11 Becoming a Teacher

Before delving into this chapter, watch the following video for inspiration and to reflect on why becoming a teacher may be the right path for you.

Video 11.1

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Starting a career is, for most people, one of the most exciting and energizing periods of their lives. For many young adults, it represents their unofficial entrance into the adult world. They find themselves in a new environment, surrounded by new people and challenges, and carrying real responsibilities. This is especially true for new teachers.

For some, the transition into full-time teaching is relatively smooth and satisfying. For others, however, the first year can be a significant struggle. Some new teachers are shocked or disappointed by their early experiences in the profession. For most, the first year of teaching is a mix of highs and lows.

Fortunately, people entering the teaching profession in the second decade of the twenty-first century typically have a wide variety of options and opportunities because of high numbers of retirements—so much for the good news.

It is important to note that the first year of teaching can be a difficult one for beginners. Each year, many new teachers walk into their classrooms with energy, high hopes, and rose-colored glasses, only to face unexpected challenges that cause them to question their abilities.

Surprise is also a big part of the first year. New teachers often report being astonished by various experiences or events. The first year is intense because of the unexpected demands and startling moments that emerge in what was once thought to be a familiar place: the classroom.

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11.1 What Education do I Need?

When moving to a new state, it is important to check with the state licensing authority to determine what educational qualifications are required of teachers. In Oregon, this would be the Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC).

Every state manages its own credentialing guidelines, which can make the licensure process confusing—especially when moving between states.

Typically, teacher licensure requires a bachelor’s degree at minimum, but educators have been hired with associate degrees in high-need rural areas. Due to the critical demand for more professionals to join the teacher workforce, there are more pathways than ever to become a licensed teacher. Tennessee has an apprenticeship program for new teacher candidates, and other states, such as Oregon, are looking to replicate this model.

Many higher education institutions now offer remote and online programming for students who need to keep working at their jobs, in addition to the traditional model of in-person learning. It is important to consider the local options and scholarships available before considering out-of-state and/or private options because local options have been vetted carefully by the community.

Many students also pursue graduate studies, and teacher salaries typically correlate with educational attainment. Increasingly, there are options to pursue graduate studies or degrees while working for districts. This option can make the teacher career pathway much more affordable. Due to the aging workforce, known colloquially as the “silver tsunami,” many schools have critical hiring needs. As a result, state governments are coming up with new ways to educate teachers and a variety of funding incentives in the form of grants and scholarships. Take advantage of these opportunities!

Community colleges are a great way to start one’s educational path, offering affordable pathways, diverse coursework, and a diverse student community (people of all ages, backgrounds, and lived experiences). Students who already work in the schools can apply their rich experiences to their classroom learning. Finding jobs in non-licensed roles (such as paraprofessional) in schools is one of the best “front-row seats” to observe the teaching profession. Most importantly, it helps evolving educators build the confidence to pursue licensure. Additionally, districts are increasingly finding ways to provide financial support to assist with tuition costs so that paraprofessionals can work toward becoming licensed teachers while working.

Once you have chosen a bachelor’s program to pursue, you can determine which community college courses your future university will accept. Less important than the degree you choose at the community college is understanding the requirements of the transfer institution. Pick a degree that either fits perfectly with your transfer plan or has enough flexibility to accommodate it. Many transfer schools will accept a certain amount of elective credit, which provides some flexibility, but most have a set of classes they expect you to take as foundational coursework.

The sooner you choose your transfer university, the sooner you can make good choices about which classes to take at the community college. It is critical to work with an advisor who can support you in navigating the transfer pathways. Elementary educators should focus on a broad range of subjects, while middle and high school educators should focus on the area they hope to teach, in addition to foundational coursework listed below. Typical coursework includes a collection of the following:

• Social science (Psychology, Sociology)
• Humanities (Literature, Art, Music, Language, History)
• Science (Biology, Environmental Science, etc)
• Communication (Speech)
• Math
• Health and Physical Education
• Ethics (Philosophy or Religion)
• Specific Education coursework
• Ethnic Studies

Increasingly, the lack of representation in the U.S. curriculum of certain groups is well documented. This leads to a society that struggles to reckon with its past, present, and future in terms of delivering equity and justice to all its citizens. For this reason, taking coursework in Ethnic Studies—to better understand the rich heritage of a variety of underrepresented groups, their voices, art, literature, and histories—is highly recommended. In each of the areas above, there should be options to study Black history or Latino/a/x/e literature, Asian art, or women’s contributions to the sciences, for example. Educators who take such coursework will be better equipped to re-center the curriculum and work toward a more just society.

11.2 Becoming an Antiracist Educator

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Educators have a responsibility to teach curricular material in a way that does not perpetuate the oppressive processes, systems, dynamics, and stereotypes prevalent in U.S. society, but dismantles them. While a college education typically covers a lot of information, it might not cover anti-racism. In order to be the most effective educator for all the students you reach, regardless of their identity or your own, it is imperative that you educate yourself on how to communicate about and provide learning opportunities on such topics as racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of oppression. Educators must be able to address the topics that affect their students—especially the ones that matter to them and shape their lived realities. Educators cannot teach in a protected bubble; they must be responsive to the needs of modern society.

Stay Informed

One of the most exciting parts of being a teacher is that you get to be a life-long learner yourself. First of all, you will continue to learn and hone your craft as a teacher through many venues. You may choose to complete additional courses, future advanced degrees (maybe even a doctorate so you can work with preservice teachers as a college professor), or certificates.

Another important way to stay informed is to become a member of professional organizations that support teachers. These organizations are often focused on specific subfields, like literacy, math, or science, but some organizations support teachers in general. They frequently have both state and national (or even international) networks and conferences, which can be an exciting way to keep your learning current while meeting other educators like you. Often students and early-career teachers can join these organizations or attend conferences at a discounted rate – sometimes even for free. Below, you will find a list with a few of these professional organizations.

Professional Organizations for Educators

In addition to these formal venues, you can stay informed by keeping up with high-quality websites, podcasts, and other online resources. A high-quality online resource is often vetted by an editor or a content expert. While sites like TeachersPayTeachers and Pinterest can provide some inspiration, these sites are not moderated and therefore are not guaranteed to offer high-quality, accurate content and resources. Below are some websites and podcasts that you might find useful.

One final way for you to stay informed as a future teacher is to keep up with current events, policy, legislation, and other visible ways education appears in the news. While it can sometimes feel overwhelming to maintain your day-to-day responsibilities as a teacher while also keeping an eye on outside events, this awareness of current issues is vital for your ongoing advocacy for your students, your colleagues, and yourself. Here are a few online resources that are completely devoted to covering headlines related to education:

• Chalkbeat
• EducationDive (divided into K-12 Dive and HigherEd Dive)
• The Atlantic: Education
• EducationWeek

The institution of education is constantly evolving, and often outside forces have long tried to shape the trajectory of it. Education was–and is interrelated with other institutions in the United States, such as the economy, politics, and religion. For example, just in the first few years of the 2020s, headlines about education addressed the pandemic, issues of equity with online learning, the claim that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is being taught in K-12 schools, and additional topics that were of timely consideration due to other social, economic, and political factors.

Popular media and politicians have used the strategy of conflating accurate United States history which includes colonization, enslavement, and ongoing systemic oppression- with CRT. CRT is, in short, a complex theory designed originally for legal analysis (watch the video below for more explanation).

Listening closely to these news stories can also highlight misunderstandings people have about how education works in the United States. You know from your journey through this text that the US Department of Education (US DoE) has no jurisdiction over curriculum; educational decisions are left to individual states. Nevertheless, critics of CRT have accused the US DoE of endorsing CRT when the federal government simply plays no such role in mandating curriculum.

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Furthermore, part of staying informed involves seeking news from multiple sources instead of accepting as truth what you hear from one source. Make sure that you are seeking input from well-studied experts in the field. When reading the news about education with a critical lens, here are a few questions to consider:

• What is the headline/story about?
• Why is this a significant event to cover?
• Who seems to be driving the narrative in the piece?
• Whose voices seem to be excluded?
• What emotional response from the listener/viewer/reader does the piece seem intended to evoke, and why? For whose benefit?
• What stances from actual stakeholders in education–teachers, families, students, administrators, or others–are centered or de-centered?

When you listen to stories about education in the news through a critical lens, you may notice an absence of teachers’ voices. This is an important observation. What might we be missing when we are not hearing from the teachers themselves? This can lead to the de-professionalization of teachers.

De-professionalization is a common problem in education. When education is micromanaged–when teachers are told what to teach and given scripted “teacher-proof” curriculum to teach from–and when teachers are undervalued–expected to do extensive work for low wages – de-professionalization occurs. As you learned in Chapter 2, education’s long history in the United States as a female-dominated field directly correlates to de-professionalization, especially when women teachers were paid less and encouraged to think of their work as a “calling” instead of a profession.

As you’ve read so far, staying informed is part of your ongoing journey toward becoming a teacher, and you should continue to stay informed even after you earn your teaching license. Next, we’ll consider ways to stay engaged.

Stay Engaged

The best way to learn to be a teacher is to get experience actually working with students, so consider various ways to stay engaged with young people. One way to stay engaged is to seek out opportunities to volunteer in local classrooms. Teachers can always use help with creating classroom materials, working one-on-one with students, and with other classroom tasks. You may also be able to apply to be a substitute teacher in your local school district, even before you finish earning your teaching credential. While this can be a powerful way to develop your future teaching skills, you should also be aware that being a substitute teacher is not the same as being a full-time classroom teacher. This is also an excellent way to gain a local reference once you start applying for jobs, so treat it accordingly (like an extended job interview) and earn a reference that could get you hired!

Another way to stay engaged is through opportunities in your local community. You may be able to help with an after-school tutoring program or homework club. If your community has a high number of refugees, there may be special programming available to support this portion of the population. You could also be involved in designing and implementing curriculum for local summer camps or children’s museums. Wherever your passions lie, there are likely many opportunities to stay engaged with young people that will strengthen your skills as a future teacher.

However you choose to stay engaged, be sure you are aware of any policies various organizations may have about volunteers and visitors. Many public schools require background checks for volunteers who will be in schools regularly (such as when you are completing a practicum experience); others may simply ask you to check in at the front office when you arrive and let them know when you leave. As a volunteer, you should also never be alone with a student. These rules and expectations are in place to keep students safe, so it is important that you follow them at all times.

One final consideration as you stay engaged is to make it a priority to stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone. While it may be extremely tempting to return to the summer camp you loved as a child as a counselor now, that experience is one you are already familiar with. Go beyond your local community and past experiences to expose yourself to different places, people, and ways of thinking. Your future classroom will be full of diverse learners, and stretching your horizons now will only make you a more effective teacher.

Stay Focused

Finally, the path forward will require you to stay focused. Teaching is an exciting profession. No day is exactly the same: you will have different learners with different experiences, strengths, and needs, and this community will shape the outcome of every day in your future classroom. With this excitement comes other emotions too. In your determination to become the best possible teacher, you will also experience some self-doubt. Remember that it can take three to five years to feel like you have mastery of your craft as a teacher, so it is quite common to feel like you don’t have all the tools in your teacher toolbox when you are an early-career teacher. Effective teachers keep learning and adding to their teacher toolboxes.

Another emotion you might feel is exhaustion. You know from your own experience as a student, from your readings in this book, and from your interactions with friends and family members who are educators that teaching is hard work. You work long hours with few breaks, and beyond the instructional day, there are emails, family conferences, faculty meetings, and other special events. You might find yourself in the grocery store aisle worrying about one of your students and whether they will have food to eat that night, or wondering if something you said to a student when you were frustrated came across much harsher than you intended. You’ll find yourself watching TV or talking to friends when new ideas for lessons come to mind, or when you realize you have something else to add to your never-ending to-do list.

For your sake and your students’, here is one of the most important pieces of advice we can offer: taking care of yourself is critical! In the process of facing these new challenges, it can be easy to forget about yourself, especially as you get started. Speak up when you are feeling overwhelmed, and carve out as much time for yourself as possible. Keep practicing hobbies that bring you joy, and find new ones. If you do not have a mentor or community of support, find one—or several. After all, if you aren’t taking care of yourself, it’s hard to be the best possible teacher for your students. This cannot be overstated, so please read this twice and take it to heart!

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Conclusion

While your journey through the foundations of U.S. education has come to a close in this book, your journey toward becoming an effective, life-changing teacher is just beginning. In the years to come, you will continue to develop your craft by staying informed, engaged, and focused. You will have opportunities to see how the field of education is changing and will continue to change in the future. You will even have opportunities to be part of efforts to drive that change. Knowing the history and understanding how deeply connected U.S. education is to the political, social, economic, and legal realms will better equip you to analyze current trends and anticipate new ones. After all, education can be like a pendulum: certain beliefs and practices tend to fall in and out of favor every few decades.

You will have opportunities to work with colleagues and other stakeholders to make education a better place for teachers, students, families, and communities. As you go forth into the field of education, we challenge you to maintain a critical lens as you continually question how to make U.S. education the most inclusive, effective, and successful for all of our learners and their communities.