New Teacher Got Hired To Teach 8th Grade Without Any Background In Education — 'They'll Just Hire Anybody? With A Smile & A Bachelor's Degree?'
"America's teacher shortage is my gain, I guess," she said, referencing a problem that is only deepening.
Lisa F. Young / Shutterstock America's education system is in crisis in part because of a massive teacher shortage — a problem many experts and analysts say is likely to get worse before it gets better.
One teacher on TikTok detailed how this situation has impacted her personally in the most unexpected and unsettling way.
The teacher was hired despite having zero experience or a degree in education.
America's teacher shortage has recently reared its head with the start of the school year, forcing districts across the country to get creative about how they're going to staff their schools, a situation many experts warned could be the case.
Ash, known on TikTok as @truebadash, is a perfect example of how this is all shaking out. She recently posted a video about how she sort of fell into her new career as an 8th grade teacher — after applying on a whim despite having no background in education.
Ash's district was willing to hire anyone with a bachelor's degree, but she says she feels unqualified for her job.
Ash had been working in video production for years and decided she needed a break from that industry, so she decided to throw her hat in the ring at the local school district. She got hired immediately, two weeks before the school year began.
"I just think it's crazy that there is such a teacher shortage that they are willing to hire anybody with a bachelor's degree in anything," she said in her video, seeming to become visibly emotional about the state of things. "It could be any degree to get you in there into a classroom to teach children every day — 130 children a day — over something I feel like I'm not even qualified to teach."
Ash went on to say that, thankfully, her job teaching language arts has been a good experience so far — she loves her students and colleagues, has a great mentor and administration showing her the ropes, and feels "lucky" to have ended up in a job she's enjoying.
"But still," she said, "there's somedays where it hits me and I'm like, what the [expletive] am I doing here? Who thought this was a good idea? ...It blows my mind. They'll just hire anybody with a smile and a bachelor's degree?"
Ash is part of a wider trend that is a result of America's teacher shortage, and the staggering resignation rates among teachers.
Much like how every summer seems to be the hottest summer on record nowadays, every school year in the past few years has seen unprecedented numbers of teacher resignations — and stories like Ash's are just one of the many repercussions.
According to research by Kansas State University, there are at least 163,000 teaching positions in the U.S. now held by under-qualified teachers, with shortages being most pronounced in the South — surely not coincidentally an area of the country where education systems and teachers themselves are under legislative and political attack in many states, though such attacks are occurring nationwide.
But the teacher shortage is multi-faceted. It's not just because of the often punishingly low pay, underfunded working environments, political attacks, specter of gun violence, and the highest rate of burnout among any profession in the country, according to a Gallup study.
It's also due to factors you wouldn't necessarily think of, like the fact that America's insanely expensive real estate market means they often can't afford to live anywhere near the schools in which they work.
Add to that the well documented problems with students' emotional and behavioral problems, which many attribute to the traumatic effects of the pandemic and the social and political turmoil in which we're living, and it's no wonder that teachers are resigning — and not being replaced by new graduates.
This has led many teachers to push back on the notion that there is even a teacher shortage at all. Because, in the end, there isn't a shortage of teachers.
There is a shortage of teachers willing to endure what the job now entails after nearly a quarter-century of disastrous education policy, and a new era where they have been made into pariahs by parents, pundits and politicians who accuse them of indoctrinating or "grooming" children by teaching them about history or the existence of LGBTQ+ people.
Some say this crisis has been the goal of certain politicians all along — especially those who are proponents of so-called "school choice." Others say it's a function of economic and political factors, or a combination of all of the above.
Whatever it is, we need to do something, and quickly, because it seems like the fallout from America's mass teacher resignations is only just beginning.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.