If you want to be an English teacher, welcome! Creating English teachers is what we’re all about, and it's one of the most important jobs in the world.
Why do this? For many, many teachers, the intrinsic rewards - the interactions with students, the endless variety and change, the chance to give those students opportunities and options, the focus on a content area they love - are absolutely worthwhile. If you've dreamed of teaching forever (or tried it a time or two without coming home stunned and traumatized), this is a great program for you. If your favorite game as a child was lining up your stuffed animals and teaching them to read, English Education is probably what you want. If you've served in the military, been a parent or caregiver, or come out on top of personal struggles with knowledge that others could use, you already have a lot of the skills. And if you can't imagine a life that doesn't include literature and writing (okay, and grammar), this may well be the job you've dreamed of.
Before you go further, though, you’ll want to think seriously about why you want to be an English teacher. As with any profession, candidates sometimes have misconceptions which can lead them to choose a major for the wrong reasons. In this market, it’s particularly important to know what the profession and the path to it entail.
For instance, students who love reading and writing are sometimes urged to take a teaching path for a number of reasons—because it might seem to provide job security, because teachers are popularly (and inaccurately) believed to get summers “off” or stop working at 3:00 p.m., or in the worst case, because someone believes that teaching is easy. Sometimes the reasons for nudging young people toward teaching are less pragmatic and more sentimental: candidates, or those who advise them, hope to “make a difference”, to “save” secondary students from something, to “touch lives” or shape the next generation.
Honestly, all of these reasons involve some degree of misconception. To take the darkest view right up front, teaching is a profession which requires rigorous preparation (for instance, our candidates must maintain a 2.75 GPA and earn certain grades in certain courses to qualify for internship placement), steady and ongoing work (English education methods courses are among the most rigorous, requiring a great deal of writing, binder-sized portfolios, and field experiences), and the development of a professional skill set for which “love” or “caring” is no substitute…all to join a profession which will, at least initially, require 50-80 hours most weeks during the season (English is a grading-heavy discipline), which may not provide lunch or bathroom breaks when people need them, and for which its experts are almost never fairly compensated. Many teachers work second jobs summers (and sometimes evenings) to make ends meet.
Moreover, with the budget cuts which have been ongoing since 2008, some school districts are laying off teachers rather than hiring them. Our placement rate for graduates seeking work is still very high - in 2012 it was around 100% for candidates who were seriously looking for teaching work, and who were willing to move to get to it - but it's by no means the sure thing some candidates may expect. For teachers who are hired or retained, class sizes may well rise (many have risen already), and resources become ever more scanty. Teacher education is no longer a path to job security, and a profession which once allowed teachers to plan a return to their family and home town may now require relocation, especially at first. Indeed, our professional writing, literature and film candidates are just as likely to find work which suits them as our teacher education candidates. If you'd like to see some job options for English majors who don't go into teaching, you might want to look at our Careers in English page or consider our Alumni Profiles.
Even candidates who don’t mind these obstacles and risks - and, to their credit, there are many - may find that it’s harder to “touch lives” than they imagined, when their class sizes are at state maximums, when there’s no room to arrange the classroom except in rows, and when (contrary to inspirational movies about teachers) some students and parents have absolutely no interest in being “touched” or “saved.” Love is wonderful, but in the case of teaching, it isn’t all we need. Rather, teachers need solid content knowledge (like the kind our program provides), strong management and organizational skills, ingenuity, patience, humor, an ability to find resources where none are visible, and the financial and social support of their administrations, communities, and states…and the ability to genuinely care about students they may never see again after graduation.
Still with us?
That said, believe it or not, we’re not trying to discourage you from joining our
program. This is still one of the most important, and often one of the most fun, jobs in the
world. Your state still needs good English teachers. But think about who you are, the kind of teacher you’d like to be, your personal tolerance for noise, frustration, long hours, and paperwork,
and whether you really love the idea of spending 180 days a year with teenagers who
probably don’t enjoy literature or writing the way you do. If you’re also a writer,
come to terms with the fact that it could be years before you teach creative writing,
if someone more senior already has those classes. This isn’t a squishy almost-job
for people whose main qualification is “loving kids”; it’s not a fallback option for
those who “can’t do”; it’s not an easy life in any sense of that phrase. It’s a full-time, highly skilled, endlessly demanding career which nonetheless can
be among the most rewarding in the world. If it’s what you most want—not your parents,
your friends, or someone who gives you well-meaning advice, but you yourself—we’re
here to help you get there: give us a call, or drop us an e-mail.