Results 1 to 30 of 71
-
2019-10-25, 03:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2013
- Location
- Arkansas, U.S.
- Gender
What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
I've been feeling more and more out of place lately, as a chemistry major. I've realized that I no longer enjoy chemistry the way I used to, and that at this point the effort I'm putting in just doesn't seem worth it for what I'm accomplishing...
I don't care about making a whole lot of money, my questions were "Can I make a living off of this, and will it make me happy?" and I know that I have a passion for history that I've never felt for chemistry- I'm kind of obsessed, and always have been.
What, then, would it take for me to become a history teacher? What other careers could I pursue with a history degree? What would those take?
This is pretty much my first stop before doing some more in depth research into this, here I'm just asking for advice going forward.
-
2019-10-25, 03:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Assuning US: Bachelors in history (4 years), Masters in Education (2 years), State Teaching License (1-2 years), fluent in Spanish or local native language (2 years). Some of those can overlap, so 5 years is pretty common.
To get promoted from there: masters in Administration, admin license, conflict management certification. 3 more years, 6 if you get your doctorate so you can aim for superintendant.
Source: parents and grandparents are teachers, I will be soonish.
Edit: The language requirements are extremely important. Learn Spanish for sure, try and learn a native american language for the local tribes or whatever the local immigrant minority is. Vietnamese, Russian, etc.Last edited by Tvtyrant; 2019-10-25 at 03:31 PM.
-
2019-10-25, 03:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
It's highly dependent on state. For about half, all you need is a BS in Education with the requisite endorsements (a handful of 100 level courses and a Methods class) and then pass a state certification exam, which is generally easier than a final. However, as a social sciences teacher (NOT history, schools aren't that specific) your primary responsibility will be coaching the sports teams, so make sure you've got that certification.
For other jobs you can do with a History degree that actually involves the degree, you can be a professor. Also, you can write history books. That's pretty much it.
-
2019-10-25, 07:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2018
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
A paddle
...and a sense of humor.Last edited by Magic_Hat; 2019-10-25 at 07:39 PM.
-
2019-10-25, 09:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- Back forty.
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Teach at what level? High school?
Bachelor’s in History Education, pass your test. That’s really it. And I dunno how far you’re into your chem degree, but I imagine you have a lot of gen eds done. Could become a teacher in 2 years. Maybe more.
For me (I was a HS math teacher in Missouri), the actual education program was 2 years. Once your gen eds are done, 3 semesters of shadowing a teacher + usual college stuff. Then 1 semester student teaching. Then bam you can teach.
Teaching HS though... there’s a supply and demand problem from what I hear, at least in history. No problem in math, but in history you may need to work at a school you’d rather not, be forced into extra duties you’d rather not, teach classes you’d rather not...
Up to you really, but I’d suggest sticking with chem.
-
2019-10-25, 09:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Okay, so this is more subject to statea then I realized. In Oregon/California/Washington you need a masters and to be bilingual. I have a friend who has been kicking around the area as a sub for a decade, gets glowing recommendations but his bachelors is not enough to get hired.
-
2019-10-25, 10:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2012
- Location
- Shreveport, Louisiana, US
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Or you can skip all that and go right in using iteach. That’s what I did in your situation. I had a bachelors wholly unrelated to teaching anything (general studies), and I was able to go into teaching the same year as graduating making full teacher pay. There are literally no strings attached with iteach.
-
2019-10-26, 07:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- Back forty.
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
-
2019-10-26, 03:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Teacher pay isn't great compared to private sector, but the health benefits and retirement are. Oregon's PERs has been cut from a 5% interest on your retirement fund guaranteed down to 2.something, which is still one of the best retirement plans you can get. Kaiser's plans is pretty phenomenal, Breaking Bad wouldn't happen here.
Washington has better pay but worse retirement then Oregon, California IDK as much about because my friends who moved there didn't become teachers.
-
2019-10-27, 05:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Teacher in Oregon here, and few of the social studies teachers I've worked with over the years have been bilingual, so that's certainly not a hard-and-fast requirement. However, there is a glut of social studies teachers in general, so most of the people I know with that endorsement (and a job) are dual-endorsed and were initially hired into a different specialty (SpEd is a good one if you can manage it, there are pretty much always SpEd positions open somewhere), then got a social studies job as an internal transfer a few years later when a position opened up. For Monkeysage specifically, I'd recommend trying to get science endorsed as well as social studies just because you probably know enough to pass either the chemistry test and/or the integrated science test. It's probably going to be easier to get a job teaching science than social studies.
I became a teacher when I realized that I did not want to be in grad school long enough to become a professor, really did not want to do research, and so had to figure out what else to do with my life other than spend years miserably working toward a Ph.D. (I'd originally wanted to be a computer science professor. I'd still rather be teaching computer science, but I am not sorry that I am not conducting research.) I applied to a masters-level teaching program at one of the state universities here since I already had a B.A. The program basically took a school year and the summers on either side of it, and I came out of it with an M.Ed. and a teaching license. I'm in math, so I've had an easier time getting a job than some other endorsement areas. (I figured that math and language arts were the two things I could probably pass the subject endorsement tests for without studying, and that math would be the more employable of those two things.)
If your goal is "become a teacher" rather than "find some sort of job trajectory that involves studying history in college", I suggest starting by finding out if it's possible to switch into a Chemistry Education major or concentration at your current school instead of straight Chemistry. If so, that would be the shortest amount of time between now and you having a teaching license. If no such program exists, take a look at what the various M.A.T. and M.Ed. programs in your state are looking for in terms of undergrad experiences, and try to accumulate as many of those things as you can.
If you just want to justify changing your major to history, well, I suggest finding an advisor to talk to at your school to see how much time you'd be adding to your degree. Since if I remember right you're nearly finished, you'd probably be adding several years and it may make more sense to finding something you can get a degree in more quickly given your credits so far. You can always go back and do a second B.A. in History later if you discover you need one, but you should consider just locking in a degree of some kind since many general office jobs will care more about whether or not you have a degree than the specific subject you majored in. Jobs that specifically and obvious use History degrees can be really competitive because there are usually more people deciding to major in it than closely-related jobs. There are plenty of history majors out there who found jobs after graduating, but most of them are in jobs where they could just as well have majored in communication or philosophy.
-
2019-10-27, 08:18 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2012
- Location
- Shreveport, Louisiana, US
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
The OP is in Arkansas, but if he moves to Louisiana, and he does the iteach, I would recommend he get dual cert. I got certified in 6-12 math, 4-8 math, 6-12 social studies, 6-12 general science, high school biology, special education, and 6-12 ela just to be she I got a job quickly.
-
2019-10-27, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2013
- Location
- Arkansas, U.S.
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Actually, part of what brought this on is that I know I can't make it in Chemistry. I've tried for long enough, and I've hit a wall in Physical Chemistry. I wish that I noticed this earlier, but I just do not understand P. Chem. It's all the quantum mechanics, to me it's incomprehensible- the math makes zero sense to me, and I don't see myself getting better any time soon- just worse... True, I don't need very many more credits to get that chemistry degree, but that doesn't matter if I can't make it in P. Chem...
-
2019-10-27, 11:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Very much this. I got my teacher certification in 1993 (certified in history, psychology and secondary social studies, so I can teach pretty much any high school history/government/economics/etc.) and joyfully went looking for work....
And found exactly three positions within a 75 mile radius of where I was living (Dallas, so a major area) that didn't have a secondary duty (usually coaching) attached to it that I wasn't qualified for. If a school has a position that is JUST history or social studies? People get in them and die in them.
Depending on your state, there may be an emergency certification program. Texas has one. You are still expected to earn the permanent certification, but can teach while doing so."That's a horrible idea! What time?"
T-Shirt given to me by a good friend.. "in fairness, I was unsupervised at the time".
-
2019-10-27, 01:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Even with a math endorsement, I can think of several jobs I've lost out on because I am not a good choice to coach sports teams. In my state, that's not an endorsement-based thing so they can technically hire anyone who passes a background check as a coach, but I last played on a sports team in 2nd grade and would not have any idea what I'm doing. "What can you coach?" is a pretty regular interview question, particularly in the smaller towns. (My answer was usually "speech and debate", which is not what they wanted to hear. I figured it was a better answer than "nothing" since it at least showed a willingness to take on an extra duty position, but I've never worked anywhere that actually had a speech and debate team.)
If you have a sport that you are at all familiar with, and you want to get a job teaching high school in a small town, one of the best things you can do while in undergrad is find a way to get coaching experience. It's best that it be in one or more of the "important" high school sports in your area, whichever those are. (You can tell by which ones get covered in the local newspaper.)
It's possible you may be able to get a Chemistry-related or science-related degree targeted at k-12 educators that requires less rigor in this area than a regular Chem degree. This is something else an advisor at your school could help you navigate. If your school has a College of Education, you might start by talking to them.Last edited by Algeh; 2019-10-27 at 01:29 PM.
-
2019-10-28, 05:18 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2013
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Just remeber it won't make you a millionaire....
I find this curious. Wouldn't the natural choice be the gym/phys ed teacher? They'd need the hours...?
When I went to school funnily enough both schools (upper and lower primary) the gym teacher was also principal usually because there aren't enough weekly hours in phys ed so they aimed at filling out time so to speak.
Also I think the people suggesting tieing in chemistry and teaching are on to somethiing. You already did a lot of chem, I would think enough that you only lack the teacher part.Last edited by snowblizz; 2019-10-28 at 05:20 AM.
-
2019-10-28, 11:24 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
You have one or maybe two PE teachers. There are probably 18 sports teams needing coaches.
Football
Wrestling
Track (M&F)
Cross Country (M&F)
Basketball (M&F)
Volleyball
Gymnastics
Tennis (M&F)
Golf (M&F)
Soccer (M&F)
Baseball
Softball
Note that this is only varsity (no JV) and doesn't include more regional fare like swimming and diving.Last edited by Rogar Demonblud; 2019-10-28 at 11:24 AM.
-
2019-10-28, 12:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
A childhood friend of mine is a high school history teacher. He got there via a political science degree from Northwestern, had a few jobs in Washington working for political action comities, and then got his masters in education. I think that a lot of the time you need to do something else besides history. Like divers education, or coach something . . . even something like chess.
Last edited by darkrose50; 2019-10-28 at 03:55 PM.
-
2019-10-28, 01:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
-
2019-10-28, 01:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
-
2019-10-28, 08:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Eh, when I taught at lower-income school in an urban area we still had a golf team. I no longer remember if we had tennis there (I remember golf because I remember which teacher coached it), but it wouldn't surprise me. Golf is a fairly easy sport to get donations of equipment and course time for, since there are lots of people with money who play golf to hit up for those donations, and a lot of golf courses aren't very busy during the school year right after school on weekdays so the lost potential income from donating course time to high school kids isn't that much. (We also have city-owned golf courses and tennis courts here, though.)
On the other hand, I once taught at a school with an equestrian team. That was a ... non-randomly-selected subset of the school population for sure.
-
2019-10-29, 04:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2013
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Weird.
All of that would be happening outside school here, not connected to it. Usually as a youth section of an existing sportsclub.
-
2019-10-30, 12:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Depending on the sports, there can be a lot of double coverage. Our Track and Cross Country coach (spring activities) was also our Soccer Coach (fall activity). My high school had 3400 students my senior year, and we had probably 12 coaches total. 8 of them were in the social studies for 2-3 periods each.
"That's a horrible idea! What time?"
T-Shirt given to me by a good friend.. "in fairness, I was unsupervised at the time".
-
2019-10-30, 12:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Location
- San Francisco Bay area
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
That's just to get to the front of the line to be hired, most teachers that I've personally known in Oakland, California got hired as "emergency temporary exempt" as elementary or middle school/junior high school teachers with a BA and the ability to fog a mirror.
That's it.
For many school districts the "emergency" need to hire those with less credentials lasts for decades.
After ten years the pay is pretty good, but pay is low the first few years and most quit and with all the turnover being a new hire if you have a college diploma is relatively easy (compared to other jobs that may potentially earn a pension).
The problems (besides the low starting pay) are that districts that need to hire the most usually have high housing costs, students that are troubled by poverty, and getting a disruptive kid out of your class is difficult because each kid not in class means less money from the State.
Still if you stick it out the pay gets better with seniority, there's health insurance and there's a pension.
-
2019-10-31, 10:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2013
- Location
- Arkansas, U.S.
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
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)
Last edited by MonkeySage; 2019-10-31 at 10:34 AM.
-
2019-10-31, 11:41 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
-
2019-10-31, 11:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Location
- Bristol, UK
-
2019-10-31, 12:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2013
- Location
- Arkansas, U.S.
- Gender
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Would learning one make the other any easier?
-
2019-10-31, 01:34 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
French and Spanish are both Romance languages and somewhat similar (plus English has absorbed a lot of vocabulary from them). Hindu and various forms of Chinese are not related, and we haven't looted as much grammar from them.
-
2019-10-31, 01:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
Some school districts will accept someone with just a subject-area degree but not teaching degree (e.g., History degree but not other stuff) if you're willing to work in an area that usually needs teachers, such as a rural area, high-poverty area, or high-crime area. In other words, places that usually have trouble getting teachers sometimes allow folk to become provisional teachers and hope they pick up the 'teaching' part on the job or via professional development.
-
2019-10-31, 05:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Location
- Bristol, UK
Re: What would it take to become a History teacher in the U.S.?
My mistake.
Wikipedia has a page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...ative_speakers
The list starts "Mandarin (language family), Spanish, English, Hindi ..."
Sorry about that.The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.