I want to teach US History at a Highschool level currenlty i'm at a community college and plan to transfer...?

Question

to a Cal State. Anyways i'm just looking for advice as to what i should do, especially with planning a schedual (should i get my teaching credentials with my major or do them seperately) Anything i should be mindful of? I don't have to transfer till next year but i'm still pretty unsure of what to do.

I'm going to talk to a councelor, but i wonder if anyone has done this already and could give me some pointers?

Answer 1

I have to disagree with the above folks on this one.

I say get your teaching credentials first. Then work on the master's degree while you're teaching. (reimbursement for a portion or all of your tuition!!!)

I just graduated with a degree in secondary education - social studies. The way we do things in the East is it is almost a double major, but not quite because you don't just study history, but also geography, government and economics.

I can't help noticing you said US HIstory. I do have bad news there. Don't count on that class for a while. You'll probably start off with Government or civics, and maybe a world class. US History is the hardest one to get until you have seniority.

There is so much more to teaching history other than knowing history. It's why I'm definitely suggesting taking your ed. courses and getting an ed. degree first. The history, if you love it, comes naturally.

Lesson planning, keeping up on your grading, accurately assessing your student's knowledge are all more important at the high school level.

I also started out at a community college, by the way.

Good luck! Don't let the "what do you coach?" stories get you too down. There are jobs out there for social studies teachers. You just need to keep looking until you find one and be prepared to relocate.

Also, you'll probably start off teaching underclassman, which is all the more reason that content knowledge needs to be strong, but methods knowledge needs to be stronger in the beginning. They are used to being coddled in grade school, and you have to successfully transition them from having their hands held in social studies class to being able to make connections. If you are a book wonk and don't know maslow's hierarchy and blooms's taxonomy and how to successfully implement them with a teenager, all the historical knowledge in the world will not help them answer the question, "Defend or refute: the constitutional convention was a coup d'etat."

Answer 2

Most states are requiring HS-level teachers to have a major in the subject that they intend to teach. Many districts will help new college grads obtain a teaching job in their specialty, on waiver, and help them through certification. Usually this means, taking your education courses and teaching concurrently. (This ends up counting as an "internship".)
I would begin substituting to get a feel for the schools you might be interested in and asking other teachers how they earned their certification. You might be surprised!

Best of luck,
Mon :-)

Answer 3

What you're going for is different from my own track--which is grad school in history leading to a doctorate (someday!). But I have taught as a substitute teacher and "know the ropes."

You'll need that teaching certificate--and to al intents and purposes that means an education major. Along with that, you'll take courses in both history and other social sciences. So as far as that goes, you don't have to plan this out--just follow the numbers, so to speak.

HOWEVER--most of my teaching experience is with undergraduates (hence students who are by and large above average in high school) I do have a couple of suggestions.

You should try to get as much "serious" history as possible. That is something that is sadly lacking among todays social science teachers--its painfully clear that they are not teaching much of substance. And I know enough of the requirments for teaching to know that for the most part the teachers are simply not adequately prepared themselves.

In short, if you want to do this right, you will need to do more learning on your oown than is required. And to a degree, I can point you to the areas where teacher training is weak and you need to fill in the blanks:
1) Writing. There is a serious problem with most students here--they simply do not know how to research and write a research/term paper. And this is also where teachers are weakest. And the ONLY way you can acquire that skill to pass along is by taking courses (history, but other areas serve as welll) that allow you to develop your own skills. Believe me, this is one area where the cliche "those who can do, those who can't, teach" is false--if you cant write you cant teach writing.
2) Civics/political science. There is NO EXCUSE for the fact that people are being given certificates to teach history/social science who do not htemselves know how our government works and who do not have an adequate grounding in the Constitution. But that is not only the norm, civics/political science, either seperate or as part of the history, is not even taught in many school systems. But here's a heads up--if someone does not have a basic knowledge of this--good enough to teach it to high school students (and teach it right)--they have no business in the classroom, certified or not.
3) The ability to put historical and social science issues in context. The only way to acquire this is simply extensive study. Here's an example of what I mean: it is not uncommon for a teacher to teach that since Thomas Jefferson owned (and did not free) slaves, he was really a hypocrite when it came to advocating freedom. But that is simply imposing OUR standards on a particular fact which is itself taken out of context. A more accurate description is that Jefferson probably should have freed his slaves, but he lived in a society that made that difficult (Virginia law was specifically designed to make it difficult to manumit slaves); furthermore, Jefferson had a strong belief (and at least partly a valid one) that simply legally freeing slaves was not fair--to the slaves. He thought there was a moral obligation to make sure they were literate, skilled in a trade, and taught and prepared for the responsibilities of being their "own boss." It is, based on his writings, all but certain that he fully intended to do exactly that when he was in a financial position to do so. Unfortunately, Jefferson was as much an idiot at business as he was a genius at politics--he was never able to put his plans into action.

NOTE-I'm not trying to make an arguement for/against any issue here--I'm trying to point out that it takes more than a handful of middling courses to develop a real understanding of events--and that you will need to take care to avoid simplistic judgements if you want to be fair to your students.

Answer 4

History can be view and taught from many angles and perspectives, so don't be like the rest.... USAcentric