I may be the most stereotypical teacher ever.
My parents were teachers. Their parents were teachers. I met my wife at work – we both were teachers.
I was also born in Canada. And my parents were born in Canada as well.
My backstory is that despite some early learning challenges, I was a good student. I did well at school. And then I graduated from high school, zoomed through university and at twenty-two years of age I was back at my former junior high school as a teacher.
And 26 years later, education is the only career I have ever known.
And I think I was (and still am) a pretty good teacher. But I also know we need to continue to do better to attract teachers to the profession who have a different story than I do. For too long, too many teachers stories were very similar to mine. The teaching profession was largely made-up of people who were successful at school, very often spoke English as their first language, were born in Canada, and also often went straight into teaching as a career without other real work experiences.
We are trying to do better. Just as we have diversity with our learners, we need diversity in the adults that work with them. Having teachers who come to teaching after careers in construction or accounting or professional sports gives new perspectives to students and reminds them that for most, their work life will be made up of many different jobs. Having teachers who struggled in school gives added voice to those in our classes who are struggling now. School does not come easy for everyone, and adolescence is hard, so having teachers with non-linear life experiences helps.
And we want our teaching force just like our student population, to be culturally diverse, speaking different languages at home, and demonstrating that our schools are reflective of our communities. And with our efforts around Reconciliation, we need to be better at recruiting Indigenous teachers on our staff.
And now with 75% or more of our teachers female, we need to find ways to ensure men see the professional as valuable.
I know this is all not really controversial. But it is hard. Changing the make-up of the adults that work in our schools is not only about who we hire, but also about who is encouraged to go into teaching. And it goes all the way back to what we show young students about the profession, that representation matters.
As we close another school year and look ahead, this is a topic I think a lot about. It is a weird notion but we need to do better to hire and retain staff that are not like me.
cultureofyes.ca 
Well said, Chris. As someone who had a decade of work experience here and abroad before going into teaching, I recall during PDP hearing for the first time the expression “those who can do, those who can’t teach” which puzzled me at the time. However, my very first week on the job a colleague commented, “Well, we’ll see how long you last!” because, he said, only those whose first choice was teaching were “real teachers.” Over the years I noted how he excelled at creating multiple choice tests and lulling his classes to sleep with endless videos. I like to think it was the variety of challenges I faced in my wider experience that gave me the skills to create a far richer learning environment for my students.
On the other hand, you were (and are) an outstanding teacher and administrator with so much creativity, insight and dedication to students of all backgrounds and abilities. Many teachers take the same direct route that you did and are also wonderful educators. However, school districts can only hire who the universities accept into their teaching programs — you can’t do better in hiring a wider diversity of teachers until the universities are prepared to recruit them into their programs.
Chris you exemplify what a good teacher needs to be, a good learner! You always ask how can we do better and how can we improve. To your question,this is my answer to any teacher question, we need to do what Germany does where we pay our teachers like we pay our doctors , then we need to expect the world from them like we do from our doctors! This is systemic change, which will directly impact our whole education system ! AND we will attract the motivated, passionate men who do well in school and want to be successful in a career that includes teaching , not just business or engineering!
My wife and I share a similar story. We are retired now and as history suggests, two of my sons planned on being teachers. They saw that we loved our work and had a youthful understanding of the profession. They got to an age where they figured out that a starting salary of 50K was pathetic and that after ten years of work and 5 years of university the salary would improve to mediocre. If teachers were fairly compensated, our family would have contributed two male teachers. Both boys would 100 percent agree they made the right choice, with one having completed a very successful first practicum.
As a retired high school principal it always struck me as odd that I was one of the best compensated administrators in Canada while my wife was among the most poorly compensated. Pay teachers and they will come.