Simply put: I’m back in school after raising my kids. I’m going for a fairly specific chem degree but am considering switching to a chem degree for teaching JH and HS students. I want to know what it’s like. I’m a female and live in California.
With a degree and education classes, you’ll always find work. Not teaching Chem. exclusively, most likely. Especially at the Jr. High level. But Science teachers are always in demand. It helps if you expand your credentials. For example, I have both Physical and Life Science credentials, which means I can teach any science class from 7th to 12th grade anywhere in the state. Having that flexibility is a good thing.
Once you’ve put in your time and find yourself really unappreciated, I’ve heard the real money is in meth production.
Especially once you find out you’re dying of cancer.
That’s a good point.
Do you enjoy it? I admit, I have a completely romanticized vision of teaching AWESOME SCIENCE to kids but, as the mother of a 7th-grader, I know she can be a colossal PITA and I wonder how much BS science teachers deal with on a daily basis.
I geek out regularly in my labs and, to me, even failed experiments are awesome…and potentially deadly, which just makes it even more awesome! Do kids view it that way or am I just a chemistry geek? Should I continue to get my geek on alone in a lab or share it with kids?
My major is currently Forensic Chem, which was my goal back when I was in my early 20s (before CSI) and the difference in curricula is significant enough that I need to make a decision in the next few months. Forensic Chem was always my dream but now I’m thinking maybe not so much. Do I want to spend the rest of my life in a lab? How great would it be to encourage the love of Chemistry in the next generation? Would it be great? I’m old, so I actually have to make the right choice this time.
Dude, meth is so lowbrow even addicts can do it.
Not the blue stuff.
mmm
teaching kids to think and reason is important, both are important life skills that science and math can give. lack of the ability to think and reason leads to stupid people and a stupid nation.
love of science can start at those ages, a person finally has enough learning skills to start learning about the subject. if you are awed by chemistry it will show. at that level learning any science is a help to leaning any other science. chemistry is the most abstract science so an excited and skilled teacher can make a big difference.
I have a feeling that teaching chemistry in California high schools might not be too much fun. When I did high-school chemistry (in England, in the 1960s) we got lots of practical lab experience, plus teacher conducted demonstrations for anything that might be dangerous. I loved it, and I learned a lot about chemistry and the basic principles of science.
More recently, my daughter went through it in California. Her chemistry classes were almost completely theoretical and mathematical, all about electron shells and such. She got virtually no sense of what all this math actually applied to because she hardly ever saw any chemicals! She tried (she is a conscientious student), but she found it terribly boring, and I cannot blame her.
I do not think it was her teacher’s fault, it was the curriculum. I think you may find that you are not really allowed to teach real chemistry in California these days, which, I imagine, must be very frustrating for a teacher.
I do not think that is true at all, but I can certainly see how modern US high-school chemistry classes might give you that idea.
I suggest you contact an actual chemistry teacher in California. Surely there must be a teacher’s union or organization that would help point you in the right direction.
Thank you for your helpful advice. Did you miss the part where silenus is an actual science teacher in California?
And, quite frankly, I’m asking for anecdotal accounts of what it is like to be a science teacher for JH/HS students. Are you a science teacher? Are you a member of a teacher’s union or organization that you recommend I turn to? Do you have any practical knowledge for this thread at all? Go ahead, dazzle me!
Minneapolis could probably use at least one new chemistry teacher.