Career Change Teachers

This book examines the lives and contributions of career change teachers: individuals who have switched careers to become classroom teachers. Their leadership experiences, industry connections, ways of embedding real world applications in classroom teaching practices and diverse skills sets are investigated in the context of their contributions to student learning. Through collaborative research and rich insights from those who have undertaken the career change journey, the book sheds light on why individuals switch to teaching and what career and life experiences they bring to schools. Case studies help to illuminate career change teachers’ journey, including the affordances and obstacles they encounter, and experiences in the classroom. Against the backdrop of the changing landscape of the teaching profession in Australia, the book provides practical recommendations to schools, jurisdictions and teacher education institutions on how best to amplify the qualities and contributions of career change teachers. Through new research carried out in Australia and the Netherlands, mechanisms on what countries can do to attract professionals from Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) backgrounds to teaching are highlighted. The book also serves as a useful guide for those contemplating a career change to teaching and lays out suggestions on how they can be better prepared for life in a school environment. The book marks a shift in challenging existing recruitment practices and a re-thinking of who can be educators and role-models to students in classrooms.