My D is getting her bachelor’s degree in English and she is interested in getting a M.Ed to teach English in high school. Do universities give any money for this? She is on financial aid now but, at least at her current school, that dries up after she gets her BA.
I’ve never heard of it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
But could I offer some unsolicited advice?
Being a new teacher with a Masters makes her a much more expensive job candidate than being a new teacher with a Bachelors. Yet neither guarantees success in the classroom.
Why not look into getting some job experience now, and get that M.Ed. later? Have her take a look at your State Education Dept. website, under “teacher certification” to see what she’ll need to be certified. It may be do-able with her current coursework.
And have her start now-- this weekend-- making up a resume and cover letter. Have her send one to every single public, private, charter and religious school within an hour’s commute.
The hiring season for teachers generally begins in around March, so now is the time to get going on this.
The job market for Secondary English has traditionally been really tough in many parts of the country-- every wannabe writer decides that teaching is a nice way to put food on the table as they try to break into writing.
Teaching is one profession where, as strange as it seems, a degree isn’t enough to ensure success. You simply can’t tell from a resume who will have success in a classroom when that safety net of a cooperating teacher is removed from the equation. (We’ve all had that teacher who knew the material cold, but couldn’t explain it, or who couldn’t control a class well enough to ensure success.) As a result, schools are sometimes hesitant to pay extra for that Master’s Degree if the candidate doesn’t have any experience to suggest success in the classroom.
Private and religious schools in particular will sometimes take a chance on a strong candidate who isn’t yet certified. Anything your daughter could coach/moderate should be highlighted. (I’m fairly confident that my 1st teaching job was mine because I had competed in Speech and Debate in high school and they needed a coach in addition to needing a math teacher.)
Thank you for your response! I see what you mean, but she has no teacher training at all. Isn’t it important she get some? That being said, it does seem risky to spend a lot of money on a master’s degree only to find out teaching is not for her. What do you recommend she do to train or get experience with teaching if not get a master’s degree?
I just looked and found our state does have some alternative shortcuts to get certified, but it doesn’t apply to English because that is not a “critical need”. Otherwise the effort to get a Post-Bach doesn’t seem a whole lot less than getting a Master’s, so I guess that is the route she should take if she wants to teach in public school. The private school route is interesting but will they really hire someone with a BA and no education classwork?
They might, if she’s strong enough a candidate. It’s how my husband was hired in 1981-- and a number of people with whom I currently work.
The reality is that, as ironic as it is, teacher education programs don’t necessarily make for successful teachers. No one can really pin down what it is that makes one teacher good and another bad. Oh, sure, we can identify some traits. And we can point out some that will lead to failure in the classroom. But I can name half a dozen teachers in my building with wildly different personalities and backgrounds and approaches and “teacher personas” who have all found success in the classroom. And my least favorite coworker of all time, wildly unprofessional, was a graduate of one of the top teacher prep programs in the area. Administrators know that. I know that in my school, the “DNA” of the applicant is far, far more important than the certification. Sure, you need a Bachelors that shows that you know your material. But knowing Rousseau from Dewey? Not as big a deal.
Why not keep options open? Work on the cover letter and resume, apply everywhere. Send a cover letter and resume to every single principal within an hour’s drive, whether they have an opening or not. (I don’t think my school has ever had to advertise an opening. When one comes up, they take a look at the resumes on file and start making calls.) She can still apply to grad school. But I would give this a real shot.
It will help, tremendously, if she can emphasize extra curricular. What did she do in high school, what did she do in college, what activities is she involved in, what’s her work experience? Can she coach a sport? Moderate Yearbook? Coach Speech and Debate? Work on the play?
Another option-- not one I recommend, but I’ll mention it anyway-- is Teach for America. You can look up the details, but the short version is that they take people with no educational training, and place them in inner city schools. Those young people are full of idealism and vision, and they’re placed in schools that desperately need that idealism and vision. But the problem, in my eyes anyway, is the lack of support they encounter. My building has new teacher meetings every week, mentor teachers, a million ways of supporting those new teachers. I’m not sure that the TFA teachers encounter that same support in the inner city schools in which they teach-- schools where teaching is a whole lot tougher than in my suburban Catholic high school.
@teddad123, I can vouch for the fact that some private/parochial schools hire teachers without teaching certificates. When we had my D in a Catholic school at the beginning of middle school, many of the teachers did not have teaching degrees. Unfortunately, I can’t say that those my D had were actually good at their jobs, and this was one of the reasons we got out. But it IS possible to begin teaching with no experience.
On the flip side, both of my older kids went to Montessori schools as youngsters and some of the co-teachers and all of the assistants in the classroom were not certificated. Some of them were excellent-better than the certificated ones running the classrooms. That might be an avenue for your D.
Lastly, look up what you need to be a substitute teacher in your D’s state. In WA, you must have a teaching certificate to sub, but in other states you only need a couple of years of college. Your D could test the waters subbing and decide if teaching is for her.
My niece is a teacher, but went the traditional route, getting her (2) Masters AFTER teaching for awhile. She used a TEACH Grant for one of them, as she met the qualifications for getting it (low-income school, high need subject, etc.) My D will begin college next fall as a teacher education student. We’ve discovered that every state has its own rules-so have your D go to the state Dept. of Ed and research what’s the norm where she lives, or plans to live. Good luck.
Okay, D agrees teaching at private school at least initially is an excellent idea, especially after reading this article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-are-private-school-teachers-paid-less-than-public-school-teachers/280829/#article-comments
So…how might she get some teaching/assistant teaching experience this summer, between junior and senior year?
Teaching experience over the summer is obviously hard to come by, since so few classes are in session. She might want to spend some time googling local summer programs, in the hope that there’s something that could work.
But any sort of coaching/ moderating experience is better than none.
Thank you all but to get more back to the original question: are there any fully funded secondary education master’s programs? There must be one out there somewhere.