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. 

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