What would lead a successful businessperson to leave the corporate world to enter the field of teaching? Why would a financially secure parent decide to leave a stable, predictable and “safe” home environment for the challenging, stressful and underpaid role of a teacher? How do college graduates without teaching experience and training make the choice to redirect their professional goals toward teaching? Every day, individuals are making a commitment to become a part of this noble profession. Their reasons are varied, but they overwhelmingly appear to be grounded in a desire to help educate children ranging from birth through high school.

There is a tremendous shortage of teachers in the United States. Six-digit national teaching vacancy projections are not uncommon. Educational systems have resorted to several means to obtain teachers, including recruiting teachers from other nations, offering a wide variety of incentives and hiring college graduates without teacher certification. This is not a recent occurrence, as the teacher shortage has been a challenge for most of the last decade.

When college graduates without a teaching license or certificate are employed to teach, they must work within state guidelines to become licensed. They must enroll in an accredited teacher education program and successfully accumulate semester coursework hours in both pedagogical and content areas. The coursework must be completed within a specific number of years. This additional burden falls hard upon the shoulders of the unlicensed teachers as they strive to adapt successfully to a new profession and complete certification requirements.

Three years ago, Bennett College and Greensboro College collaborated to sponsor an effective and compact program that enables employed unlicensed teachers and unlicensed prospective teachers to become certified in a timely manner that fits their work schedule. The program is housed at Greensboro College and is directed by Dr. David Feagins. Currently 43 students participate in the program. The Piedmont Alternative Licensure Program (PAL) has provided the pedagogical coursework necessary for licensure. Although most PAL participants are currently teaching with a temporary license, some participants are involved with PAL because they aspire to teach and feel PAL will give them a strong foundation in educational methodology prior to entering the profession. In addition, college graduates wanting licensure in elementary education, special education and birth-through-kindergarten education, may achieve certification goals through the Greensboro Licensure-Only Birth through Kindergarten, Elementary and Special Education Program (GLOBES).

PAL candidates must apply to the program. As a part of the application process, they are required to complete a written essay that reflects their philosophy of teaching and indicates how they feel schools could be improved. They also often are interviewed by teacher education department faculty members, as are GLOBES candidates. Why, then, do they want to teach?

Candidates rarely cite the sole need for employment as a pivotal reason to teach. They may inquire about the salary scale and monetary compensation, but they do not dwell on this item. Although their individual reasons vary, some common threads are found throughout their responses.

Their most common theme centers on a clearly defined and expressed need to serve children, built upon the strong feeling that they have valuable individual talents that will augment their teaching efforts. Closely tied to this need is the assertion that they have been successful in their previous or current profession, coupled with the acknowledgment that they will gain additional personal satisfaction by educating others. By sharing relevant lessons drawn from their own work experiences, these aspiring teachers hope to strengthen their students’ knowledge.

In some cases, candidates had originally intended to pursue teacher certification as an undergraduate but became redirected to another field of study due to their own particular set of circumstances. They strive to teach in order to fulfill that original plan. Some candidates link the need to teach to relationships with their own children and how the latter are faring within the educational system. Very often, candidates are drawn to teaching because they have coached children or have been involved in religious-orientated youth activities and other child-service related organizations outside of the workplace. More importantly, they have enjoyed this involvement, regardless of the long hours, limited resources or behavioral challenges often tied to such service.

Candidates also frequently emphasize the need to find a more meaningful role in life, even though they have had financial or professional success in other work situations. They wish to reaffirm their professed values, many which have been passed down through generations of family tradition. In a sense, many unlicensed teaching candidates are proclaiming a need for control of their own lives by redirecting their energies to teach children because they genuinely believe it is a higher priority use of their talents. Even the youngest and least professionally experienced unlicensed teachers consistently emphasize the need to gain personal fulfillment from teaching children.

There also appears to be a need for personal stability within a community. Many candidates have relocated numerous times as a means of strengthening their economic status. Eventually, they determine that the rewards do not compensate adequately for the loss of consistent relationships with family, friends and community. Teaching offers them an opportunity to take an active role in building community by educating youth. They are well aware of the financial limitations of teachings and voice a hope for increased pay. However, they feel their commitment to being effective teachers outweighs the immediate need for financial gain. In some cases, unlicensed teachers have saved enough funds from their previous profession to be able to supplement a teacher salary.

Each unlicensed teacher or teacher candidate has individual reasons for choosing this profession. Very often these reasons align closely with those professed by traditional undergraduates seeking teacher licensure as they graduate from a college or university. Candidates with extended work experience in non-teaching fields appear to have reached the decision to teach after a careful and lengthy assessment of their values and life history coupled with an intrinsic need to personally make a difference in the lives of children before retirement. Hopefully, these individuals and the children they teach will mutually prosper from their new educational relationship.