Mars need women. Tortoise needs employment.
So...I'm starting to seriously rethink this whole idea of teaching. It's not just that I haven't found a teaching job yet. It's lots of things. I am unqualified for the majority of positions because I have no math degree, ignoring the fact that I earned a math minor taking graduate level courses, because I had already taken the majority of the undergraduate math curriculum through high school, CTY, and other summer programs. This leaves me with private schools, which are ideal in theory but currently have no openings where I've been looking, and public schools desperate enough to temporarily waive their requirements. But if they're that desperate, there's probably some other catch. I recently received notice of a handful of charter schools in DC that still needed math teachers. Two were middle schools, and I consider myself unqualified for middle school math, both in course content and classroom management. One of the two high schools, in the description of its position, said that the teacher would need to cover "remedial math/literacy skills" in the job. Remedial math skills? I don't like it, but I can do it. Remedial literacy? The hell? I don't think I'm qualified to address this. At all. Yes, I know how to read and write, but that doesn't mean I can teach it. My problem with teaching middle-school mathematics is that I cannot get myself to imagine being in a position where I don't understand, say, order of operations. The concept is atomic to me, and I just can't break it down, and without that, I can't help students when they don't get it. And I really can't get into the head of someone who has trouble with reading. Nope. So what can I do?
Now, my current desire to teach is sort of a short-term thing. Ultimately, I want to be a composer, but I need more training before I can make it in that field. If I wanted an academic position, which is certainly the safest road to a composition career, then I would need a PhD, and I just don't have the chops right now to make it as a freelancer. However, I felt that if I went straight into a PhD program after getting my MA, I would burn out within 18 months. I needed to do something else for a while. My many summers with CTY had shown me that I really enjoyed teaching math -- at least to gifted adolescents -- and that I seemed to be rather good at it, so I thought it would be a good choice for an interim career. Go teach in a private school for a couple of years, and then decide whether I want to continue with that some more or go back to school. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, I haven't been able to find a position. I am considering doing private tutoring until I do find a full-time position, but frankly, I'm getting burned out on looking for a teaching job, and I'm not sure that if I do find a teaching job, that it will be one that I can thrive at.
Thus, I've started thinking about other possibilities for my employment. It's rather challenging, because I have a lot of requirements for any job that I would do, some of which are probably contradictory:
* I have to be qualified for the job. This is rather problematic. As smart as I am, my credentials look pretty crappy on paper. I have a BA in music with a math minor from a top 10 university (according to US News & World Report; I don't like to trumpet that fact, but it may be relevant to an employer) and an MA in music composition from a top 30 university (though I have no idea how it ranks for music). My undergraduate GPA was 3.35. I won a boatload of math awards in high school and college, including top 5 finishes in several national competitions and a top 10 finish in an international competition. I have taught math and computer science courses at CTY for the past 8 summers. That's what can be put on paper. Some of it sounds really impressive, but it's also rather useless. What can't be put on paper is that I am painfully smart, able to quickly learn just about anything I'm interested in, and a creative problem-solver. My thesis committee all say I write really well, though you wouldn't know it from the fact that I needed 3 tries to pass my university writing course as an undergrad. I am knowledgeable in a number of fields, though apart from math and music, the only field that I have any sort of real training in is physics.
* I want to get some sort of intellectual stimulation out of this job. I am resourceful, and may be able to find stimulation in unexpected places, but I have no tolerance for drudgery. It's not just a matter of my being happy in the job, it's a matter of my being unable to continue doing something that does not hold my interest. Maybe I need to suck it up and act like a grown-up, but I don't know if I am a grown-up in that sense.
* In addition to drudgery, there are certain things I am poorly suited for. Interpersonal skills? Suck. Answering the phone, if I don't know the person who's calling, fills me with something between morbid dread and abject terror. And please don't look to me for organizational skills.
* I want to be able to make a living, though not necessarily a great one. I'd prefer not to have to stay at my dad's house all year. I'd like to have a job that offers health insurance, or at least make enough to be able to buy insurance. It'd be really great if I could also be able to save some money along the way so I don't go too much into debt when my PhD does beckon.
* If I'm not teaching, I want something that isn't overly demanding of my time. In order to have a shot at getting into a PhD program I like, I'll need to keep my portfolio current. I'd like to be able to finish at least one substantial composition a year, and a handful of smaller ones. This means that I can't put 60 or 80 hours a week (on and off the clock) into whatever job I have. I'd be willing to make an exception for teaching, because it means a lot to me, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'm not looking at teaching.
* I would prefer to live in the DC or Boston areas, though if something really great comes along, I might be willing to move elsewhere. Moving away from the Mid-Atlantic or New England regions, however, would be hard to manage.
* I have to be able to work at CTY in the summer, preferably for both sessions. This is not negotiable. This may mean that I have to quit my job after nine months, and find a new one at the end of the summer.
I'm sure there are other things I'm looking for, but this is a starting point. I haven't been able to think of much that meets most of these criteria. Dear reader, can you help me? What avenues do I have for employment that would draw on the skills I have, and satisfy most of my needs and desires? Any ideas would be welcomed, even if they're not entirely feasible.
Now, my current desire to teach is sort of a short-term thing. Ultimately, I want to be a composer, but I need more training before I can make it in that field. If I wanted an academic position, which is certainly the safest road to a composition career, then I would need a PhD, and I just don't have the chops right now to make it as a freelancer. However, I felt that if I went straight into a PhD program after getting my MA, I would burn out within 18 months. I needed to do something else for a while. My many summers with CTY had shown me that I really enjoyed teaching math -- at least to gifted adolescents -- and that I seemed to be rather good at it, so I thought it would be a good choice for an interim career. Go teach in a private school for a couple of years, and then decide whether I want to continue with that some more or go back to school. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, I haven't been able to find a position. I am considering doing private tutoring until I do find a full-time position, but frankly, I'm getting burned out on looking for a teaching job, and I'm not sure that if I do find a teaching job, that it will be one that I can thrive at.
Thus, I've started thinking about other possibilities for my employment. It's rather challenging, because I have a lot of requirements for any job that I would do, some of which are probably contradictory:
* I have to be qualified for the job. This is rather problematic. As smart as I am, my credentials look pretty crappy on paper. I have a BA in music with a math minor from a top 10 university (according to US News & World Report; I don't like to trumpet that fact, but it may be relevant to an employer) and an MA in music composition from a top 30 university (though I have no idea how it ranks for music). My undergraduate GPA was 3.35. I won a boatload of math awards in high school and college, including top 5 finishes in several national competitions and a top 10 finish in an international competition. I have taught math and computer science courses at CTY for the past 8 summers. That's what can be put on paper. Some of it sounds really impressive, but it's also rather useless. What can't be put on paper is that I am painfully smart, able to quickly learn just about anything I'm interested in, and a creative problem-solver. My thesis committee all say I write really well, though you wouldn't know it from the fact that I needed 3 tries to pass my university writing course as an undergrad. I am knowledgeable in a number of fields, though apart from math and music, the only field that I have any sort of real training in is physics.
* I want to get some sort of intellectual stimulation out of this job. I am resourceful, and may be able to find stimulation in unexpected places, but I have no tolerance for drudgery. It's not just a matter of my being happy in the job, it's a matter of my being unable to continue doing something that does not hold my interest. Maybe I need to suck it up and act like a grown-up, but I don't know if I am a grown-up in that sense.
* In addition to drudgery, there are certain things I am poorly suited for. Interpersonal skills? Suck. Answering the phone, if I don't know the person who's calling, fills me with something between morbid dread and abject terror. And please don't look to me for organizational skills.
* I want to be able to make a living, though not necessarily a great one. I'd prefer not to have to stay at my dad's house all year. I'd like to have a job that offers health insurance, or at least make enough to be able to buy insurance. It'd be really great if I could also be able to save some money along the way so I don't go too much into debt when my PhD does beckon.
* If I'm not teaching, I want something that isn't overly demanding of my time. In order to have a shot at getting into a PhD program I like, I'll need to keep my portfolio current. I'd like to be able to finish at least one substantial composition a year, and a handful of smaller ones. This means that I can't put 60 or 80 hours a week (on and off the clock) into whatever job I have. I'd be willing to make an exception for teaching, because it means a lot to me, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'm not looking at teaching.
* I would prefer to live in the DC or Boston areas, though if something really great comes along, I might be willing to move elsewhere. Moving away from the Mid-Atlantic or New England regions, however, would be hard to manage.
* I have to be able to work at CTY in the summer, preferably for both sessions. This is not negotiable. This may mean that I have to quit my job after nine months, and find a new one at the end of the summer.
I'm sure there are other things I'm looking for, but this is a starting point. I haven't been able to think of much that meets most of these criteria. Dear reader, can you help me? What avenues do I have for employment that would draw on the skills I have, and satisfy most of my needs and desires? Any ideas would be welcomed, even if they're not entirely feasible.