Teaching couple question

[teachingagain1945]

My girlfriend and I are going to go out recruiting a year from now. We have both only taught elementary school but I have certification for middle and high school social sciences too. My understanding is that with teaching couples often schools try to hire one part of the couple to fill hard to fill positions like high school science and the other part of the couple will fill an elementary position. But we'd both like to stay elementary. With no experience teaching social studies but still certified would I get hired at a good school teaching social studies or should we both look for elementary positions? Or would the benefit of being a teaching couple be outweighed but us both wanting only elementary positions?

[PsyGuy]

ISs dont get a lot of turnover in primary, its a saturated market, many of them arent going to exit an IS by giving notice in October and then taking their chances at high risk finding a new and better one. Vacancies in primary usually occur as a result of a couple where one of the ITs is in high demand and the primary spouse just goes with them. As such many iSs will reserve their primary vacancies for much later in the recruiting year and open them up when they have completed the remainder of their hiring.

It will be difficult finding two open primary vacancies. You be more competitive if you can approach social studies and stay open to dual primary vacancies, you will be challenging yourselves by focusing ONLY on dual primary vacancies.

Your not going be marketable in social studies without any experience at a third tier IS and likely in a hardship location.

[marieh]

There are several schools on TIE at the moment posting dual-primary positions. You might want to check those out, if you have not already.

[sid]

Work your strengths and stay in primary. Schools will not want to hire you for social studies, at least decent ones won't.
There are plenty of primary positions out there.
It's true that you might find it a little easier to find posts if one of you taught something else, but so what? Do what you love and what you're good at. The jobs are there. Every school needs primary teachers pretty much every year.

[shadowjack]

The other thing to consider, Teachingagain, is that you are a male in a level that is mainly female. So schools will be interested in hiring you at primary to have a balance in staff. Send off your CVs, be active in recruiting, and go for it!

[PsyGuy]

Its unlikely decent ISs will want you for SS, but decent ISs arent going to really be interested in two primary ITs they dont have two roles for or arent competitive. Marketability increases as flexibility increases, you have a better probability of finding a third tier IS with lots of turnover and vacancies the wider a net you can cast with both options for primary and social studies, and then work your way up though the tiers to better ISs.

I strongly disagree with SJs claim that "males" are some rare/highly sought after commodity for primary. There are plenty of male ITs with a primary certification available if thats what the market wanted, but parents generally want maternal ITs in primary classrooms.

[sid]

I'm with SJ. A good number of schools want male primary teachers. Especially in countries where dads are less hands on about parenting, boys can really benefit from a male influence. Not to mention that no one understands little boys as well as a big boy. Schools are entirely too much based on female norms of behavior, and boys often learn better when those norms are adjusted.

[shadowjack]

PG - in all the schools I have been in overseas, there has been an interest in hiring male primary teachers. I have no idea where you've been, but male primary teachers are a rare breed. You can say there's lots, but if you took a poll of 20 schools and compared female to male primary teachers, you would find a huge imbalance. As to there are plenty of IT male primary teachers available...my experience (which is what I am basing this on) doesn't show that to be true.

[teachingagain1945]

Thanks everyone. I've been told I'm marketable as a male primary teacher. But I am finding more and more males teaching primary. I was at one good international school where I'd say it was 50/50 male/female primary teachers. I'm going to stick with primary but possibly try to move into SS but where I am presently teaching.

[PsyGuy]

I dont see it, where the recruiting drives focusing on male primary ITs where are the campaigns by university and other EPP/ITT programs to get more male primary ITs. I hear the talk too, what I dont see is any action focused on changing anything. If male primary ITs are in such demand and so rare, why isnt there anything being done (not talked about) to change that.

My experience has been that for all the talk about it, its the parents are the deciding factor, especially in "local" ISs where the culture is the male parent works and the female parent takes care of child raising and those moms want maternal female ITs in those primary classrooms.

[shadowjack]

PsyGuy - you realize most guys don't want to teach primary, right? If you give the average male going into teaching a choice of primary or secondary, the greatest number by a wide margin choose secondary. As to why there isn't a huge recruiting thing - you also realize that sexist campaigns like that will take a lot of blow back? Plus in the US teaching is already seen as lower class.

[OzGrad]

Not sure that a move to have more male primary teachers could be considered sexist.

More like the reverse is true.

[teachingagain1945]

What would be the best way to present ourselves at a fair? Girlfriend/boyfriend? Partners? Fiances? Married? Would it matter?

[shadowjack]

Teachingagain,

it depends on the area you are recruiting for or being recruited for. If you are going to the Middle East, marriage is best, and you need to produce a marriage licence coming in as married. If you come in as two singles, there can be problems. Other places don't care as much.

[PsyGuy]

@teachingagain1945

Yes it matters. It really depends what you are trying to do. In IE there are really only two marital statuses; married and single. Its better if youre a couple, you increase your marketability and competitiveness, assuming an IS has two vacancies for you or can create two vacancies. In some regions either due to cultural laws and regulations or the philosophy/policy of the IS they wont accept or support unmarried individuals as a couple.

THE GOOD:

Just be honest with what you are. If your dating your gf/bf, if youve asked your partner to marry you then your engaged (it would be wise to have a set date), etc. In every country even LGBT couples can figure out someway of being together, though it might not be an ideal scenario, nor is it likely to be cheap, but where theres coin theres a way.

THE BAD:

There are ITs that got married solely so that they could go to recruiting as a couple. It worked and they divorced after the first year of their two year contract. I would represent yourselves however you need too. If you need to be a couple to get the BKK fair invite your a couple. If an IS has vacancies for the two of you, youre a married couple. If theres just a vacancy for one of you, your a single.
If need be you can always get married later to meet the contract requirements.

THE UGLY:

Same as the bad, except instead of getting married you can just get a marriage license, and alter it to look like a marriage certificate or create/download a fake marriage certificate. No ones going to look and if they do there are a lot of explanations for why it wasnt recorded or cant be found.

@SJ

No i dont know that, do you have any research to show that male ITs dont WANT to teach primary over secondary with all other factors being equal? Im sure their are a number of factors that account for the demographics of male/female and primary/secondary ITs, many of those factors influence preference, but "want" separate from any other motivation, I dont see.

No that wouldnt be sexist at all, no more than any other action to increase popularity and enrollment of a class of people in an under represented profession. It would be more sexist to continue to promote the traditional gender approaches to teacher training as it is.