<p>I’ve heard from several old teachers I’ve had that American Studies majors weren’t given nearly the same hard time by those responsible for certifying/hiring teachers a decade or more ago. </p>
<p>Don’t know how much of this has to do with the seeming interchangeability of HS teachers teaching US History and US Govt while being history majors in college/grad school. Two of those I’ve had as a student both have undergrad and PhD degrees in US history and were teaching both US History & Govt AP and regular. </p>
<p>However, it seems those who majored in non-US area studies…especially East Asian Studies were given a harder time going by that NYT article because the major/courses didn’t always specifically say “history” or “literature” so they had a harder time having their educational credentials recognized as being certified to teach those fields even though their course requirements were nearly identical to those majoring in those more institutionally familiar fields.</p>
<p>Really? Because the students in MY secondary ed classes are hard-working, smart, and passionate about their studies.</p>
<p>I’ve been working on my final paper/project for my current class for about a month. So far, it’s about 120 single-spaced pages in length and honestly, it’s one of the most difficult yet satisfying projects I’ve ever created. And before you infer something about <em>my</em> intelligence, too, I have a grad degree in chemistry and am a member of Phi Beta Kappa…</p>
<p>A content area degree is needed for certification in secondary ed in MI, too.</p>
<p>Cobrat, you do know that with a social studies license, that you have to be able to teach the whole NYS social studies curriculum and teach anything if the need arises. You can have a program where you are teaching global, US and govt in the same semester (granted you will have 3 preps and evaluations for all 3 subjects), but it happens. </p>
<p>While my sister has a masters in American Studies, she has been teaching global for the past 8 years because 97 % regents pass rate and her students do well on the AP World history exam. Regardless of you major, administrations place you where there is a need. Once you are there, it is all about your performance in the classroom (student pass/fail rate, regents pass/fail rate and if you teach AP- how well your students score on the exam)</p>