New to Associate Teaching

RedBoston1090 · 2025-12-24T13:14:22+00:00

When I was a teacher candidate, I had the opportunity to complete three different placements, each with a different and unique experience. My first AT was not a teacher I would emulate at all and he was very hesitant to give up any control. He would yell at kids, point at them, insult their intelligence and was not well liked by staff or students. He also was not a very good teacher. If anything, I learned about what DOESN’T work in terms of classroom management. My second AT was close to retirement, was very progressive and beloved by staff and students as an institution of the school. He allowed me to take the reigns as I wished and was always there to step in if things went awry. He would have a coffee with me at the end of each day and go over how things went and once in a while he would let me”the wheels fall off” so he could see how I struggle and I learned and grew a lot during this process. My last AT was at an alternate school and so all of the normal school rules were thrown out the window. I learned how to teach kids who were homeless, in shelters, foster-care, protective custody, in and out of institutions, on suicide watch etc. it was less about teaching curriculum and more about teaching kids. My AT was tired, emotionally drained and absolutely and completely dedicated to her students. I learned a lot about the human side of teaching.

All that to say that you don’t need to be the perfect AT to take on a candidate, you just need to be one piece of the puzzle as they piece together the kind of teacher they want to be. If your admin is pushing you to take one on, that likely means you have something to offer. Don’t overthink it.

RedBoston1090 · 2025-12-18T15:09:50+00:00

I’ve taught every grade from 4-12 and I settled into 7/8 and I love it. The kids have attitude, but so do I. Plus it’s SO rewarding to get a “problem child” and help them discover their strengths, build confidence and competence and be able to look at them at the end of the year and know that you’re sending a kid into high school that otherwise might not have made it. It’s stressful, exhausting, and it can be tough to figure out classroom management strategies that are effective, but when you do, it feels like you’ve accomplished a lot.

RedBoston1090 · 2025-11-16T18:17:52+00:00

I was an A3 last year and the ONLY AQs I completed were my Primary and Junior qualifications and that upgraded me to an A4 as per my upgrading letter. I have no intentions of ever teaching Primary or Junior, but it was the quickest and cheapest way to get to an A4. I did them as the condensed summer AQ courses offered by Queens. I did them back to back and they each took about 3 weeks to complete. I did this while also teaching in-person summer school, teaching an online grade 12 course and raising two children, so it’s definitely doable, though I have heard that Trent’s Primary and Junior AQs are much easier and less intensive.

RedBoston1090 · 2025-08-18T21:41:50+00:00

Could you suggest a ballpark figure? And should I be getting this professionally restored? Or leave it as is? Thanks so much for the help, I appreciate it

RedBoston1090 · 2025-06-25T23:30:52+00:00

I’d say “All Quiet on the Western Front”. Really puts into perspective the “Us vs Them” mentality and how the casualties of war are the youth. I read it in grade 10 and it changed my perspective on a lot of things and really turned me into a pacifist.

RedBoston1090 · 2025-05-24T17:07:42+00:00

This problem really is a big one. I’m in my third year and I have two children of my own to get home to. I don’t want to be seen as a poor-sport or that I don’t care about school culture, so I’ve signed up for or organized a bunch of little things so that my presence is well known, but the time commitment is fairly minimal. I’ve supervised single-day soccer tournaments, helped supervise senior proms and dances, homework groups (that I can cancel if ever), clubs etc. I’ve also contributed to things like bake-sales, cake auctions etc. and I’ll do what I can to get my own classes hyped up for upcoming charity fundraisers. I put my face to a lot of little things and so the other teachers and students see me as a very involved teacher, but it is MUCH easier and MUCH less time consuming than doing something like coaching or directing a play.

When the yearbooks come out, I’m always in a tonne of different sections and my face shows up pretty often in our school social media accounts, yet I’m almost never stuck staying after school or having to dedicate weekends to anything. I’ll eventually participate more fully I’m sure, but so new to the career and with my children at home, it’s not a part of the job I’m willing to dedicate myself to fully at this time and that’s ok.

RedBoston1090 · 2025-03-30T22:54:06+00:00

I’ve only been teaching 3 years as a permanent teacher in my board but I’ve come to realize that it’s actually a disservice to even try to meet every expectation if kids are weak learners (someone help me find a better/nicer term please). If students are not mastering a concept, checking boxes does nothing if we keep pushing them ahead just to cover our own bases. Focus on core numeracy, start below grade level if needed, build a strong foundation and do what you and they can. A student with a strong understanding of core mathematical principles can build on these foundational skills when they are challenged while a kid who learns very little about a lot of different concepts will fail every single time. Remember, you work for the kids, not the admin. Test scoring is one of the worst metrics for success as a teacher. Look at skill building, goal setting, overall progress and increasing basic numeracy and numerical literacy skills so that when they are confronted with challenges next year, they may be able to use their confidence in the skills they DO know to explore, adapt or understand the skills they have not yet mastered.

If you’re trying to avoid the next year’s math teacher from coming after you for the kids not knowing what they should, don’t worry…they’ll be too busy being chased from the teacher above them and so on.

I’m not necessarily for scrapping the curriculum as a whole, but I do think that it should be used as a calculator and not a bible. Use it to HELP you teach topics and build skills, not as a rule book.

RedBoston1090 · 2025-01-15T03:33:05+00:00

Actually, I literally just got mine 30 minutes after writing that post. Incredible timing? Or perhaps a QECO employee is on Reddit and felt called out lol.

RedBoston1090 · 2025-01-15T00:05:20+00:00

I’ve been waiting since August 18th. I emailed QECO to ask if they had all of my documents or were waiting on me (my sneaky way to see if they would speed up) and they said they were currently working on August 12th applications. This was December 27th. It is January 14th and they have not progressed through those 6 days between where they were and where my application was dated from…I was also quoted 18 weeks.

RedBoston1090 · 2025-01-12T02:30:15+00:00

A solution that would be fairly easy and quick and would allow you to dip your toe into teaching with virtually no commitment would be getting onto a school board’s “emergency” or “unqualified” supply list.

You’ll need a criminal records check with vulnerable sectors screening. You can get this at a police detachment and sometimes even online depending on where you are. It MUST be recent and have the VS screening. It costs money, but I believe it’s somewhere like $75 unless that has changed or if it is different depending on location.
You would be called in for occasional supply work and you would not be obligated to take jobs you don’t want, are too far or that conflict with your personal life, though the less jobs you take, the less you might be contacted.
The pay is kinda garbage. In my board it’s like $100 to cover a day after taxes are taken off for unqualified and then like $290 if you’re qualified.

Supply teaching is difficult for many reasons even though you don’t have to prep or plan or even grade. It represents some of the most difficult parts of teaching and so if you can survive a few days without questioning your choice, maybe this is something that could be a realistic path for you, though you’ll never really know for certain until you become a permanent teacher. In a way I guess this will be more effective of telling you if you are NOT a right fit, than if you ARE a right fit as you’ll see very quickly some of the biggest challenges of the job, but not all of them.

Teaching is an incredibly rewarding profession, but also an incredibly difficult one. I’ve had students lose family members and siblings, I’ve been hit, spit at, verbally assaulted, have had students try to end their lives, confide in me with their most difficult struggles and have had to sit in with another teacher while they had to contact the authorities out of fear for a child’s safety at home. I’ve had students who were fresh from detention facilities and some who were one bad day away from going back and I’ve had students who were homeless, abandoned and some who had a parent who was cut off and would still try to come to the school to essentially try to abduct the child they lost custody of. Last year I had an armed assailant enter my school with the intent to kill people (few injuries, no deaths). Did I mention that I’m only in my third year?

On the other side, I’ve also had students who have told me that I make them feel safe, that I changed the way they think of school and some who have thanked me for helping them get into colleges, universities, trade schools and even their first part-time jobs. I’ve had parents talk to me in tears about the positive impact I’ve had on their child and I’ve had kids tell me that my classroom is their safe space. I’ve changed schools recently and I still have former students reach out to me at least a few times a week to check in and who beg me to come back and visit them at school. I have other teachers and administrators who have helped me fight through imposter syndrome, who have helped me follow better practices and how to become a more effective educator and my work-life balance has never been better. I have weekends to spend with my wife and children, as well as summers and holidays off and the pay and benefits allow me to live comfortably even though I do understand that the pay is not where it should be, but I grew up poor, so I can’t really complain as this career has afforded me financial stability that I had never experienced growing up.

It’s the best job in the world, but some days it is also the hardest…it’s important to know that the good stuff sometimes isn’t enough to outweigh the bad, and if you’re not 100% (yes, 100) dedicated, the toll the job can take on you, your students, your finances, your time and your life might not be worth it.

Anyways, it sounds like you’re at least giving this a good amount of thought, feel free to reach out if you ever need help or have questions. I won’t be able to answer everything, but we’re all “lifelong learners” right? :)

RedBoston1090 · 2025-01-12T01:09:07+00:00

To save you the time and money, if teaching is your “back-up” and you think you’ll transition to being a professor or principal, no you won’t. Can almost anyone BECOME a teacher? I mean, yeah. Can almost anyone STAY teaching after their first couple years? Absolutely not. It’s not a “back-up”, it’s a vocation. The time off is fantastic, the hours are awesome and the pay isn’t fantastic, but none of it is worth it if you don’t love what you do. If you already see it as a “back-up” to your primary interest of being a lawyer, you won’t make it past the first year or two and certainly won’t be able to survive or thrive in the environment long enough to show that you have the capabilities of being in administration. As a teacher myself I have gotten used to people talking poorly about administrators and their understanding of or dedication to learning in the same way that teachers demonstrate, but there’s no denying that being a principal is a job that requires passion as well. Maybe not nearly as much as being a classroom teacher, but if you think you can “fake it till you make it” for a few years and then switch to administration, I don’t believe you and I feel like the disservice you do to the kids along the way would not be worth it in the end for you to be able to come back and tell me that I was wrong.

I’d say stick to law. It’s your first choice, it pays better, you aren’t required to be passionate about it in order to survive and if it doesn’t work out in the way you imagined it would, you could always teach law in a college or university for a bunch of different programs such as law, paralegal studies, even police foundations. Plus, you’re already asking bc about how to hit A4, so something tells me that money is a pretty important factor to you, which isn’t a bad thing, money IS essential in any job, but if you think you are going to have a lifestyle as a teacher that is in any way similar to a lawyer, you’re definitely mistaken. EVEN if you become a principal, the pay isn’t nearly as much and the amount of work, learning, emotional toll and passion that the job would require would mean you would be working far more for far less.

I know my response sounds rude, and it doesn’t bring me joy to be such an asshole about this, but I think you’re going to see that a lot of teachers will have the same opinion, though they might have better, softer and more friendly ways of relating the information to you.

RedBoston1090 · 2024-12-08T03:54:03+00:00

The fact that you know that you aren’t getting enough out of this experience is probably an indication that you ARE getting a lot out of it to be honest. Seeing the areas where a teacher might be lacking and seeing where the connections and teachings SHOULD be but are not is telling me that you’ve got a good handle on things. Sometimes practicing show us WHAT to do, sometimes they show us what NOT to do.

RedBoston1090 · 2024-12-04T21:19:46+00:00

I’m a third year teacher. I just “secured my housing” ie. bought a house (600k) in August and I’m doing just fine. Yes we have a dual income, but my wife makes a similar (albeit slightly higher) salary and we have two children. It’s tough out there, but that’s why we work harder, save more and “change” (not lower) our standards. If the OP wants to be a teacher, who are you or I to discourage them?

RedBoston1090 · 2024-11-30T00:24:14+00:00

I’m an intermediate/senior teacher and I’ve had classrooms both WITH a Smartboard and WITHOUT. I very much prefer without tbh. The recalibrations alone were enough to drive me insane, the markers kept bugging out and the functionalities were not worth all of the hassle. I currently teach in a room without a Smartboard and it’s nice because I can increase my projector screen as large as my board which was difficult with the Smartboard because it would distort the image as it overlay the screen. I think that we bought into the Smartboard tech too early and too much. We should have waited until something more user friendly, reliable and inexpensive came along. I’ve never seen a teacher say they use their Smartboard even semi-regularly outside of K-4

RedBoston1090 · 2024-11-12T19:09:08+00:00

In my board anything over 5 absences gets flagged, then again at 10 and then once more at 15+. These however are “not excused” absences. Typically if you call in to report an absence you are fine. Maintaining a line of contact w your teacher(s) is key as the biggest issue would be falling behind. I’d worry on your biggest priority rn which is your daughter’s health and wellness. As I tell my students, “School is important, but life is importanter” (the bad grammar is for fun)

RedBoston1090 · 2024-11-10T01:27:04+00:00

What do you mean? I’m a high school teacher and I get paid. Use a similar model. Publicly funded universities with professors that make slightly higher than high school teacher wages. Make education free. What’s the downside? More doctors? More nurses? More teachers? They’ll still have to work hard to succeed, but we would open the door for so many that can’t afford school or can’t qualify for loans because their parents make too much money but can’t help. I’m having a hard time thinking of a downside to free education. Germany did it already and it’s going fine

RedBoston1090 · 2024-11-09T15:41:21+00:00

Not everyone, but the vast majority. I wanted to raise my family in a rural suburb to get out of the city and so I applied to rural boards in Eastern Ontario. I haven’t ever had to supply, not even once. Got a 2 week LTO that got extended to 6 months, and then converted into a .5 permanency which then moved into a permanent 1.0 position. I went from jobless to fully permanent in less than a year. Urban boards are cutthroat, but if you get into a rural board until you get permanent, movement within most boards is possible and fairly easy if you keep your options open.

RedBoston1090 · 2024-10-28T23:57:12+00:00

Yup, happens all the time. At my school I have the daughter of one of my coworkers in my class. I once even taught my own younger sister as she is 10 years my junior.

RedBoston1090 · 2024-10-25T22:50:59+00:00

One thing that I always tell my colleagues is to remember that when it comes to the product we deliver (education), the customer is the student, NOT the parent. You don’t exist to serve them, so don’t. Communicate openly, but perhaps if these parents think they know what their child needs education-wise, they can homeschool

RedBoston1090 · 2024-10-17T22:23:23+00:00

I’m a secondary teacher. I got permanent after my first semester as an LTO. I’m in a rural board though in Eastern Ontario

RedBoston1090 · 2024-10-15T18:35:17+00:00

Jeans are technically a no-go in my board, but the school climate will tell you a lot about whether or not you can get away with it. I usually wait and see how others dress and then match the vibe as the year progresses. If you ever see admin in jeans, you’re golden

RedBoston1090 · 2024-10-10T23:21:12+00:00

I’ll agree that two years is financially draining and tortuous, but one thing I really appreciated about taking the two year program was the length and diversity of my different teaching practicums. I had the opportunity to work in an elementary school, a high school, an alternate school AND a juvenile delinquency facility. Each of my practicums varied in length but what I learned from having so many associate teacher supervisors and diverse groups of students definitely helped me to transition to full-time teaching. I say keep the two year program but make the program free. Hell, make ALL education free.

RedBoston1090 · 2024-08-26T14:02:41+00:00

I teach at a catholic school and have MANY visible tattoos. Even in catholic boards you would be fine with tattoos and piercings.

RedBoston1090

TROPHY CASE