prospective employers, and eventually get a job. I landed on Google's Blogger on the advice of some friends, and several postings later, guess what?

It has worked.

I'm thrilled to write that I've been hired as a journalist/photographer by the newest publication to enter the Greater Toronto Area's media milieu, the GTA Business News.

The GTA Business News is a recent start-up news service that will cater to the thousands of small businesses and individual entrepreneurs across the Greater Toronto Area that are the nuts and bolts of Ontario's economy.

The organization plans on publishing a print version bi-weekly beginning April 20, as well as develop a dyanamic online presence that will be updated regularly.

I'm cognizant of the fact that I'm straying a bit from the mandate of JS 2007 with this post, I'm not in the habit putting up the type of personal fare better reserved for a journal or something. However, it's a justifiable lapse to anyone who may have taken a moment to read the earliest postings on the site (found here and here) .

When I started this in October of last year, my explicit goal was to develop an online resource that editors (or any person looking to hire, for that matter) could access easily in the hopes of getting me a job. Twenty-five weeks later, the blog has delivered admirably.

But more than this, my experience serves as a guidepost to anyone entering the media field(s)--the print era for news media is ending; any organization beyond the most marginal of community newspapers has begun the transition from print across the digital divide that will one day (sooner rather than later) see the complete disappearance of print news in any significant way.

It's not particularly alarming or surprising to many, I know, but I'm a little disquieted that (a) there isn't more emphasis on being prepared for this transition at the j-school level, and (b) more young journalists (at least where I am) aren't developing a great deal of Web-familiarity (as producers, not consumers -- i.e. maintaining web logs, or are familiar with the standard caveats of Web2.0) .

At any rate, the link for GTA's own website will be up soon--once the site is functioning; you can be sure to find it here.

-JS

Nothing endures but change.

- Herclitus

World/Opinion: Gore to the fore (a call to arms for Al Gore)

On why Al Gore should be the next president of the United States

An op-ed piece written for an assignment (read: not published), but worthy of being blogged -- and it's my blog, so I can do that kind of thing (which is pretty cool, right):

Al Gore, left, at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles. (CBS)

An epochal opportunity has come to the fore in recent weeks for both a man, and by extension, the world.

Al Gore, the effusive champion of climate change awareness, has before him the chance to win the next United States presidential election in 2008, and in turn, spearhead international efforts to defuse humanity’s looming climate crisis.

For both Gore and the planet, the portents are numerous that the 2000 presidential candidate should try his hand again next year.

The former vice-president has become the indisputable icon of a reinvigorated green movement, after his global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, won best documentary honours at this year’s Oscars in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Even more dramatic is Gore's Nobel prize nomination on Feb. 01.

He is one of the most popular figures in America right now, while his political adversary in 2000, President George W. Bush, is a lame duck that will leave office in roughly 100 weeks with a legacy history is sure to punish.

What’s more, any Democratic candidate for the presidency in ‘08 will surely benefit from an American electoral mood that seems likely to treat Republicans the same as it did in the mid-term elections last November –- by handing them their pink slips --according to the British magazine, The Economist.

For the planet –- or at least the parts of it we humans value most –- a President Gore could mark the first step in a doubtlessly long and labourious process of recasting current industrial models along less pollutant and more sustainable trajectories.

With clear evidence of polar melting and weather distortions now, it’s become an international imperative (this week marked the beginning of the “broadest scientific investigation yet” into the implications of polar melting, according to a Reuters report, involving 60 national governments).

Global warming is no longer the overwrought fears of altruistic scientists -- it has become the central issue for several governments; the next federal election may hinge on the issue here in Canada.

The threat of submerged cities (like Tokyo, New York and Amsterdam to name a few), and increased frequency of destructive weather patterns like Hurricane Katrina (that leveled New Orleans in 2005) has forced even the most titanic emitter of all, America, to say that it must find substantial energy sources beyond oil, as Bush himself suggested in the last State of the Union address.

It says here that the Democrats should be vehemently urging Gore to run again.

He is the party’s ideal candidate: he’s the figurehead of the most pressing issue of the coming decades, is riding a wave of unparalleled popularity, and still has plenty of political capital in Washington, DC, as a former vice-president.

It too, would be a mistake for Democrats to believe enough American voters are progressive enough to elect the party’s other leading candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (Ohio polls indicate Clinton is favourable there, but what of even more traditional swing states?).

What’s more, as president, Gore could be a powerful trigger for the rest of the world –- including China and India -– to take necessary measures to overcome the gravest threat civilization has ever faced outside of nuclear war.

For the sake of the planet’s inhabitants, it’s an opportunity we hope he accepts.

-JS

"Leaders keep their eyes on the horizon, not just on the bottom line."
- Warren Bennis