Career? Or job? In my mind there is a difference as a job is more transient and a career is a lifetime choice. So many people reinvent themselves in their 40s, 50s and even 60s that the concept of a career seems to be fading from society. I have had many iterations of "dream job" over the years - the current front runner is 'lottery winner' though I have yet to see any success with that one - but a "dream career" is more elusive.
In high school, the dream was to work at a Club Med on a tropical island. Sun, sand, single men... living the dream, right? Except for the hurricanes, bitey things in the waters around the island, long hours of perpetual friendliness even when the visitor is being a complete ass. No thank you. College! I'll go to college!
College is where they learn you how to be a teacher and I like kids, ergo I can teach. Then came a silly thing called Life which decided to take my college dream and toss it out the window into the path of a semi so that it was well and truly wrecked. Life and I wrangled for quite a while, and somewhere in the middle of a truly amazing sleeper hold, I realized that I had the upper hand - I can go back to college and be a teacher. Enter No Child Left Behind and the morass of paperwork and standardized testing that is the bane of the educator's existence. NCLB's best friend, Budget Cut, joined the party and in the interest of an income above subsistence level and not becoming a test-monitoring drone, I shelved that dream snugly next to Club Med.
In my quest for a secure middle-management position, I seem to have stalled at office drone. But that's okay, as it gives me time to search the internet between reports. I've started getting the twitches when thinking about finding a position as a teacher in a foreign country. Teaching... yes. New and exciting locales... yes. Tests on a daily basis...only if I'm assigned to Japan. If I'm careful, I can avoid the "bad idea" stories and continue to shelter this little beginning of a dream from reality for a little while longer. Whether or not I can make this one work is entirely up in the air.....but it's nice to have a goal.
* Courtesy of the Talking Heads - for some reason this song popped right into my head when I read the topic.
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Comments: 9
It's true. Watching my aunts, uncles, etc. Some of them have been lucky enough to stay in one career, others have had more of the "job" experience.
Good luck with your teaching! I really hope it works out for you. It seems you've got quite a pull toward it.
blessings
Again I had to chuckle at "College is where they learn you how to be a teacher..."