Class Is in Session: How to Be a Teacher

Hello everyone,

Welcome back to Class Is In Session! In this week’s column, I will be discussing how to be a teacher. As I stated last week, all of my examples will come from my experiences as a teacher in Texas. There are several ways to become a teacher in Texas. Thirty-plus years ago, I took the traditional route and went to college at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, one of the top teacher education schools in Texas.

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Humanities and teacher certification in Grades 6-12 in Social Studies, English, English Language Arts, and Reading. (All of this was done before the Internet was in wide use.) To make that teacher certification valid, I had to take a two-part certification exam given by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). I passed both parts with no problem and was granted certification. My certification is lifetime. It does not expire. I was in one of the last groups that received lifetime certification.

Today, teaching certificates are valid for five years, and teachers must complete 150 hours of professional development in order to renew their certification. Each part of the exam has a separate cost, and the cost has only gone up. The more subject areas you want to be certified in, the more it costs. It cost me $400 for all of my subject areas and the general test. Today, it would cost me $580.

Each state has its own rules and its own way of training and testing people who want to be teachers. There is also reciprocity between the states in regard to teaching licenses. If I wanted to teach in Florida, I would fill out a form with the Florida Department of Education, pay a fee, and complete the required steps. Sometimes this is just fingerprints and a copy of my Texas teacher’s license. Sometimes it’s taking a college course in the state’s history and a copy of my teacher’s license. I complete all of the requirements, my fingerprints come back clean, and I can now teach in Florida. (Honestly, between being a teacher and working for the Census Bureau, my fingerprints have been taken so many times, I must be on a list somewhere that says, "People who have NEVER done anything.")

While it doesn’t take as long to become a teacher as it does to be a lawyer or a doctor, it can be almost as hard. The main difference is that there aren’t teacher schools like there are medical schools and law schools. Becoming a teacher can take longer than a year. If you are already in college, teacher education is added to your degree plan. If you already have a bachelor’s degree, teacher education can be between three and six months. It took me five years to graduate with teacher certification because Texas kept increasing the length of teacher education. Within teacher education is student teaching, the educational equivalent of a medical residency. For me, that was an entire semester. There was also an observation period the semester before student teaching in which I shadowed a teacher in a local school district.

Student teaching is a whole different world. You are allowed to run a classroom that belongs to a veteran teacher. They will be watching you and observing what you do to see if you really should be teaching. My student teaching was a 12th-grade government class. Looking back, it was probably not the best choice for me because the students weren’t that much younger than I was. I followed the lesson plans the veteran teacher set up for me, and bless her for letting me run her class. Bless all the teachers who allow a newbie to run their classes.

After being certified, I did a lot of substitute teaching for different school districts to see which one I would prefer. Schools are as different as the districts they are in. I signed up with several districts, went through the training, and, if I was needed, I would be called around 6 a.m. This was a good thing because one of the districts I subbed for was 45 minutes from my house, and I needed that time to get there. I never quite knew what I would be getting. There were subjects that I said I could not substitute, such as math. Schools usually abided by that, but not always. I showed up at a high school dressed professionally and was asked if I could coach soccer. I answered the question with “Do I look like I’m dressed to teach soccer?”

In the year and a half that I subbed, there was only one fight in class. While one of the students went to get an assistant principal, one of the larger boys separated the two combatants and sat down between them. Then, the mother of one of the combatants, who was already at the school, tried to blame me for not controlling the classroom. I looked the mother straight in the face and said, “I’m the substitute. I don’t get paid enough to break up fights.” Amazingly, I was never again asked to sub at that school.

I didn’t mind being a substitute. It was decent pay for what little I was asked to do, but I wouldn’t do it today. Today, with the permissive attitude in most schools, I would have no idea what I would be facing, and I can guarantee that if I was hurt in any way on a school campus by a student, the school district would drop me so fast it would make me dizzy. If there were medical bills involved, I’d be on my own.

I was hired to teach 12th Grade English at a high school in the district from which I had graduated. It was after the start of the school year. The teacher I was replacing had left one day and never came back. He didn’t answer phone calls, and the use of e-mail was just beginning. The school never did find out what happened to him. The school I taught at was a majority minority school, black/hispanic. I was one of the few white teachers. I had no problems with that. I had problems with the black principal, who was a very angry man who decided to single me out as his personal punching bag, metaphorically speaking; he left before I did, fortunately.

Teaching at that high school, I quickly learned something important. If it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist. That 12th Grade English class I for which I had been hired? Nope. I was told class assignments had been changed and that I would be teaching 9th grade English. One of the other, more experienced, teachers would take the 12th Grade classes. So, newbie that I was, I got the hyperactive, hormone-raging 13-, 14-, and 15-year-olds. Oh, boy.

Instead of having a veteran teacher handle the younger students, the new teacher was given them. The more experienced teachers had already “done their time” and were now free of having to deal with them. So what if there would have been a better learning experience with a more experienced teacher? That didn’t matter. All that mattered was that no one had to deal with the 9th graders except the new person.

I have a lot more to share, but this column is already too long. Please send in comments about what you’d like to see. I’ve already received a couple of suggestions, which is awesome. I’ll see everyone next time class is back in session.