How welcoming is the educational profession?

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We are better at differentiating, particularly in terms of how work must be done. I have rarely met an NT teacher who could even imagine that group work was not the do-all, be-all and end-all, and that someone who did not work well in groups couldn't be taught to do it, or shouldn't be taught/forced to do it.

The issue for many AS teachers is that there are non-teaching elements that are evaluated. Everyone is doing dog-and-pony shows on paper to try to jump through enough hoops to be judged "effective" these days. Troublesome aspects of this include "professional relationships" and "parent contact". My professional relationships are actually more extensive than most teachers in our district, because I train teachers on a national level, but of course if you don't work in a Professional Learning Community and blather on about essential questions and whatever that week's buzzwords are, or God forbid you ask for evidence that something should be implemented, there goes your score for that area. I also do not seek out parent contact, and if I do contact, I prefer to do it by email; of course, the school feels that phone contact is better somehow.

I'd like schools to be required to evaluate their teachers as fairly and impartially as we have to evaluate our students. Never gonna happen.

Education Organizations change from place to place. Each school seems to have it's own "personality" you might say, so in that case the "fit" issue really depends on the school. Personally, teaching a class of 25-35 students - many of whom aren't interested in learning and don't even want to be there - is not a good fit for me. You really need to be able to pay attention to what is going on in all corners of the classroom while teaching, and you need to be able to find a way to capture - and keep - their interest throughout the entire lesson or they get bored and cause trouble. Problem is, everyone is interested in different things in a large group. I do much better tutoring students on a one-on-one basis.

Do you believe there is not a good fit for the activity of teaching or the fit issue has more to do with the Education Organization?

Redentor74 wrote:

I have to agree. It's not welcoming at all, at least not in Ontario where I am from. Not just for people with AS, but for just about anyone who's not already a teacher. The market for teachers has been super-saturated since 2003 (I got my B. Ed. in 2004 - terrible timing .) Personally, having taught for the past seven years (I had to leave Ontario in order to do so), I have to say that I don't think it's a good fit for people with AS, unless you have a real passion for it. Still, if I hadn't have gone into teaching, I probably would never have found out that I have AS and would still be wondering what the heck was wrong with me.

I am so happy to hear you are training teachers on a national level. You have the ability to have a profound impact that will help this community.