How Do You Become a Teacher? When thinking about a future career, some have a perfect picture of what they want to be, while others don’t. The latter may not see their future career until it hits them in the face. And that’s why you need to stay vigilant concerning your interests and inspirations.

A bachelor’s degree in Education, majoring in History, will allow you to become a History teacher. And if you want to become a Math teacher, you need a bachelor’s degree in Education with a major in Mathematics. The same goes for the other subjects you may want to teach such as English as a foreign language with an online TEFL diploma.

Maybe you will find inspiration for your prospective career in some book, movie, or TV show. Quite often, people try to learn more about the profession of a particular character and get inspired to try themselves in that job. If you enjoy reading, maybe you should try writing yourself. 

If your writing skills are good, and you help your fellow students with their essays, you might want to become a teacher as well. Maybe you’d want to make students as passionate about the subject so that they won’t be buying their paper from some essay editor service but write it on their own. Actually, online writing services are sometimes a better choice – you can try them out and see for yourself!

Becoming a teacher is quite an interesting, challenging, and rewarding aspiration. But, as with any profession, it’s challenging to know the exact steps of preparing for and getting the desired job. While being a teacher appears to be a profession that hasn’t changed much in the past several decades, the Covid-19 pandemic reshaped the educational field dramatically. Here are some of the leading new requirements for teachers in the post-pandemic world:

• Knowledge of computers

• Familiarity with several video-telephony software 

• Maintaining students’ attention remotely

• Recognizing teaching as a social endeavor

• Remaining motivated

While digitalization requires everyone to be familiar with computers, familiarity with video-telephony software is extremely important for your remote lessons. Aside from being a great help for school teachers and college professors, video telephony aids you if you are just giving personalized language classes. 

Maintaining students’ attention online is more complicated than doing the same in classrooms. That’s why you need to understand that the teacher-student relationship is a social endeavor, and you need to keep your students interested. And to sustain it, you need to remain motivated, which often gets quite hard, especially online. 

Main Steps of Becoming a Teacher

While those are the things that you need to remember for the post-Covid world, nobody knows if the new pandemic hits any time soon. And thus, we are coming to general rules and steps you need to follow in order to become a teacher. They are not rocket science, but you need to follow them to make the process of becoming a tutor easier.

Get a Degree

Like with most professions, becoming a teacher requires obtaining a degree. Depending on the subject you’d like to teach, you need to obtain at least a bachelor’s degree. For example, if you want to become an English or Science teacher, a bachelor’s degree in English or Science education is required.  Browse for English teacher jobs. 

A bachelor’s degree in Education, majoring in History, will allow you to become a History teacher. And if you want to become a Math teacher, you need a bachelor’s degree in Education with a major in Mathematics. The same goes for the other subjects you may want to teach. 

Getting a Teacher’s Certificate

The next step of becoming a teacher is obtaining a teacher’s certificate. After acquiring a degree in your subject of choice, you need to enroll in a district or state-approved teacher preparation program. After finishing the program and passing the required exam, you can submit your application for obtaining a teacher’s certificate. 

There are various teacher’s exams in the US, with the most widespread being Praxis. Obtaining Praxis I or Praxis II certification will allow you to become a teacher in forty states. But you must keep in mind that each state has its acceptable score. In other words, passing Praxis successfully in one state doesn’t automatically allow you to teach in all forty states.

Get Classroom Experience

Having a classroom experience is a requirement for every teacher, and here’s where the chronological order of the steps is breaking. You don’t get classroom experience after you get the certificate. You’re getting it before passing the exams and applying for the certification. 

Depending on the state you are in, you will require a certain amount of classroom hours as your teacher’s preparation. What is needed are supervised teaching hours – and you can get them while getting a degree. If you’re getting a degree in education, the classroom experience will surely be part of your studies. 

Create Your Perfect Resume

Now it’s time to create your perfect resume. Just like with any profession, it’s crucial to get it right. It will list all of your teaching experience, your skills, and certifications in one place. The good news is that there are thousands of online sources where you can find guides on formatting your resume correctly.  

Another important thing is your cover letter. Here you need to create a statement that will grab the school’s attention. You need to explain why you are perfect for this position and want to teach specifically in that particular school. Customization of the cover letter is extremely important. And, as with a resume, you can find the guidelines for formatting it online. 

Pass the Teacher’s Interview

While interviews follow the same pattern, a candidate is being asked questions. But that’s where the similarity ends. You will be asked basic interview questions, but aside from them, the interviewer will ask you specific questions. Those questions may include your teaching philosophy. Why do you want to become a teacher? How much do you need to know about your students to be more helpful?

You need to prepare for those questions. To do it better, you can seek advice from your college professors or even your high school teachers. Aside from that, you can find examples of proper answers online. 

Final Thoughts

Following the steps mentioned above makes becoming a teacher a less painstaking process. The only thing you need to do early on decides the subject you major in. If you choose to become a teacher while studying at college, switch to a major more suitable for your prospective position.

Read More – Educators to Teach and Students to Learn