What kinds of things do you get to do in college years to become a teacher?

Question

I really want to be a teacher when I grow up! I am 14 years old right now.

Answer 1

The previous answer pretty much covers how things work where I am from too (South Dakota).  Right now, I am going into my senior year of college, and it's getting into the fun part now. :o)  If you really want to be a teacher, get involved in your school.  I spent an hour a day as a teacher's aide during my senior year of high school, which really helped to prepare me for some of my field experiences.

Answer 2

The things you do will vary at each college, but I can tell you about my university where I taught preservice teachers for 10 years.

1.  The first two years you take your general education requirements. (literature, history, English, etc.)

2.  You then must take content area courses and teaching strategies courses.  Content area courses would include math education, science education, language arts education, etc.

Teaching strategies courses include learning a variety of teaching strategies, writing lesson plans, writing unit plans, assessing student performance,  legal issues in education, etc.  

You may start some of these courses during your second year in college.

3.  During your third and fourth years, you will begin to have "field" experiences.  This means you will be spending time in schools observing teachers and students and assisting the teacher in some of the easier tasks, such as reading a story.   In each field experience you will be asked to do more tasks and more difficult tasks to get you used to teaching gradually.

4.  Your final field experience is student teaching which is usually the last semester of college.  At my university, you spend the entire semester at the school with the exception of reporting back to the university  once a week for seminars.  Your last two weeks in the field, you are the teacher.  That's right!  It's just you and the students.  However, the teacher is nearby because you are not yet a certified teacher and cannot be legally responsible for the students.  You ARE responsible though; if you do something careless and a student gets hurt, e.g., you could be suspended from the program or disciplined in some other way.    Teaching is a great career, but you must be on your toes at all times.

In my state, Georgia, you are not fully certified until you have taken the Praxis exam in your area, e.g. early childhood education or middle school education.

I hope you realize your dream of becoming a teacher.  Just remember that all the things I told you about are designed to prepare you for teaching one step at a time.  If you really want to teach and you work at it, you will!