What’s Your Opposite Job?
With so many teachers leaving the profession, what is it that everyone is doing?
I have a number of colleagues who have ‘left’ for various reasons and some have gone into completely different lines of work. What would you do? Would you do something completely opposite?
Well, the New York Times has something to help although I’m not sure it really does.
Quoctrung Bui who covers covers social science and policy for The Upshot, has used records from the Labor Department that records skills and tasks required of different jobs and what makes them distinctive.
The idea is that you enter a profession into a search box and it will find the opposite. It lists the following as examples,
The opposite job of a kindergarten teacher is a physicist.
The opposite job of a news editor is a model.
The opposite job of a chief executive is an agricultural grader .
The opposite job of a writer and author is a mobile home installer.
The opposite job of an architect is a slaughterer and meat packer.
Being a teacher will interest readers of this site so what do you think the opposite is?
Well, according to this site, the opposite job of an elementary school teacher (except special education) is an agricultural grader. Agricultural graders sort, or classify unprocessed food and other agricultural products by size, weight, colour, or condition.
What is interesting is what skills someone has decided school teachers use the most compared to agricultural graders. The Upshot site says this:
| Elementary School Teachers | Agricultural Graders |
|---|---|
|
1. History and archaeology
|
1. Trunk strength
|
|
2. Learning strategies
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2. Handling and moving objects
|
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3. Training and teaching others
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3. Manual dexterity
|
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4. Developing objectives and strategies
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4. Foreign language
|
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5. Coaching and developing others
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5. Public safety and security
|
|
6. Geography
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6. Static strength
|
|
7. Sociology and anthropology
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7. Arm-hand steadiness
|
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8. Philosophy and theology
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8. Controlling machines and processes
|
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9. Thinking creatively
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9. Finger dexterity
|
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10. Education and training
|
10. Production and processing
|
You can question the lot and say how did that get in there or why isn’t this in? In fact, all the top ten skills most needed of an agricultural grader could arguably be said are needed for teaching!
The site is a bit of fun and not to be treated seriously and you certainly wouldn’t make any career decisions based on it. Really, what do people think teachers actually do?!