Do you have to be good at math to get into or at least do well in grad school of ed in mathematics?
I suck at math but I want to teach little kids in math. Calculus is hard, yes, but math for Elementary and Middle School students is not that hard i think.
I wonder what it’s like for grad school in math.
Don’t know if its worth it.
Thanks!
@johnlee625 I don’t have professional experience teaching math, but generally you’ll need to go through some sort of certification process (varies somewhat by US state), and you’ll probably need to take courses on education, in addition to the basic math courses required (often including calculus).
It’s not just how well you know the actual math, but also how well you can explain it to others. I have tutored students ranging from elementary to college-age, and it’s not as easy as you might think.
Well, if you teach elementary math what you would really need is a bachelor’s and/or an M.Ed in elementary education with initial certification. You wouldn’t focus specifically on math; most elementary school teachers teach all subjects.
Middle grades math education programs vary across the country. I’ve looked at a couple, and in some states it covers grades 4-8 whereas in others it’s just grades 6-8. Generally you have to take no quite as much math as a math major (or a high school teacher) but still an intermediate to early advanced level of undergrad math - calculus, linear algebra, advanced algebra and geometry. The thought in most education (but especially math) is that you should understand the higher levels of math in a particular area in order to teach it - that way you know why certain areas are important, how they fit into the larger mathematical field and how and in what order to sequence learning.
That said, I’m not sure why you would want to teach math if you suck at it, by your own admission. If your goal is to get better at math so you can teach it to children, that’s an admirable goal and you should totally go after it. But you have to strive to improve in math in order to be good at teaching it. The best teachers are, indeed, good in the area they intend to teach.
Elementary school teachers, for the most part, don’t specialize in one academic subject. So if you want to teach elementary, you’re teaching everything. If you want to teach just math, that’s secondary.
My certification is to teach math, grades 7-12. So I could be called on to teach anything from adding negative numbers to integration by parts.
Take a look at the website of the State Board of Education, under “Alternate certification” for your state. It will give you an idea of what’s required from you in order to become certified to teach.