Hello one and all!
New to the forum, gotta whole handful of questions as a new-prospective international teacher. If you can help me out, it would be much appreciated!
Qualifications:
2 years experience teaching AP Language at a top 10 ranked US charter school.
3 years experience teaching the English section of PSAT/SAT/ACT class at the school. Also 2 years teaching SAT II Literature.
2 years experience teaching a seminar in Philosophy
2 years experience writing 40+ letters of recommendation, overwhelming for elite US colleges.
2 years experience supervising senior CAPSTONE projects (year long independent project).
Student Government Supervisor
Education:
BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley
MA in Philosophy SFSU (Current Student)
Currently my plan is as follows:
Get certified through Connecticut in the next few months taking the Praxis and transfering the two years of experience. Apply to jobs in December-Feburary and attend the SF job fair. Finish the MA this Spring. Start teaching in the Fall!
Questions:
1. Will my Philosophy specialization be a hindrance? I assume my experience in AP will demonstrate competence in the subject matter and folks will understand that an MA in Philosophy requires knowledge and abilities that transfers nicely into Upper English.
2. Is the Connecticut method the best for getting a credential? Seems better than Utah/Hawaii/Massachusetts.
3. Should I focus primarily on American Schools? Will the AP to IB transition be too rough?
4. General advice? I'm attracted to Switzerland in the long run, but thinking that Hong Kong might be a better as an initial placement. I'm new to all this, so whatever advice you have I'll gladly take!
Thanks in advance!
Help Me Gauge My Desirability?
Re: Help Me Gauge My Desirability?
Not something you asked about, but something I'd strongly suggest is attending the Cambridge fair rather than SF.
By the time the west coast fairs role around, usually a substantial majority of the desirable jobs are gone. Bumping up to the Cambridge fair can help a lot with that.
Good luck!
By the time the west coast fairs role around, usually a substantial majority of the desirable jobs are gone. Bumping up to the Cambridge fair can help a lot with that.
Good luck!
Re: Help Me Gauge My Desirability?
Hopefully your AP experience only will not be a hindrance. Good administrators will hire good teachers when they find them, as they know that adjusting to IB in grades 11 and 12 is simply that - an adjustment. IB Lang & Lit is changing its assessments in a couple years anyway, so every teacher who teaches it will have to go to new training, not just newbies.
Your philosophy degree should be a strong asset to anyone valuing critical thinking skills; maybe take an online course introducing you to the IB's Theory of Knowledge course - you'll find your skills as a philosophy student make you well suited to the thinking taught in that course - so now you have two positive attributes to offer schools: your experience with courses of rigor and your willingness to teach in either IB or AP. Good luck.
Your philosophy degree should be a strong asset to anyone valuing critical thinking skills; maybe take an online course introducing you to the IB's Theory of Knowledge course - you'll find your skills as a philosophy student make you well suited to the thinking taught in that course - so now you have two positive attributes to offer schools: your experience with courses of rigor and your willingness to teach in either IB or AP. Good luck.
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shadowjack
- Posts: 2140
- Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am
Re: Help Me Gauge My Desirability?
Unless you can show amazing results in your AP classes, you will have a hard time getting upper HS because of competition with teachers who have the experience you don't. If your students were stellar achievers, then you have a chance.
No certification is your biggest hindrance. You might want to target IB for TOK as well, given your philosophy background.
No certification is your biggest hindrance. You might want to target IB for TOK as well, given your philosophy background.
Re: Help Me Gauge My Desirability?
Thanks for the feedback everyone! Just for context, my student's class average AP scores by year were 3.817 & 3.712, which I think is relatively high-achieving. The school has 100% college admission and requires 5 AP's to graduate, so the school is quite rigorous. Should I stress these things in the interviews or mention them on my resume?
Re: Help Me Gauge My Desirability?
Update for anyone interested. It looks like I am only eligible for the UT/MA license. The CT license seems to require 2 years of experience and current holding of a valid credential. Seeing as I taught on an Emergency and Intern Credential, I think that puts me in the doghouse. Appreciate any more thoughts on the TOK situation or advice generally!
Re: Help Me Gauge My Desirability?
General advice: you mention Switzerland or Hong Kong. These are reasonably sought after areas, especially for a newbie. Are you thinking outside these areas? Because if you're looking for a fairytale placement, it may not happen. Your credentials are what they appear to be worth to a recruiter, not to you. If you're willing to accept an initial placement outside these areas, you might have a better chance of getting where you want to go.
Re: Help Me Gauge My Desirability?
-whynot
Totally agree with the sentiment! I was indicating those locations as goals to aim toward over time. It was more a question of how to work to achieve mobility assuming the likelihood of my inital placement in SE Asia or the ME. Also, advice along the lines of certificate-type professional development I could complete over this year to aid my inital placement.
Totally agree with the sentiment! I was indicating those locations as goals to aim toward over time. It was more a question of how to work to achieve mobility assuming the likelihood of my inital placement in SE Asia or the ME. Also, advice along the lines of certificate-type professional development I could complete over this year to aid my inital placement.
Response
Philosophy?
No one really cares much about teaching a seminar course in philosophy, and you cant make an FTE appointment out of it, unless you are teaching TOK, which as the previous contributors have indicated you are aligned to do. Everyone values critical thinking skills (no one says, nope too many critical thinking skills, next candidate), but thats one of those soft skills thats just expected (no one also says, wait stop the selection process, we have an IT with critical thinking skills, lets send them a contract and call it a day).
CT isnt going to work for you. The CT pathway works for ITs who have academic preparation in education but not a credential and have 2 years or more of classroom experience. It works best for those who got a M.Ed or did a PGCEi, etc. and have been teaching. You dont need the two years experience AND a credential to qualify though CT. You need preparation and EITHER two years classroom KS/E12 experience or a credential.
Would also agree with @yoplay that unless its SF or nothing, BOS is a better job fair for you. the rule is you go to the most competitive fair you can get an invite too.
In regard to your inquiries:
1) You are going to need to broaden yourself from the Philosophy perspective into more marketable areas within Social Studies and Humanities. Outside of TOK there are only a handful of philosophy and religion studies vacancies in any given year, you could be applying for years and still not get a decent appointment doin anything in philosophy. Even TOK ITs often teach something in addition to TOK.
AP student scores demonstrate your students success, and they can be used to demonstrate your utility, but its a more difficult discussion and you need the opportunity given by an interview to even be in the position to do so.
Unless a recruiter is interested in you enough to give you an interview and you can spin it well, than what indicates ability to teach literature well is past experience teaching literature well, and having some type of credential supports that. Recruiters arent going to naturally draw a mental line between a philosophy background and a literature IT, and i dont even know if that philosophy literature relationship is true.
2) No, for you MA is going to be better because your going to need to add multiple credentials to round out and broaden your resume. UT only allows you a single endorsement credential, and you dont have the academic background for CT. Once you have the MA provisional credential (entry level) and some more experience than you can standardize your credential to the HI standard (professional grade) credential. You will want to add literature and social studies in MA. At lower secondary these subjects can be combined into a hybrid appointment and in the case of a social studies only appointment you will need a broader focus than just philosophy/
3) At SLL all the common IE curriculums are highly congruent, adapting AP to IB is as @scribe stated and adjustment but its not anything more than that and some new terminology and being mindful of the IBs integrated curriculum and ethos. otherwise its just another course syllabus checklist. Of all the tasking involved convincing a recruiter of that is the hardest part.
Looking at tiers you see ASs int he third and 1st tier (as well as the elite tier) IB has a large concentration in the second tier and often bridges an ITs career between third and first tiers, you can do it without IB but it usually takes longer.
the IB route will give you a natural pathway of Literature and TOK without having to broaden yourself further. Outside of IB or outside of TOK a broader social studies/humanities focus is more marketable.
I concur with @SJ that your going to need amazing scores in AP, 3.7/3.8 is not amazing AP scores for native English speakers, if you had those scores for non-native speakers that would be noteworthy, 4.7/4.8 would be noteworthy in IE, but you need above 4.0 before you can effectively brag about it. Further, 100% Uni admissions is just a given in IE, there really isnt a vocational track, and there would be something very wrong if a student didnt get admitted anywhere.
I also concur with @whynot that HK and Switzerland are very ambitious for a new IT.
I would advise pursuing Google Educator in regards to PD.
No one really cares much about teaching a seminar course in philosophy, and you cant make an FTE appointment out of it, unless you are teaching TOK, which as the previous contributors have indicated you are aligned to do. Everyone values critical thinking skills (no one says, nope too many critical thinking skills, next candidate), but thats one of those soft skills thats just expected (no one also says, wait stop the selection process, we have an IT with critical thinking skills, lets send them a contract and call it a day).
CT isnt going to work for you. The CT pathway works for ITs who have academic preparation in education but not a credential and have 2 years or more of classroom experience. It works best for those who got a M.Ed or did a PGCEi, etc. and have been teaching. You dont need the two years experience AND a credential to qualify though CT. You need preparation and EITHER two years classroom KS/E12 experience or a credential.
Would also agree with @yoplay that unless its SF or nothing, BOS is a better job fair for you. the rule is you go to the most competitive fair you can get an invite too.
In regard to your inquiries:
1) You are going to need to broaden yourself from the Philosophy perspective into more marketable areas within Social Studies and Humanities. Outside of TOK there are only a handful of philosophy and religion studies vacancies in any given year, you could be applying for years and still not get a decent appointment doin anything in philosophy. Even TOK ITs often teach something in addition to TOK.
AP student scores demonstrate your students success, and they can be used to demonstrate your utility, but its a more difficult discussion and you need the opportunity given by an interview to even be in the position to do so.
Unless a recruiter is interested in you enough to give you an interview and you can spin it well, than what indicates ability to teach literature well is past experience teaching literature well, and having some type of credential supports that. Recruiters arent going to naturally draw a mental line between a philosophy background and a literature IT, and i dont even know if that philosophy literature relationship is true.
2) No, for you MA is going to be better because your going to need to add multiple credentials to round out and broaden your resume. UT only allows you a single endorsement credential, and you dont have the academic background for CT. Once you have the MA provisional credential (entry level) and some more experience than you can standardize your credential to the HI standard (professional grade) credential. You will want to add literature and social studies in MA. At lower secondary these subjects can be combined into a hybrid appointment and in the case of a social studies only appointment you will need a broader focus than just philosophy/
3) At SLL all the common IE curriculums are highly congruent, adapting AP to IB is as @scribe stated and adjustment but its not anything more than that and some new terminology and being mindful of the IBs integrated curriculum and ethos. otherwise its just another course syllabus checklist. Of all the tasking involved convincing a recruiter of that is the hardest part.
Looking at tiers you see ASs int he third and 1st tier (as well as the elite tier) IB has a large concentration in the second tier and often bridges an ITs career between third and first tiers, you can do it without IB but it usually takes longer.
the IB route will give you a natural pathway of Literature and TOK without having to broaden yourself further. Outside of IB or outside of TOK a broader social studies/humanities focus is more marketable.
I concur with @SJ that your going to need amazing scores in AP, 3.7/3.8 is not amazing AP scores for native English speakers, if you had those scores for non-native speakers that would be noteworthy, 4.7/4.8 would be noteworthy in IE, but you need above 4.0 before you can effectively brag about it. Further, 100% Uni admissions is just a given in IE, there really isnt a vocational track, and there would be something very wrong if a student didnt get admitted anywhere.
I also concur with @whynot that HK and Switzerland are very ambitious for a new IT.
I would advise pursuing Google Educator in regards to PD.