Reply #30: No, not employed, not even as a sub,

[MadHound]

When I went back to school four years ago, they were begging for teachers around here. But the combination of the economy turning south, and the war on public education meant that teaching jobs dried up. I was practically hired for a middle school Social Studies job at the end of my student teaching last fall. A spot was opening up in the spring(the teacher was moving elsewhere), the principal, my cooperating teacher and department head all loved me and the work I did. But the budget crunch hit, no money came through from the feds (until far too late, in Sept.), and rather than filling that position, the school board decided to pack those extra 120 kids onto the backs of the two other teachers left.

I've applied for teaching jobs within a thirty mile radius. My resume is good, great GPA, member of AX, KDP, and PAT honor societies, great references, certified to teach from K-12 (though really want to teach secondary history), but nothing. Dropped off app after app, and the school official says "sorry, we're not hiring." And since the market is so glutted with laid off teachers, getting a sub job for a new teacher out of college is virtually impossible around here. I know how to get a job, how to present my self, get myself noticed, but I'm getting absolutely no nibbles.

Same thing is happening with other professional, non-teaching jobs I'm applying for. Tons of applicants, so the employer can pick and choose. I graduated last May and have been hitting the pavement ever since, but have yet to go to a single interview. At best I get polite rejection letters. It's depressing. Hell, I've even applied back into the old fields that I used to work in, and now apparently I'm overqualified. I'm lucky, my wife has a great job and can support us, but our lives are on hold. Remodeling projects are put off, as are vacations and anything that isn't strictly a necessity. Our vehicles are twelve years old, and starting to reach the age where they would be worth less than a major repair, yet I can't foresee purchasing a new one anytime in the near future.

So I work around our place here, a twenty acre orchard (one that I started five years ago so that we would have a supplemental retirement fund in our old age, I figured out long ago that I would see little or nothing of the SS funds I paid in). I look for work, walk the dogs, work the land, and write. At this point I'm thinking that it is my writing that is going to make me money. Who knows, here in a year or two I might actually have a book for sale, we'll have to see how the vagaries of the publishing world treat me.

I'll see what happens when teacher hiring/firing season begins in earnest again next spring, but given our economy I'm not optimistic. I know of a couple of teachers in the area who are retiring, so there's some hope there, but in reality school districts are still just as pinched now as they were last year, and that's not going to ease up anytime soon. I'm thinking of doing what other recent college grads are doing, fleeing into graduate programs, be a TA, get a small stipend and my classes paid for. We'll see, I won't cross that bridge until early next summer.

Sorry for the lengthy reply, thanks for listening.