[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Career after Graduation
Today's prospective secondary education teachers find themselves in the midst of a career context that differs strikingly from the conditions experienced by the retiring cohort of secondary education teachers when they were hired some 30 years ago. At that time, fewer professional opportunities were open to everyone, and choosing a lifelong career was the norm. Today, candidates have multiple, attractive career options, and they hold different expectations about career mobility and job security.
New conceptions of career are emerging in our society, and many individuals now regard the notion of a single career or loyalty to a single organization as obsolete. In public discourse and imagination, the archetype of the entrepreneur and free agent has replaced that of the company man or woman. Amidst this change, teaching appears to be one of the few lines of work that has maintained a static conception of career. Prospective secondary education teachers are still expected to identify their career interests early, undertake extensive pre-service coursework, and, once licensed, take jobs that will remain virtually unchanged throughout their careers.
Indeed, Public Agenda's recent report, A Sense of Calling, portrays the new secondary education teachers they surveyed - who committed early to a teaching career and "consider teaching [to be] a lifelong choice" - as being quite similar to the retiring cohort. (A.G. Watts 3) The report characterizes the new secondary education teachers as individuals who have "responded to a calling," who love their work, and who are by and large content with their choice of profession. One might question whether this conception of career will hold in the current career context, and if it does, whether teaching will attract the best possible candidates, many of whom are likely to have other employment options that offer better working conditions, higher pay, and a greater likelihood of success......
