Careers: English Teacher or Librarian?

Are you an English major, with a love for books, and trying to decide between a career as an English teacher or librarian? I taught English for four years, and always wanted to go back to get my Master's so that I could become a school librarian. It seemed like a better fit for me. Upon talking to other English teachers, many had contemplated a career as a librarian, but decided to go with teaching. I had not considered becoming a librarian until after becoming a teacher, and realizing that maybe being in the classroom was not the best fit for me. I still wanted to work in the school system, and becoming a school librarian seemed like a great fit. Here are the pros and cons of teaching English as opposed to becoming a librarian.

Education

To become an English teacher, you have to be certified. You can have your B.A. and obtain your certification upon graduation if you matriculated through a teacher certification program. It is not necessary to have your Master's to become an English teacher.

To become a librarian, you must have a Master's in Library Science from an accredited institution. The average length of Library Science programs are about two years.

Salary

The average salary for an English teacher with a B.A. is around $36k-$40k. With a Master's degree, the salary can go up considerably. Salaries for librarians vary, depending on where they work. I have seen job postings for public librarian jobs in Georgia usually in the range of $50k-$65k. For a school librarian, the salary average would be in the $45k-$50k range.

Job Description

The main attraction toward a librarian career is a love of books. And, as a librarian, you would be surrounded by books. However, your job does not consist of sitting around reading books. Many librarians say that people mistakenly think that they have the time to leisurely read books in between assisting patrons and shelving books, but that is far from the truth.

Librarians spend their days shelving books, helping patrons, purchasing books for the library within their allotted budgets, teaching classes, answering questions, cataloguing books, handling multimedia and helping others with multimedia equipment and usage, and the list could go on. Librarians can allow their passion for literature to shine through as they prepare read-alouds for elementary students or preschoolers, or organize programs in the library to help foster a love of reading among young people.

As an English teacher you will have lesson plans to write and execute, essays to grade, literature to read, share, and provoke analysis among your students, provide grammar instruction, manage the classroom effectively, and share your passion for literature with students, and hope that your enthusiasm is contagious.

Both careers as an English teacher and a librarian offer fascinating ways to work with books. As a teacher you can help foster a love of literature in your students. You can also do that as a librarian. The best advice would be to shadow an English teacher and a librarian for a week or so, and see what the day to day life as either professional is like. Either way, you will end up in a rewarding profession that helps people fall in love with books, and as a book lover, that sounds like a recipe for a great career.