Losing hope in teaching

cmegzc

I’m a post primary teacher based in the west. Subjects are English and history. I am into my 5th year of teaching and only working as a casual sub. I have solid enough experience with maternity leaves etc. I have done 10-15 interviews this year and I’m at my wits end. I am considering going back and doing a masters in writing to give myself a higher qualification and make me stand out slightly more as my experience isn’t enough. I have applied for jobs in other parts of the country and still nothing. Is the masters a waste of time and money? Would it make me more of an attractive candidate? Any suggestions as to what I can do as I really am feeling so low and useless right now.

paddybarry

Masters wont help you. Its all about experience. Keep knocking on the door and you will eventually get a break. Get involved in as many extra curricular activities as possible. Make your interest well known in interviews. Good luck.

maynooth_rules

Perhaps get practice on your interview skills. You are a little unfortunate in that History is sooo oversubscribed with teachers. English and History teachers are ten a penny so interview training can make you stand out from the crowd.

Blaizes

Try to add a modern foreign language perhaps or Irish.Had been considering doing a MFL myself but now seems some schools are hiring native MFL teachers so might be futile, not completely sure.

But Irish - You are in the West of Ireland as you say get yourself to a Gaeltacht area and as another poster suggested here try to really improve your Irish and get to a good oral level at least.

Good luck it's never easy but try to keep going...

cmegzc

Thanks for responses but my level of Irish is pretty abysmal, I did ordinary for the LC and had no interest in improving it previously. I know I am in the west so close to Connemara, how would you recommend on going about improving my Irish in the Gaeltacht as an adult? I never even attended one during the summer as a student...do they do summer courses or...? Thanks

RealJohn

Like Blaizes said, if you can improve your conversational Irish, and then, ideally, your written Irish, you’ll give yourself the option of working in Gaelcholáistí and Gaelcholáistí are struggling to get teachers with Irish these days, especially around Dublin (if you don’t mind relocating). You don’t actually need great Irish, though I would recommend that you continue to try to improve your Irish if you go down that route. You might even enjoy Irish as an adult in a way you might not have as a child.

byhookorbycrook

I disagree that "you actually don't need good Irish" to work in an Irish speaking school. Imagine if the same were said about a school teaching through English?

RealJohn

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I disagree that "you actually don't need good Irish" to work in an Irish speaking school. Imagine if the same were said about a school teaching through English?

Oh, you certainly should have good Irish, but the fact is that sometimes Gaelcholáistí are forced to hire a teacher with very little Irish because otherwise, they just don’t have enough teachers to teach classes. That’s the sort of thing that happens when the government takes away the meager allowance for teaching through Irish. Why take on the extra work and extra challenge for no extra money when you can get a job in an english speaking school at the same salary and not have to teach students in their second language with a fraction of the physical and online resources?

Edit - my point was that if you raise your Irish to ‘passable’, you’re now ahead of the people with poor Irish, which makes you more attractive to Gaelcholáistí who might be faced with the choice of either hiring you or hiring someone with no Irish who will definitely leave if they’re offered a job working through english.