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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Becoming a Teacher?
I want to be a United States History teacher, so I have started taking some History classes in a college. What else do I need to do??
Re: Becoming a Teacher?
I teach US History.
It all depends on your state. Here in Mass. teacher's must have their BA, completed a certified teacher program with student teaching (ususally 2 semesters long), pass 2 teacher tests, and obtain your Masters degree after 5 years of teaching. Most colleges have integrated teaching programs in either undergraduate or graduate work. I completed my teaching program with student teaching while obtaining my Master's.
Here, you most likely will not get hired without having your Master's. So I always recommend people obtain their Master's from a strong program before looking for a job.
Honestly, History teachers are not in high demand. There is not a lot of turn over and there are a lot of recent graduates.
GL!
Think long and hard about if it's really worth it. My undergraduate degree is in social science education (to teach US history and other social studies courses grades 9-12). I graduated when the economy was good, and even then it was really hard to find a job. I quickly decided that I didn't want to teach, but my friends from my program had to be very flexible on where they were willing to work in order to find a job. With the state of the economy now, you might not find a job at all, even if you were able to move for a position.
Ditto this. I know it doesn't help, but there are a TON of applicants for every teaching job. DH has his degree to teach high school history but after searching for history jobs for years, he never did get one. Not even at his own high school.
He got a job a year ago at a financial-related firm, just doing entry-level clerical stuff. He's applying for one of the "real" positions with the firm and he's applying to go back to school to get a business degree.
Don't mean to be a downer, but good luck.
Also not to be a downer, but even if you do get a teaching position you won't just be teaching U.S. History. At the high school level you'll likely start off teaching Geography to freshmen, then World History to sophomores, and THEN (if you're good, your administrators like you, and people with more seniority retire or move to a different campus) you may get the opportunity to teach U.S. History to juniors or Government/Economics to seniors. That doesn't include additional preps such as SAT prep, remediation for students who failed the Social Studies portion of state-mandated exams, supervising detention, etc... that are par for the course if you're a new teacher.
I'm a high school English teacher myself, and while I love my job, I really don't recommend that anyone go into teaching unless they love, love, love kids and don't mind working the sub pool for years waiting for a classroom of their own. It's a bad time to break into Education, and job prospects for recent grads with no experience aren't likely to improve anytime soon.
Pursue your dream if it really is your dream and you're willing to make a lot of sacrifices to make it happen. If this is a whim, or if you haven't spent any time in a Social Studies classroom since you were in school, I suggest you see about job shadowing a teacher for a few days so you can get a better idea of what teaching actually entails. Good luck!
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LittleL 8/10/07
Baby E 11/27/10
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I've been substituting since December 2009. Still no job of my own.
To add to what PP have said, if this is what you really want to do, be prepared to sacrifice. You will probably have to relocate to find a job. I am a science teacher certified in what is considered a high demand area nationally (physics-chemistry) but even I rarely see job postings in my field anywhere near where I live.
If you want to pursue it though, you need to get in the education program at your college. I'm not familar with other states but for high school education here you basically double major in education and your content area.
I concur with these comments. I worked on my teaching credentials but there weren't any jobs available. Fortunately I didn't need to work outside the home and now I do p/t jewelry sales online and do the bulk of my business when my kids are in school. I'm seeing more and more teacher friends locally picking up part time, additional income, as some of the days/hours have been reduced, and so forth.
Janette Stoll