Teaching is a great profession for many. With great diversity of niches, and an ongoing shortage of teachers, there is plenty of room for great newcomers to find work they love. Before becoming a teacher, however, you must meet the professional requirements placed on you by the system you want to join. If you don't research and verify the professional standard in your region and your stratum of education you will soon find yourself at a dead end.
To learn the licensing and certification requirements for most public K-12 schools you should check with your local department of education or go online to sites like http://www.uky.edu/Education/TEP/usacert.html. By checking these requirements you can learn the expectations placed on you by your state and by the standard public school expectations.
Private schools can differ quite radically from public schools. Many place the stress on academic excellence within a subject, or on specialized theoretical training programs like Montessori. But the pressure to compete with public school systems can create a double bind for schools as they demand classic certification to satisfy parents used to seeing certification as a guarantee of at least minimal competence, and then academic excellence, special program training, or exceptional experience to satisfy their own desire for a different kind of excellence. Be sure to read carefully in job listings and school boilerplate to determine the expectations of particular schools.
When you leave the K-12 system and move toward collegiate teaching you are facing still another assortment of expectations, which can vary even more extensively. The standard rule of thumb is that you need an MA in your teaching subject to teach at the junior college level, and a PhD to teach at the four year college and university level. This, however, is complicated by an array of aides, TAs and similar auxiliary teaching professionals outside the tenure track. On the job success in a field can also substitute for a degree in some instances, particularly in the arts and the trades, where many superb professionals have reached skill in their field through alternate educational routes, including apprenticeships, studio training, or the simple school of hard knocks.
Other nonstandard ways into professional teaching can be found in places suffering severe teaching shortages, or with different expectations regarding qualifications. Districts in some regions will settle for a simple BA for a teacher and a high school degree for an aid. Similarly non-certified substitute teachers in some districts can be moved from temporary to permanent positions if their work is found satisfactory. Those with moderate skills in some foreign languages can find work in countries overseas desiring English language teachers.
If you want to teach K-12, do expect to need a BA, a post graduate program in education, and to pass a certification test. This is the commonest route to professional teaching. If you can, combine a strong background in a subject with graduate level certification. This leaves you with the greatest flexibility and offers a school the dual advantage of a great subject teacher with the publicly expected certification.
To learn the licensing and certification requirements for most public K-12 schools you should check with your local department of education or go online to sites like http://www.uky.edu/Education/TEP/usacert.html. By checking these requirements you can learn the expectations placed on you by your state and by the standard public school expectations.
Private schools can differ quite radically from public schools. Many place the stress on academic excellence within a subject, or on specialized theoretical training programs like Montessori. But the pressure to compete with public school systems can create a double bind for schools as they demand classic certification to satisfy parents used to seeing certification as a guarantee of at least minimal competence, and then academic excellence, special program training, or exceptional experience to satisfy their own desire for a different kind of excellence. Be sure to read carefully in job listings and school boilerplate to determine the expectations of particular schools.
When you leave the K-12 system and move toward collegiate teaching you are facing still another assortment of expectations, which can vary even more extensively. The standard rule of thumb is that you need an MA in your teaching subject to teach at the junior college level, and a PhD to teach at the four year college and university level. This, however, is complicated by an array of aides, TAs and similar auxiliary teaching professionals outside the tenure track. On the job success in a field can also substitute for a degree in some instances, particularly in the arts and the trades, where many superb professionals have reached skill in their field through alternate educational routes, including apprenticeships, studio training, or the simple school of hard knocks.
Other nonstandard ways into professional teaching can be found in places suffering severe teaching shortages, or with different expectations regarding qualifications. Districts in some regions will settle for a simple BA for a teacher and a high school degree for an aid. Similarly non-certified substitute teachers in some districts can be moved from temporary to permanent positions if their work is found satisfactory. Those with moderate skills in some foreign languages can find work in countries overseas desiring English language teachers.
If you want to teach K-12, do expect to need a BA, a post graduate program in education, and to pass a certification test. This is the commonest route to professional teaching. If you can, combine a strong background in a subject with graduate level certification. This leaves you with the greatest flexibility and offers a school the dual advantage of a great subject teacher with the publicly expected certification.
About the Author:
Maria Bascuas is an educator and journalist who writes about online courses and online learning.
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