When Carly Simon sang that ‘nothing stays the same’, she could also have been talking about our education system.
Kids still go to school in the same way they did hundreds of years ago but the way they learn today is dramatically different.
Tech-ed up classrooms, revised curricula, and specialist teaching hubs are just some of the ways education has reinvented itself to move with the times.
And as well it might – all that quill pen and ink stuff was hellishly tricky to master.
But those changes don’t come about by chance: they’re the result of years of study, research and practical application.
Education research is a specialist field and its professionals work in a variety of areas, ranging from higher education to publishing.
To find yourself working in education research, you’ll probably have attained your teaching qualification first only to discover standing up in front of students wasn’t for you.
Maybe you have a growing fascination in how humans think and behave in an educational setting rather than the nuts and bolts of daily teaching?
Research posts can be at all levels of education, from the nursery level to university. Some might be largely academic roles involving statistics and analysis, others require interaction with learners – and in some cases, pet fish.
No, seriously! That intriguing combination is part of a recent s1jobs vacancy from the University of the West of Scotland. University bosses are looking for a research assistant to look at the impact of pet fish in the primary school classroom.
No-one knows what the outcome might be but in years to come, if every primary school has a tankful of tropical fish, we know the results are bound to be fin-tastic.
Away from that particular think tank (sorry!), candidates with good written skills as well as an interest in education research might find they enjoy academic writing.
Textbooks, curriculum guidance and exam booklets all need experienced professionals to present information in exactly the right way alongside illustrations, graphs and charts.
On a similar theme, a curriculum designer designs educational programmes or instructional materials for schools, colleges and universities. It’s a bit like planning an intellectual journey for students – creating different units for study then evaluating their success.
And working on a bigger stage, educational policy advisors set national standards such as the design and introduction of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence.
To be successful in education research you need to have a thirst for new information. The job demands a real degree of dedication as some study projects can be narrow in their scope and take a long time to complete.
It’s work that goes largely unseen but the benefits come in playing a huge part in life’s learning process.
So why not visit s1jobs for all the latest Education vacancies?