how does one get into teaching.

Junco Partner

I know it's been a while since the CAO's were filled out but i've been having some jitters about it not having enough options on it. I've always considered teaching to be one of the few jobs I wouldn't hate and was thinking of adding it to my application but besides a few courses there doesn't seem to be many teaching specific courses. My question is what's the college route into teaching? i know arts has something to do with it but i'm not exactly sure. Any help would be appreciated.

spurious

Specialist teaching degree such as for Home Economics, Religion, PE, Woodwork teachers, or recognised degree followed by a PGDE.

Be careful on the recognised degrees. The Teaching Coucil does not recognise all degrees as valid for teaching.

Jobs are thin on the ground and will be for a good while. Meanwhile the colleges churn out hundreds of qualified teachers year after year.

iLikePiano99

for secondary teaching...I am almost certain (check it out with one of your teachers just in case) that you need to get a degree in whatever subject you want to teach and then you have to get a hDip. Which is a one year course which gives you the right to teach in a secondary school.

For primary school teaching, there a number of courses you can do which will give you a BA degree in Education. Go on the qualifax website and under the CAO section type in PRIMARY EDUCATION and a course for TCD and Church of Ireland Education should come up.

My info comes from my Careers guidance teacher. Hope this answers your question!!

randylonghorn

spurious wrote: »

Be careful on the recognised degrees. The Teaching Coucil does not recognise all degrees as valid for teaching.

On that note ... linkeh

pooch90

iLikePiano99 wrote: »

For primary school teaching, there a number of courses you can do which will give you a BA degree in Education. Go on the qualifax website and under the CAO section type in PRIMARY EDUCATION and a course for TCD and Church of Ireland Education should come up.

You can do primary in Mary I in Limerick, St. Pats and Marino and Froebel in Dublin.
You can do a postgrad too.

Junco Partner

Well primary is out for me I take ordinary irish. English or history at secondary would be the subjects I'd lean towards

skinnybear

Hey check these guys an email they should help you out. <ModSnip>

spurious

skinnybear wrote: »

Hey check these guys an email they should help you out. <Modsnip>

Two of your three posts to date have mentioned that site skinnybear.
Have you a connection with it perchance?

skinnybear

Yea the owner is my brother

spurious

If your brother would like to advertise with boards.ie he should email hello@boards.ie
Thanks.

sealgaire

You need to have no ambition, be a low to average school acheiver and of course, allow yourself to be pushed into my your parents :-)


. . .. my experience of teachers . . .

chicgroovy101

f0ggy92 wrote: »

Well primary is out for me I take ordinary irish. English or history at secondary would be the subjects I'd lean towards

UL does an English and History course. And then If you did 1 more year after your degree you will be able to teach
This course is a recognised teaching course aswell because I checked it out for myself.

Patriciamc93

sealgaire wrote: »

You need to have no ambition, be a low to average school acheiver and of course, allow yourself to be pushed into my your parents :-)


. . .. my experience of teachers . . .

I don't think you can make a generalisation like that about secondary school teachers. I was going to pass the comment by but I couldn't!

I am considering secondary school teaching as a career but that is beside my point. In no way do you need to be a low to average student. This person might be the smartest person in the country and that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be a teacher. And no ambition? Perhaps someone who wants to become a teacher wants to change the way people are taught, make it better than it is at the moment. And I don't think parents are out there saying u should do teaching because at the moment their are no permanent teaching positions...... Just substitution and maternity leave. Finally


......my experience of teaching.....

delta_bravo

f0ggy92 wrote: »

Well primary is out for me I take ordinary irish. English or history at secondary would be the subjects I'd lean towards

In terms of oversupply of the teachers you have the worst possible combination.

J_E

delta_bravo wrote: »

In terms of oversupply of the teachers you have the worst possible combination.

I second that. I think English/History is the hardest combination to get a job from due to the sheer competition for jobs?

sealgaire wrote: »

You need to have no ambition, be a low to average school acheiver and of course, allow yourself to be pushed into my your parents :-)


. . .. my experience of teachers . . .

What a rude generalisation to make. I have ambition, do pretty well in school, and I chose the career, not my parents. Do you honestly think all teachers are layabouts or something?

randylonghorn

delta_bravo wrote: »

In terms of oversupply of the teachers you have the worst possible combination.

Unfortunately, I'd pretty much agree, despite a great love for both subjects.

spurious

sealgaire wrote: »

You need to have no ambition, be a low to average school acheiver and of course, allow yourself to be pushed into my your parents :-)


. . .. my experience of teachers . . .

Don't bother posting in this thread again unless you have something useful to offer the OP.

delta_bravo

randylonghorn wrote: »

Unfortunately, I'd pretty much agree, despite a great love for both subjects.

The teaching council were fairly blunt about it in a lecture I attended with them recently. Anything with English is generally a bad combination.

Highest demand at the moment is Irish, Maths and the Sciences. I have also seen a lot of jobs posted up for the new DCG subject.

Junco Partner

I'll admit that I'm a lazy student low B's and high C's mostly but i can never push myself to the higher grades.I was always told if I was any more laid back I'd be horizontal. managed 335 in the mocks which is fairly average. The one thing that I'll take exception to is the parent line; my parents don't have anything to do with it it's not some thing like "oh teaching will be handy let's slap her in there and give her a go", in fact my mother wants me to become a pilot. I'm aware of the fact that the career opportunities are slim due to saturation but it's only my third choice so it's a back-up. not to say i'm throwing it down for the hell of it. it's just that sound engineering is where my hopes are set and those were my first two choices. thanks for the help guys. I'll give that Eng/his course in U.L a look.

Maybe_Memories

Isn't there a thing about being overqualified to teach? For example, I'm studying for a B.A. in Mathematics, and afterwards plan on getting a MSc and/or PhD in Aeronautical Engineering.

If I got a H.Dip I'd obviously have no trouble teaching maths, physics and applied maths, but would having a phd be a bit much for second level?

randylonghorn

The Department or Teaching Council wouldn't consider you over-qualified to teach, and DES would actually give you a (small) additional allowance each year on the basis of your PhD.

What you might find is that you yourself would find it difficult to engage with students at secondary level simply because your knowledge level would be well above that required. Some people have no difficulty making that bridge, others do.

And some interview boards might question in their own minds the possibility that someone with a PhD might encounter that difficulty ... it would be up to you to convince them.

spurious

There are lots of people in teaching who have Ph.D.s - most of them will have got them since they started teaching, where occasional jaunts into academia can lessen the effect of a 204 class with no pens last on a Friday.
It might be different to come from the other direction.

Geo10

sealgaire wrote: »

You need to have no ambition, be a low to average school acheiver and of course, allow yourself to be pushed into my your parents :-)


. . .. my experience of teachers . . .

I find that to be completely rude and untrue. I want to become a secondary school teacher and I am not a low school achiever (got 10 As in Junior Cert and only ever got 100s in the subjects I want to teach), I also have high motivation levels and my parents don't want me to do teaching (they want me to do something awful like medicine or pharmacy- which I'd never do.)

randylonghorn

Let's just ignore the trolls, eh?

gaeilgegrinds1

There are 3 people in my school teaching with PhDs, soon to be four. Only one calls himself Dr. So much for low acheivers...

Maybe_Memories

Well I suppose the degree you have depends on the subject.

Like if you've a PhD in English, Irish, History, Geography, any of the languages, that's an definitely a huge bonus for the students you're teaching.

But for some of the sciences it might actually disadvantage students. Like someone above said, you're knowledge level would be so much above the level required you might not be able to convey it to their level.

I'm only in 1st year college and can't even explain HL maths to 5th and 6th years looking for grinds. I know the information inside out and understand it perfectly, but I can't teach it to someone else.

It could also be a problem with my way of learning. Like when I was in school and my teacher explained something I never questioned anything, I didn't care about why anything was true, I just accepted it and moved on with it.

In reality this mindset and way of thinking would make me a terrible mathematician, but awesome engineer :rolleyes: