Elementary School Teachers

Elementary School Teachers are the beginning of every student’s life for 14+ years of schooling ahead of them. They are people who are starting each child out with a successful future. Elementary school teachers introduce to the children curriculum areas in reading, math, social studies, and sciences which are all basic requirements for further education. Every state requires that public school teachers be certified for at least one, or several related subjects. Not only a Bachelor’s Degree is needed; completion of an approved teacher training program with a certain number of subject credits, and a supervised certificate. In almost every state, teachers are required to be enrolled in continuing education courses to renew their teaching certificate. In some states, a Masters Degree is required in some teaching situations. Teaching Elementary School is a hard task that requires a lot of patience and time. There are many skills that most Elementary School Teachers have that could be helpful for someone looking to join the teaching profession. A small list of skills would include; helping, listening, managing time, reading comprehension, reasoning, social perceptiveness, speaking, teaching, writing and authoring. Helping would be actively looking for ways to help people, and or children in this case. Listening and paying attention to what other people are saying and taking the time to understand the points being made. Listening to children’s needs when they are young is all they need. It gets them the support some of them may lack. They are finding things out in the world and they want to tell you so many things, but they just want you to listen to them. Managing your time with all different tasks is a struggle but important so that every task gets done when needed to be. Reading comprehension is the ability to understand complex written paragraphs, instructions, and/or reports. Reasoning and using logic to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions to problems. Social perceptiveness is being aware of the reactions of others and understanding their reasoning behind their actions. Speaking, talking, or giving speeches in a group to convey information, explain ideas, or give instructions. Teaching other how to do something is something EVERY teacher should enjoy doing. Writing and authoring your ideas in a written form. Writing is one of the most important skills of a teacher due to everything they write to send home to parents. Being an Elementary School Teacher interests levels must be high in social, artistic, and conventional! Other important interest levels are investigative, enterprising, and realistic. Elementary School Teachers are required to have a lot of energy, and very uplifting. Becoming an Elementary School Teacher takes a lot of schooling and training. According to Focus 2, public school teachers must be certified in at least one or more related subjects’ areas. Every state requires teachers to have a Bachelors Degree with completion of an approved teacher training program with a certain number of subject credits and practice teachings. In some states, a Masters Degree is required in some teaching situations. Every teacher is required to be enrolled in a continuing education course for their renewal of their teaching certificate. For the schools requiring a Masters Degree, they are required to take the following classes; Early Childhood Education, Teaching Education, and Elementary Education and Teaching. Looking at these requirements to become a teacher, they seem to match my future in every way. With me doing an internship in high school, or in other words a practice teaching will only help me more when I go to college and begin my Education classes and have to obtain another practice teaching for them. This profession requires a lot of time, patience, and hard work but it is a profession I would not trade for the world. It is a job that I could wake up and head to everyday without dreading it. Being a teacher requires traits that not every person can acquire. There is many different personalities that an individual studying to be a teacher should acquire. Being flexible, organized, creative, nurturing, patient, respectful, high energy, self-confident, and detail oriented will take a huge toll on your personality traits. My personality traits would consist of most of them. I am very flexible and I can work around anyone’s schedule and always fit people in somewhere that works for both. Also, I am very organized. Everything I own is somehow organized by either color, dates, alphabetized, by year, or by people. I always have creative ideas that come into my head, which I use to improve every lesson I teach and every activity I plan. Being nurturing to younger children is always a great personality trait because when children are young they’re just learning the world and they’re finding new things out. I love to personally listen to 5 and 6 year olds stories because they’re interesting as to what they find neat about the world. Patience is the most important trait for a teacher to have because students all learn at different paces and grasp things at different stages. I know I am able to work with different types of students with different learning styles. Every day I work with children that are all on different learning levels and it makes teaching groups that much easier. Being respectful to everyone around you and in your work place is a very important quality that I think I acquire. Also, having high energy makes a huge impact on what grade level you teach. I love working with Kindergarten because I know I always have a lot of energy that is needed to work with young children. They’re always hyper and reading to do something with hands on. Working with children is only able to happen if you have at least those qualities.
I believe this career is a match for me for many reasons. It takes someone with a great personality, which is happy and upbeat with a great attitude! I believe I have the personality of a Kindergarten teacher because I am always ready to get something done and be hands on and learn something new. To be able to share my knowledge with other children so that they are able to learn as well is just double the inspiration for me. I love seeing the children’s “light bulb” go off when they finally learn something new, or grasp onto a new topic. Over the past few months, my writing has become more efficient and I am able to write things and be more confident about how it turns out. I love talking to parents about how much children improve in the time I am able to see them improve. Being a great listener is also one of my very high profile skills I have, I could listen to someone tell me stories, problems, anything all day long. I am so glad my communication skills have picked up, because it is easier with being in an internship feeling comfortable enough to talk to the adults around me when I don’t understand something, or I need some extra guidance. I definitely believe that this is the career choice for me and I cannot wait to continue my education in it.

Carroll Community College, Focus 2, Research A Career, Elementary School Teacher, on the Internet at http://www.focuscareer2.com/LoggedIn/OccupationOverview.cfm?OccupationId=10161&Unique={ts '2013-09-22 18:54:53'}&ReturnTo=OccupationSearchByName.cfm&OccupationSearchName=

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, Kindergarten and Elementary School Teachers, on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kindergarten-and-elementary-school-teachers.htm (visited September 22, 2013).