How to Become a Secondary School Teacher

High school and junior high school teachers give stability, discipline, direction and knowledge to adolescents from a variety of backgrounds. A real passion for your area of expertise is essential if you want to help shape young lives and maintain your classroom authority.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Academic Counselings
• Career Counseling
• Postage Stamps
• Envelopes
• résumé paper
• résumé software

1. Begin working with adolescents as soon as possible by volunteering in your local junior high or high schools as a teacher's aide and in church groups, teen educational outreach programs or sports associations. Contact your local school district or city parks and recreation department for details.

2. Document all your volunteer work and collect references from supervisors: You may be required to have as many as 80 volunteer hours completed before you are accepted into a teacher-credential program.

3. Earn a bachelor's degree in the specific subject area you want to teach, such as art, music, English, history, mathematics or biology. Consider obtaining a minor in physical education, music or a foreign language to make yourself more marketable to a school looking for teachers who can do more than one thing.

4. Find fifth year/postgraduate programs you can apply to for a single-subject teaching credential. Find out about entrance requirements, including standardized tests and prerequisite courses.

5. Complete your teacher credential program by taking graduate courses in education and your preferred subject area and by passing national teacher certification exams and those required for the state you want to teach in. At the same time, complete your supervised teacher training in your specific area of expertise in grade levels 8 through 12.

6. Establish an employment file in your graduating college's educational placement office, which will become your job-search headquarters. There you will find current job listings, and your file will be sent out to prospective employers on request.

7. Research and join professional organizations related to your specific area of teaching, such as the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE).

Tips & Warnings

• Keep in mind that credential requirements for special education, elementary education and kindergarten are significantly different from those for the single-subject credential.
• Spend as much time as possible working with adolescents before you make the decision to devote the rest of your life to teaching them.

Who Can Help:

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[coolguyrko]

on 6/17/2008 I am from I reland and was wondering what to study in college if i want to become a Secondary[High School] History teacher in New Zeland.Also if anybody cares i am going to become a voulenteer in Zion Wildlife Gardens.

[jenehernandez]

on 3/20/2007 I am interested in becoming a COSMETOLOGY TEACHER for either HIGH SCHOOL OR COLLEGE. Can anyone out there tell me how to get there? Please be very specific, lots of details.

on 1/23/2006 Teaching is a noble profession for those who have the patience, flexibility, and positive attitude about their students. Teaching is not for everyone, but if it is for you, you should feel very honored to call yourself a teacher.

on 11/22/2005 So, you love history or the social sciences in genera and you want to teach in that area. Fine. So does a multitude of others. There can be several hundred candidates for one position! You may discover that despite possessing a teaching certificate and being extremely knowledgable in the field your lack of full-time pid experience will keep you from being hired.

Thanks to the so-called "No Child Left Behind Act" that the politicians used to cater to voting constituents, the fear of losing federal funding has compelled many in hiring positions to disregard newcomers. The fear of taking a chance has lead to those with experience shoving aside even the most qualified newcomers.

Again, the bureaucratic mentality is causing the problem the bureaucrats proclaimed they wanted to stop.

There are some fields with shortages such as special education, foreign language, etc. However, those with the skills to obtain a teaching certificate in those areas can often earn much more in the private sector.

Teachng is also a thankless job. A certain percentage of students will never devote the effort to learn yet, YOU, the teacher, will be blamed for those students lack of motivation. You will also learn that a large percentage of the population will refuse to believe that their precious offspring is incapable of being anything but angelic in the classroom.

All-in-all, think twice, then three times about becoming a teacher. Currently, approximately 50-per-cent of new teachers leave the field within five years, and rightfully so. Life is too short to put up with the vile offspring of self-centered parents who insist the universe revolves around their heathenistic anti-social brat.