What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?

[MonkeySage]

I'm not so sure Mandarin and Hindi would help me so much in Oregon or Washington, though it would be nice to be able to speak them. ^_^French and Spanish, though...

I'm thinking if I study French, I should be able to take Spanish later and pick it up more quickly. As you said, they're both romance languages...

As for teaching, that was mainly one application of history that I was interested in. Ideally, I'd prefer a more direct career in history- something like a Historian or an Archivist.

[halfeye]

I'm not so sure Mandarin and Hindi would help me so much in Oregon or Washington, though it would be nice to be able to speak them. ^_^French and Spanish, though...

I'm thinking if I study French, I should be able to take Spanish later and pick it up more quickly. As you said, they're both romance languages...

As for teaching, that was mainly one application of history that I was interested in. Ideally, I'd prefer a more direct career in history- something like a Historian or an Archivist.

Spanish is second on the list, French is 15th, and Spanish is relevant to the USA, whereas except for New Orleans, French mostly isn't. Still, if you fancy French and don't fancy Spanish, do what you want, just don't expect French to be much help in your jobsearch in the USA (or Spain) is the thing.

[Peelee]

Spanish is second on the list, French is 15th, and Spanish is relevant to the USA, whereas except for New Orleans, French mostly isn't.

Well, near the Canadian border.... It still isn't.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm not so sure Mandarin and Hindi would help me so much in Oregon or Washington, though it would be nice to be able to speak them. ^_^French and Spanish, though...

I'm thinking if I study French, I should be able to take Spanish later and pick it up more quickly. As you said, they're both romance languages...

As for teaching, that was mainly one application of history that I was interested in. Ideally, I'd prefer a more direct career in history- something like a Historian or an Archivist.

The Hispanic population is 20% of Oregon, and Spanish is the second most spoken language after English. Third is Russian. There are more Spanish speakers then all other minorities in the state combined, and Spanish is specified in many position's qualifications. I would learn Spanish.

History isn't a great field for jobs. There are a lot more history degrees granted then positions (I believe because history is enjoyable compared to actuarial work.)

[Algeh]

So to pursue a History Major (not going to worry about education, just yet), perhaps aiming for Historian, I will need to take a second language. Anyone in Oregon or Washington have any recommendations between French or Spanish? (this is where i'd eventually like to end up... no intention of staying in Arkansas)

Spanish is definitely more employable than French here. However, for it to be something that would get you hired as a teacher, you'd need to be fluent enough to teach in it and translate conversations back and forth, not just have taken a year or two of it. I don't put Spanish on my resume because, while I can read it pretty well and understand it most of the time, I can't hold a sensible conversation in it at speed.

Would learning one make the other any easier?

In my experience, yes and no, but mostly yes. Learning any second language gets you noticing things about language structure that you'd never thought about before, and that makes a third language easier than the second. Also, French and Spanish are fairly related and use similar structures in a lot of ways. However, when I studied both at once when I was first learning, I jumbled them together a lot. (This was in elementary school. I eventually gave French a break, continued with Spanish, and had much less trouble when I added French back again in high school after the Spanish was more established.)

I'm not so sure Mandarin and Hindi would help me so much in Oregon or Washington, though it would be nice to be able to speak them. ^_^French and Spanish, though...

I'm thinking if I study French, I should be able to take Spanish later and pick it up more quickly. As you said, they're both romance languages...

It's not just how many speakers of each language there are, it's also how likely the families in question are to also be comfortable in English. Most (but not all) of the Indian population in my area work for Intel and as a result tend to be English-fluent and not need native-language communication options in schools.

The Hispanic population is 20% of Oregon, and Spanish is the second most spoken language after English. Third is Russian. There are more Spanish speakers then all other minorities in the state combined, and Spanish is specified in many position's qualifications. I would learn Spanish.

History isn't a great field for jobs. There are a lot more history degrees granted then positions (I believe because history is enjoyable compared to actuarial work.)

This is my opinion as well. Spanish is the most employable non-English language to speak for teaching jobs in Oregon. However, just taking a year or two of Spanish in college will almost certainly not be enough to make a difference in the job search. If you want a job teaching social studies in Oregon, you will need to also either be a good coach in a sport like football or have another endorsement in a different subject so you can get a foot in the door.

If you'd rather be a historian, which is a difficult road to go down but I'm not in charge of your life, you might also want to look into which languages are preferred in various historian-type jobs. I would assume French and Latin would both be useful for someone focused on Western Europe, but I assume other languages would be useful in other research areas.

[Rogar Demonblud]

It really depends on what area of history you choose to specialize in. Medieval Europe will require Latin for the reading of source documents, whereas if you go with Renaissance Italy you will need both Latin and Italian. The Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II would require Japanese. Et cetera, et cetera et cetera.

Ideally, I'd prefer a more direct career in history- something like a Historian or an Archivist.

I think Archivist might be under Library Sciences. You might also consider being a Docent with a museum, although again you run into specialization issues.

[MonkeySage]

Spanish it is then, lol. That's pretty useful in Arkansas, too. As far as coaching goes... Well, honestly, I have zero interest in, or understanding of, any kind of sport. I kinda hate football in particular, for ethical reasons. I do have a physics minor completed, but I wouldn't be comfortable teaching it.

[Chen]

Spanish it is then, lol. That's pretty useful in Arkansas, too. As far as coaching goes... Well, honestly, I have zero interest in, or understanding of, any kind of sport. I kinda hate football in particular, for ethical reasons. I do have a physics minor completed, but I wouldn't be comfortable teaching it.

Leveraging a minor in physics or whatever chemistry you have done should be more than sufficient to teach science at a grade school level. Thats much more likely to get you in the door than social studies with no additional sports coaching or the like.

[Brother Oni]

By the numbers it would be Hindu, then maybe Cantonese?

I don't recommend Cantonese unless you really need it. Most Cantonese-as-a-primary-language speakers overseas are from Hong Kong and will have some level of English (the rest are generally from the surrounding areas like Guangdong and will know standard Mandarin to a degree).

Mandarin would cover more cases, but due to the mutual un-intelligibility between Cantonese and Mandarin, learning one won't help the other.

[Bohandas]

Mandarin would cover more cases, but due to the mutual un-intelligibility between Cantonese and Mandarin, learning one won't help the other.

Mutual SPOKEN unintelligibility. IIRC they're written more-or-less exactly the same.

[Scarlet Knight]

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[MonkeySage]

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[Bohandas]

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[Brother Oni]

Mutual SPOKEN unintelligibility. IIRC they're written more-or-less exactly the same.

Kinda. Of the about 20,000 characters found in a modern dictionary (an average educated person would know around 8,000 while you'd need about 2,000-3,000 for a newspaper), there's about 2250 of them have been simplified; for example 'Country' is 国 in Simplified, but 國 in Traditional.

Traditional is the norm in Hong Kong, while Simplified is the norm in the mainland.

[J-H]

Late to the thread here. I got a history degree, and after deciding not to pursue grad school, aimed at becoming a history teacher.
Then I also decided that, due to my personal beliefs and politics, teaching in public schools was not something I wanted to do. Given the current lunacy and nationally-driven and rather infamous 'education plan,' I'm glad I took that approach. I did do some substitute teaching, and did not like it (Jr High is crazy, HS is OK, but only the AP students actually wanted to be there).

I ended up getting an offer of a summer job in accounting from a guy I know at church. It's been more than 15 years and I am still there. Accounting->Customer Service->Sales and making pretty good money while having a lot of flexibility including the ability to work from home.

At the time (2003), getting certified as a public school teacher in my home state required:
1) Taking some teaching classes. I took these postgrad at a local university, with about half of them online. They were super easy and not challenging, difficult, or particularly instructive.
2) Pass a state certification exam
3) Get a school district or other entity to sponsor you or hire you for a year or so while you get the experience to get your cert. Student teaching is a "free labor" approach to this. Don't recall the details.

Your education department at the university should be able to tell you these things. Don't switch majors - get a "real degree."

Things I learned about teaching:
1) Most humanities teachers are also expected to be coaches. Being uninterested in any sports aside from fencing, archery, and shooting, I was in trouble here.
2) It doesn't pay super well, and the hours are long.
3) I would have benefited, had I stayed in teaching, from participating in Toastmasters, a nearly-free public speaking club. Your university almost certainly has multiple Toastmaster clubs that meet weekly or bi-weekly. Join one! Table Topics is not that hard and you will benefit from the practices, and from the organized, educated feedback about how to improve your communication style for public speaking.
4) Do some substitute teaching. See if you can stand it.
5) Any sort of teaching in classroom management, discipline, presenting yourself as an authority figure who is to be respected and obeyed, etc., was completely and utterly missing from the education program I took. If you want to actually educate your students, find a way to learn about this. Goes triple if you're dealing with Jr High kids. It's even harder if you are only a few years older than they are.


I hope this helps. Good luck.

Edit: Skimmed the thread. If you want to see another part of the world for a few years, investigate picking up some Korean and going to Korea to teach the English language. It's apparently in demand. May also be viable in Japan, China, or other countries, but Korea would be my top pick due to standard of living/pay opportunities. Be prepared for a very different culture, but that's a whole different bag of worms.

[danzibr]

To piggyback on what J-H said...

My education classes did not teach me how to teach. At all.

Subbing helped tremendously. Trial by fire.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Basically, teaching is a craft, but we no longer have apprenticeships or the journeyman phase. Which is part of the reason the whole field is a bit of a mess, IMHO. OJT and trial-by-fire are not good ways to get things done.

[AMFV]

Basically, teaching is a craft, but we no longer have apprenticeships or the journeyman phase. Which is part of the reason the whole field is a bit of a mess, IMHO. OJT and trial-by-fire are not good ways to get things done.

Teaching is a trade that would benefit enormously from having apprentices around you'd reduce busywork for teachers and you'd reduce the need for subs and whatnot.

[Zhentarim]

Teaching is a trade that would benefit enormously from having apprentices around you'd reduce busywork for teachers and you'd reduce the need for subs and whatnot.

I agree with this

[snowblizz]

Finnish teacher's education includes practical training. The Swedish (minority language) pedagogical faculty at my alma mater even has a practice school attached to it. An actual school with real normal kids* where you get to observe classes and practice teaching with a supervisor present.

*though I hear they can be quite the handful for the trainee teachers


We take teaching as a profession seriously.

It's not really until university level when you as a student get teachers who may or may not have actual teacher's qualifications, but at that point you are expected to be kinda self-sufficient anyway.

[AMFV]

Finnish teacher's education includes practical training. The Swedish (minority language) pedagogical faculty at my alma mater even has a practice school attached to it. An actual school with real normal kids* where you get to observe classes and practice teaching with a supervisor present.

*though I hear they can be quite the handful for the trainee teachers


We take teaching as a profession seriously.

It's not really until university level when you as a student get teachers who may or may not have actual teacher's qualifications, but at that point you are expected to be kinda self-sufficient anyway.

There's a similar requirement for US schools, but it's nowhere near what an apprenticeship program would involve. Basically an apprenticeship program would likely involve actually being in classes assistant teaching for the entirety of your university career.

[Tvtyrant]

There's a similar requirement for US schools, but it's nowhere near what an apprenticeship program would involve. Basically an apprenticeship program would likely involve actually being in classes assistant teaching for the entirety of your university career.

With a good enough apprenticeship you wouldn't need the degree. You could easily make a program where you teach as an assistant for 3 years, rotating between different teachers every three months, and then do a year as a substitute and call that a teaching degree. Due to societal expectations you would expect to be paid though, while for some reason the university expects you to pay them for the privilege.

If university expectations were normal then every field would be jumping to take on as many journeymen as possible. Getting paid by your laborers? Heck yes! This doesn't show what is wrong with the field, it shows what is wrong with university that you pay it and not the other way around.

[AMFV]

With a good enough apprenticeship you wouldn't need the degree. You could easily make a program where you teach as an assistant for 3 years, rotating between different teachers every three months, and then do a year as a substitute and call that a teaching degree. Due to societal expectations you would expect to be paid though, while for some reason the university expects you to pay them for the privilege.

Well probably you'd do coursework during the summertime, since you actually do need some coursework, but you could pack it into the summer and then have it be that same sort of program otherwise.

If university expectations were normal then every field would be jumping to take on as many journeymen as possible. Getting paid by your laborers? Heck yes! This doesn't show what is wrong with the field, it shows what is wrong with university that you pay it and not the other way around.

Well the thing is that you can't (except for in certain scientific fields) actually use your students for gain the same way you could theoretically use apprentice teachers. They would be able to do busy-work, grading, the sort of things that take away from teachers, and they could learn to do things more quickly, like lesson planning which can take huge amounts of time.

[Tvtyrant]

Well probably you'd do coursework during the summertime, since you actually do need some coursework, but you could pack it into the summer and then have it be that same sort of program otherwise.

Well the thing is that you can't (except for in certain scientific fields) actually use your students for gain the same way you could theoretically use apprentice teachers. They would be able to do busy-work, grading, the sort of things that take away from teachers, and they could learn to do things more quickly, like lesson planning which can take huge amounts of time.

Agreed to some extent, but with university being so expensive I think a lot of people would be willing to pay a lot less and let the business/field benefit from them. If I could pay 5k a year to be an apprentice instead of 30k to get a degree I would take the 5k, full stop. I would also get actual experience from it, and probably be a better teacher for it. Teaching certificates do require some time in the classroom, but reversing it so most is in class would be better for nearly everyone IMO.

[AMFV]

Agreed to some extent, but with university being so expensive I think a lot of people would be willing to pay a lot less and let the business/field benefit from them. If I could pay 5k a year to be an apprentice instead of 30k to get a degree I would take the 5k, full stop. I would also get actual experience from it, and probably be a better teacher for it. Teaching certificates do require some time in the classroom, but reversing it so most is in class would be better for nearly everyone IMO.

Also apprenticeships should be paid. Just at a lower rate or you have a required ratio of journeymen to apprentices. I would imagine that you'd work most of the year and then do coursework in the summer.

[snowblizz]

Agreed to some extent, but with university being so expensive

Well our universities are free. Like I said, we think education is important.

[AMFV]

Well our universities are free. Like I said, we think education is important.

Point of order, unless your professors are slaves and your buildings are unheated and unmaintained it's not free, there's just no cost to the student while they're attending, you pay for it later TANSTAAFL.

Edit: And I'm not arguing for it being a good idea one way or the other, only pointing out that it isn't free.

[snowblizz]

Point of order, unless your professors are slaves and your buildings are unheated and unmaintained it's not free, there's just no cost to the student while they're attending, you pay for it later TANSTAAFL.

Edit: And I'm not arguing for it being a good idea one way or the other, only pointing out that it isn't free.

If you want to quibble on the definition of free knock yourself out.


Our universities are free.

[AMFV]

If you want to quibble on the definition of free knock yourself out.


Our universities are free.

They are not. Not even a little bit. You're just paying for them at a different point. Now US universities have inflated costs mostly because of how our loan programs work, but no university is free. You wind up paying for it later in taxes, I guarantee it.

[Peelee]

They are not. Not even a little bit. You're just paying for them at a different point. Now US universities have inflated costs mostly because of how our loan programs work, but no university is free. You wind up paying for it later in taxes, I guarantee it.

As said, you're free to quibble on the definition of "free." For instance, I consider fire fighters, roads, and other taxed services as free.