Teaching Careers
When looking for a great new career, too many people overlook one of the best choices of all: teaching careers. Careers in teaching provide you with a great job where you can actually make a real, valuable difference in the lives of others. Teachers are often some of the most respected and admired professionals because, after all, there would be no other profession if not for teachers. Everything we know is due to the work of a teacher. If nobody had taught us to read or to use numbers, we would be unable to do anything else. When you think of that, you realize that by going back to college and becoming a teacher, you are becoming one of the most valuable workers in the world.
Education and training
The minimum educational requirement to become a teacher is a bachelor’s degree in education. This typically takes four years of full-time study and includes the basic college classes of English, mathematics, science, history, speech, political science, ethics, and others during the first two years. This is typically followed by teaching-specific classes including child development, multicultural understanding, special education needs, children’s literature, teaching methodology, and others. It is possible to take many of these classes through online education.
Before graduation, those wishing to enter teaching careers will also be required to complete a period of student teaching. During student teaching, the teaching candidate assumes all the regular responsibilities of a teacher in a real classroom. A cooperating teacher as well as a university representative closely supervises this service. Successful completion of the student teaching assignment is a requirement for graduation.
After completing the career training for teaching careers, candidates must pass state licensing exams. This typically includes taking four parts of the Praxis II exam and passing each part successfully. After passing the licensing exams, candidates receive an apprentice license and can begin working in careers in teaching. Many people continue their education after beginning work by completing an online master’s degree or similar program. Earning a master’s degree eliminates the need to earn continuing education credits every ten years of service.
About the job
Teaching careers involve a wide variety of everyday tasks including classroom discipline, record keeping, planning, instruction, and organization. To be successful in careers in teaching, you must have patience, empathy, time management skills, attention to detail, and creativity. You must be able to assess student learning through observation and official testing and be prepared to re-teach material in a new way if it is not mastered the first time. You must also be able to incorporate a variety of methods into each lesson in order to reach students of all ability levels and learning styles. Since you are essentially working in an independent environment, you must also have a strong work ethic and be self-motivated.
Teaching careers provide creative, driven individuals with a great job in which they can work with students and provide a great knowledge base in a variety of topics. If you enjoy learning and working with others to make their lives better through education, now is a great time to go back to school and get your training to become a teacher.
