I am torn as to whether I want to teach elementary school or high school. I am currently majoring in family and consumer science to teach at high school. If I decide I want to teach elementary later on in my education will I still be able to do that with my ba in family and consumer science? I live in California for the record if it varies by state.
If you check online for most colleges, they have educational courses for elementary education then you have courses for secondary education. This is because elementary education is a study on its own.
Yes. You do need to major in elementary education to teach elementary. With the younger children, you are more than their teacher, you are their parent away from home. A degree in elementary education covers developmental stages in children. You learn about management for children this age. A kindergartner behaves quite differently than a 7th grader.
It is rare for a secondary teacher to enter the elementary level without an elementary ed degree, but it isn’t impossible. With the shortage of teachers, the DOE will hire a secondary teacher over someone without any educational background for an elementary position.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Yep! I just graduated in May with a degree in History. I am currently attending a local college for my elementary teaching certification. I had a lot of options actually. I could have taught high school social studies, elementary, or special ed. I decided on elementary because I really like kids. It was a lot less course work than the high school social studies certification also which requires certain undergrad classes I didn’t have such as geography and political science. I live in PA so I’m not sure about CA’s requirements.
So basically you can get certified to teach anything as long as you have the undergrad requirements that certification might call for. I actually am taking an undergrad math right now because one of mine didn’t count toward the certification. Hope this helps and good luck to you!
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Myself
November 7th, 2009 at 6:18 am
If you check online for most colleges, they have educational courses for elementary education then you have courses for secondary education. This is because elementary education is a study on its own.
Yes. You do need to major in elementary education to teach elementary. With the younger children, you are more than their teacher, you are their parent away from home. A degree in elementary education covers developmental stages in children. You learn about management for children this age. A kindergartner behaves quite differently than a 7th grader.
It is rare for a secondary teacher to enter the elementary level without an elementary ed degree, but it isn’t impossible. With the shortage of teachers, the DOE will hire a secondary teacher over someone without any educational background for an elementary position.
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I am an elementary school teacher with a Masters in Elementary Education.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I live in Canada, so my answer may not be correct for California, but here’s what I know:
Up here, you don’t need to major in elementary education to be an elementary teacher. You do need to take a few special courses (ex. 6 credits of Canadian history), but you can enter the education program with any four year bachelors degree. You’ll be taught everything you need about child psychology, child development etc in the elementary teaching program. Check the webpage for your university’s education faculty and it’ll let you know exactly what you need to be admitted.
I’ve heard of many teachers switching from secondary to elementary education later in life. Depending on the teacher shortage in your area, you may not even have to take additional courses to transfer over. I’m currently teaching in China and we have a few elementary certified teachers teaching senior high school courses (they do have bachlors).
Switching from elementary to secondary is more difficult because you need to have a bachelors in whatever subject you want to teach, so I’d suggest getting certified in secondary first and then switching to elementary if you want to.
Again, I highly recommend checking the webpage for the faculty of education at whatever university you wish to apply to, since the specific admission requirements slightly vary from place to place.
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