What classes do you major in when wanting to be an Elementary teacher?
I’m only a Sophmore in highschool, currently, so college is pretty far away for me- I just wanted to know HOW teachers become teachers in the first place.
[I live in Wisconsin, if that's of any importance.]
XD
You usually have to get a Bachelor of Education at college, which takes four years. The other way you can do it is to major in something else (like biology) for four years and then do one more year of Education at the end.
Learning How to Become A Teacher is really good fun but also hard work. The classes you have to take are usually very interesting. Some are harder than others, but they are all worth learning about. Here are some examples of the classes you will have to study in college in order to become a teacher:
You learn about HOW people learn, i.e. what helps people to learn. Some people learn better by seeing, some by hearing, and some by doing. You will find that motivation is the biggest factor that helps someone learn a new thing. A student’s motivation can be wanting to please the teacher or a parent, wanting to learn how to draw better, wanting to make the basketball team, wanting to get on the Honor Roll, wanting to get a higher mark than a friend, wanting to get out of the neighborhood, wanting to get a job that pays a lot of money, or simply being self-motivated and wanting to fulfil a personal ambition. But a student has to have some form of motivation first or he/she won’t learn a whole lot. You usually take a couple of classes in Learning How to Learn.
You learn about child and adolescent psychology, i.e. how kids’ minds work. You will read about the latest research into what makes some kids work more effectively than others, how they handle peer pressure and bullying, whether they work better competitively or cooperatively and under what conditions, and what factors might hurt their efforts at learning. You will also learn what kids are capable of understanding according to their ages, and why they might be behaving badly. You usually take a couple of classes in psychology.
You learn how to perform in front of large groups of people. You will learn to be confident in public speaking and how to use props to increase people’s involvement with what you are trying to show them.
You learn how to CONTROL large groups of people (wink). You will learn a few "tricks of the trade" that help teachers keep students on task and encourage discipline. This is called classroom management, and you will have at least one class in it and get lots of practice by student teaching in a couple of different schools under the supervision of a mentor teacher during your final year or two of college.
You learn the law as it applies to education. You will learn what teachers’, students’ and parents’ responsibilities and rights are. Simply put, you will learn what you can and cannot do and why, and how to promote safety at all times.
You learn about different types of people and what factors they bring to their own education that might change the way you teach them. For example, you learn about disability, immigration, illiteracy (inability to read and write), poverty, different cultures, etc. This is called sociology, and it’s usually a fun class.
You learn how to pick good material to present as lessons. This is called pedagogy, and you will have a class in this as well. You will learn what teaching methods work best under what conditions. Along with this, you will learn how to use all the equipment that teachers need to master in today’s schools.
You learn how to assess students’ work. You will study how different types of assessment help students learn differently (think about what you learn for writing a paper versus what you learn for taking a test). You will learn what the testing requirements are in your state and how to report student progress to parents.
You learn how to interpret the state documentation that tells you what to teach to the different age levels. This is called curriculum, and you will have a class in this. You will then be able to keep up with the requirements that Wisconsin places on teachers.
Then you take your specialist subject areas. For example, if you want to teach elementary school, then you have to have a basic understanding of English, math, social studies, science. You learn a little bit about a lot of things. If you want to teach high school, then you have to become an expert in one subject area, i.e. biology, history, Spanish, cooking. You learn a lot about one thing.
Lastly, sometimes you just learn practical things that help schools offer a safe and richly varied learning environment for kids. You might learn first aid, or how to use an epipen (an injection to stop bad allergic reactions), how to teach kids to do peer mentoring, how to coach softball, how to publish the yearbook, or how to be the backstage manager for the school play. These depend on your abilities and interests.
Good teachers are good teachers just about anywhere, and we all study roughly the same things in college. So being in Wisconsin won’t matter too much to what you’ll eventually study. Once you understand how to teach in Wisconsin, you will have enough knowledge to be able to transfer your teaching ability somewhere else if you want to.
Congrats on exploring your options early, and I hope you join us. We need lovely, talented people like you! Good luck.
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5 comments to What classes do you major in when wanting to be an Elementary teacher?
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It depends on the school, but I think many schools have an elementary education major which you would major in. I think they usually require a double major with a subject that you are interested in, but I am not sure. If you are looking at a specific school, go on the website and see if you can get more information or contact someone at the school.
References :
You usually have to get a Bachelor of Education at college, which takes four years. The other way you can do it is to major in something else (like biology) for four years and then do one more year of Education at the end.
Learning how to become a teacher is really good fun but also hard work. The classes you have to take are usually very interesting. Some are harder than others, but they are all worth learning about. Here are some examples of the classes you will have to study in college in order to become a teacher:
You learn about HOW people learn, i.e. what helps people to learn. Some people learn better by seeing, some by hearing, and some by doing. You will find that motivation is the biggest factor that helps someone learn a new thing. A student’s motivation can be wanting to please the teacher or a parent, wanting to learn how to draw better, wanting to make the basketball team, wanting to get on the Honor Roll, wanting to get a higher mark than a friend, wanting to get out of the neighborhood, wanting to get a job that pays a lot of money, or simply being self-motivated and wanting to fulfil a personal ambition. But a student has to have some form of motivation first or he/she won’t learn a whole lot. You usually take a couple of classes in Learning How to Learn.
You learn about child and adolescent psychology, i.e. how kids’ minds work. You will read about the latest research into what makes some kids work more effectively than others, how they handle peer pressure and bullying, whether they work better competitively or cooperatively and under what conditions, and what factors might hurt their efforts at learning. You will also learn what kids are capable of understanding according to their ages, and why they might be behaving badly. You usually take a couple of classes in psychology.
You learn how to perform in front of large groups of people. You will learn to be confident in public speaking and how to use props to increase people’s involvement with what you are trying to show them.
You learn how to CONTROL large groups of people (wink). You will learn a few "tricks of the trade" that help teachers keep students on task and encourage discipline. This is called classroom management, and you will have at least one class in it and get lots of practice by student teaching in a couple of different schools under the supervision of a mentor teacher during your final year or two of college.
You learn the law as it applies to education. You will learn what teachers’, students’ and parents’ responsibilities and rights are. Simply put, you will learn what you can and cannot do and why, and how to promote safety at all times.
You learn about different types of people and what factors they bring to their own education that might change the way you teach them. For example, you learn about disability, immigration, illiteracy (inability to read and write), poverty, different cultures, etc. This is called sociology, and it’s usually a fun class.
You learn how to pick good material to present as lessons. This is called pedagogy, and you will have a class in this as well. You will learn what teaching methods work best under what conditions. Along with this, you will learn how to use all the equipment that teachers need to master in today’s schools.
You learn how to assess students’ work. You will study how different types of assessment help students learn differently (think about what you learn for writing a paper versus what you learn for taking a test). You will learn what the testing requirements are in your state and how to report student progress to parents.
You learn how to interpret the state documentation that tells you what to teach to the different age levels. This is called curriculum, and you will have a class in this. You will then be able to keep up with the requirements that Wisconsin places on teachers.
Then you take your specialist subject areas. For example, if you want to teach elementary school, then you have to have a basic understanding of English, math, social studies, science. You learn a little bit about a lot of things. If you want to teach high school, then you have to become an expert in one subject area, i.e. biology, history, Spanish, cooking. You learn a lot about one thing.
Lastly, sometimes you just learn practical things that help schools offer a safe and richly varied learning environment for kids. You might learn first aid, or how to use an epipen (an injection to stop bad allergic reactions), how to teach kids to do peer mentoring, how to coach softball, how to publish the yearbook, or how to be the backstage manager for the school play. These depend on your abilities and interests.
Good teachers are good teachers just about anywhere, and we all study roughly the same things in college. So being in Wisconsin won’t matter too much to what you’ll eventually study. Once you understand how to teach in Wisconsin, you will have enough knowledge to be able to transfer your teaching ability somewhere else if you want to.
Congrats on exploring your options early, and I hope you join us. We need lovely, talented people like you! Good luck.
References :
Unless you can get straight into a Bachelor of Education program I’m fairly certain that you can get a degree in whatever major you’d like and then apply for a teaching degree or certificate or whatever Wisconsin requires. If you want to teach high school you may be required to declare a certain number of subjects such as Geography, History, Math, Biology etc. (in Canada that number is 2) and you need to have a certain number of university credits in those subjects.
References :
You need to contact the Wisconsin Department of Education to get the specifics of their requirements. I believe most states require a Bachelor’s degree in any subject with a minor in education (15-18 credits). In New York, those pursuing a career in Elementary Education major in a subject, minor in Elementary Education and complete a student teaching internship. The next steps would be to take the state certification exams (all states now require certification under "No Child Left Behind") and you can be provisionally certified for between3 and 5 years which will give you time (while you are teaching) to earn a masters degree either in your subject or in a specific area of education.
References :
well, depends where you’ll attend college
here in California if you want to teach in an elementary school you need to first of all be accepted into a teacher education program at your school, basically it’s teacher school
you have to take several classes on ALL subjects because you’ll be teaching ALL subjects in elementary, then you also have to take several state mandated tests like the CBEST (which is basically the GED and covers all subject from k-12), MSAT (covers all subject from k-8) and RICA which tests you on your ability to teach reading in a class room (basically they want to see if you can teach English), also in many states it’s now mandatory to obtain a BCLAD meaning that you have to be able to teach ESL because there are many many many immigrant students. On top of that you have to finish at least 2 semesters of student teaching; the first semester you’re usually paired up with another student teacher and you work with the master teacher in the classroom and divide the lesson you’ll teach, and they’re mostly math and language arts lessons. You only work half a day during your 1st semester of student teaching. During the second semester you’re on your own with the master teacher supervising you all day long and you have to teach all the lessons and report grades, attend PTA meetings, etc, basically you’re doing everything the teacher does. So, on top of getting lessons ready each night for the following day, you still have to attend classes at your school and you’ll have surprise visits from your school supervisor!
So once you complete all this you get to have a low paying job, no respect, long hours of work, no benefits (except summers, but that depends if you work during the summers), childish parents, and overwhelming, exhausting days!
Now, I’m not trying to scare you, I’m just being honest because I’m an elementary school teacher, I was laid off last semester because of the budget cuts and right now I’m substitute teaching, in which you’re not promised a job everyday.
Good luck on your future endeavors!!
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