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Topic: Those who are teachers-- Pre teaching experince.

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Subject: Those who are teachers-- Pre teaching experince.
Date Posted: 10/24/2010 1:04 PM ET
Member Since: 4/24/2006
Posts: 368
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I'm looking at apply to a teacher's education program in the next few years. Looking at the applications for diffrent schools, all of them requires some form of experience with children before applying. (babysitting and daycare don't count for this)

If your school had that requirement what did you do for your experience?, or what can you suggest. I'm also not sure what age I want to teach yet. I keep going back between high school math, high school biology, or elementray school with a concentration in math/biology.

nattyj avatar
Date Posted: 11/3/2010 7:53 PM ET
Member Since: 4/5/2007
Posts: 22
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Volunteer!  Schools are always looking for extra help.  You can volunteer in multiple classrooms, giving yourself a very diverse background in experience, and let you get an idea what area you want to concentrate your studies in.  

If you are looking for paid positions, look at teaching assistants, coaching, camp counselor, etc...  

Vitallia avatar
Date Posted: 11/7/2010 12:33 AM ET
Member Since: 8/24/2008
Posts: 1,362
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If you've reached 60 hours of college credit, you can probably apply to be a substitute teacher.  Explain to the school that you are trying to decide what age you want to teach and that you would like to sub for a variety of grades.  They will love you.  This is how I discovered that I liked high school.  I could not stand elementary school!  Good luck.

trojanwar avatar
Date Posted: 12/8/2010 11:57 PM ET
Member Since: 9/5/2010
Posts: 238
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I second the idea of volunteering/subbing at different levels. It'll help you out personally, as well as help meet your requirement.  I did similar and in the process realized that I LOVED adult ed, rather than m.s. or h.s.

escapeartistk avatar
Date Posted: 1/1/2011 11:00 PM ET
Member Since: 10/4/2010
Posts: 280
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I agree with the previous posters about volunteering/subbing to determine your preference. You might also want to consider, though, that you're likely to be quite marketable if you can teach HS math.

amiaeagle avatar
Date Posted: 5/18/2011 1:55 AM ET
Member Since: 5/7/2011
Posts: 30
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When I was getting my teaching degree (I'm retired now), I worked my classes around my subbing, so that I was in school two days a week, and subbed for three. You get paid to work at what you are going to school to learn to do! How crazy is that? When I first started, I did exactly what everyone is talking about, and signed up for elemnentary, middle, and high school. I quickly learned that my vocation was with the middle schoolers. Because I had been networking through the subbing, and everyone already knew my work, by the time I graduated, I already had a job lined up.  My principle worked with me so that I skipped my student teaching, instead moving straight to my own class when I should have been mentoring with another.

When you sub, you also gain valuable life experience that you can never learn through classes. The only way you can become comfortable teaching  children. is to drop yourself in the trenches.  I will never forget how clueless some of my classmates were that had never subbed  and were thrown into their own classrooms after graduation.

 

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Date Posted: 5/20/2011 10:22 PM ET
Member Since: 4/24/2006
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I like the idea about subbing. Unfortunately from everything I've read about CT, you need a Bachelors degree in order to get a permit for substitute teaching. I keep switching between going for science or math, so I'm still undecided about that . Since the teaching program I'm planning on applying to requires 15 credits completed at the school before applying, I have some time to completely decided. The also have a math class that part of the grade is tutoring in a high school setting, and the only pre-req is a class that is tutoring at the college for the remedial classes.