OK, I’ve got some good advice specific to your situation. Great, you will have your bachelor’s degree in psychology, but you don’t have certification. Yes, you do have to have a bachelor’s, but not necessarily in the subject you want to teach. What you need to have is certification to teach in the subject area you want to teach in. Well, there is no certification available in just psychology. You say you want to teach secondary school, so you’ll probably need something like a Social Studies Grades 8-12 certification (in Texas, certification is a subject area and a grade range, so you could also do Social Studies Grades 4-8, for example; but there is something else called a generalist certification – more later). But let’s talk about your other concern about the market for teaching your subject before I go on. Typically, social studies teaching jobs are done by people who are also coaches. I’m not saying this is the rule, but schools cannot have all their coaches working as full-time coaches, so they have to teach other classes as well, and typically, they do the history, government, and other social studies type classes. So often, the jobs posted are 1/2 time coach and 1/2 time social studies teachers. So you may find that you may be highly marketable, but you cannot meet the coaching need as well. Also, unless the high school is very large or, such as another person mentioned, the school requires all students take psychology, you’re not likely to find a job just teaching psyhcology; you might have to be qualified to teach something else.

So, anyway, that being said, let’s talk about this certification issue. You will not be qualified to take any teaching job without certification, and you bachelor’s degree will not be enough to get it. In the state of Texas, you must go through a program, either through your bachelor’s degree, a graduate degree, or through alternative certification. Since you are so close to getting your BS, this is not an option for you. You will either need to get a graduate degree that includes a certification element (took at what’s available in your university’s education department concerning master’s programs with certification) or you will need to go through alternative certification (a program that is designed for people who have bachelors degrees that are not in education but want to become certified to teach). As part of either one of these programs, you will take your certification tests. As mentioned above, you will select an area to become certified in, but there are college credit requirements, so these will have to be reviewed. Obviously, if you want to teach high school math, you will have to have a certain number of college credits in mathematics as well. So you take the test in your subject and grade level area and you take another test that assesses your knowledge of the teaching profession. You must pass both of these to become certified.

I’m not entirely clear on how a master’s program would work as far as certification area; I guess it would depend on the program. But as for alternative certification, they assess the college credits you already have, tell you what areas you qualify in, then you pick one. Then they teach you what you need to know for the other test. Then you get a job and they monitor you for a year. The program does cost money, but less than what a master’s would cost. Plus, once you are employed by a district, they are likely to pay for the costs of a master’s, so it might be more financially to your advantage to front the costs of alternative certification then get your master’s once you are employed. Here’s something else that’s interesting – in Texas, once you hold certification in any area, you can simply become certified in another area by simply taking and passing the test then having it added to your credentials; you don’t need to complete another degree. Well, maybe not any area; there are some other requirements for things like special education and gifted/talented education.

Alternative cert. programs are available all over the state, and chances are your university offers one as well. For more specific information about all of this, go to this website:

www.sbec.state.tx.us

Click the link at the top about “becoming a teacher in Texas.” It will explain all of this to you. About a 3rd the way down, in the paragraph explaining alternative certification, select “click here” for a listing of all the programs available in the state. from there, you can get to their websites and look at their programs, including application requirements and, most importantly, what college credits are needed for the various certification areas. Most college degrees qualify people for what are called generalist certifications – these qualify you to teach any subject area, but only either K-4 or 4-8. There is no high school generalist cert. On a personal note, I have a BS in psychology, and I qualified for these. I’m now the ESL coordinator for an intermediate school. I have to know all the material for all the subjects.

I know this was a lot of info, but I hope it clears some things up.

High School Psychology Teacher Jobs

Teaching High School Psychology

In most states to teach something like psychology requires a social studies teaching certificate – which then requires a bachelors plus student teaching and education courses. But, as a fellow social studies teacher, this field is very tough because there are so few jobs.

There are programs for people switching to teaching after a bachelors – Transition to Teaching and Community of Teachers. They require less course work that a traditional education program.

If you take 18 graduate hours in psychology, you are qualified to teach community college courses which are more available and any online courses that are becoming hot now.

http://education.indiana.edu/~comteach

http://site.educ.indiana.edu/Default.aspx?alias=site.educ.indiana.edu/t2t

Find a school that is big on it. At my school, psychology is almost a requirement for Jr or Sr year. Everyone took it because it was a great class. Some years the teacher, who was a great guy btw, didn’t get a prep period. And then other years he had to help teach sociology.

Not necessarily

What courses did you take and are proficient at.

Did you take a year of Statistics, you might be able to teach that.

How much math did you take, you might be able to teach Geometry or basic High School math.

All you have to do is pass the PRaxis and student teach to qualify.

YOu can also do a home room.

How about General Science. Earth Sciences. Can you teach the fundamentals of Astronomy, Meterology, Geology.

thx for the answers EVERYONE <3