Future teachers in Oklahoma!
Future teachers in Oklahoma!
This is the “Emergency Certified” Teacher Facebook group.
These people possibly have bachelor’s degrees, but in subjects completely unrelated to the subjects they will be teaching.
Common complaints are about the tests being too hard (they aren’t, you can memorize the questions on fucking quizlet).
My first year teaching I was pulled aside and told by my principal, “you actually have a degree in this, you’ll have to step in to help your team” - because the other science teachers were a Physical Education teacher and the schools secretary.
But no f-ggots allowed! Being a drag queen on the weekends disqualifies you to be a school principal now, no matter how good you were at it.
Dear lord....I took that test for multiple subjects in my younger days, including 3 areas I hadn't studied. Passed them all. It wasn't a hard test.
They made the physics and chemistry tests even easier in the past couple years.
When I took the chemistry test - I hadn’t even really studied chemistry. Just two semesters in undergrad, never took organic. Didn’t know what hydrogen bonding was. I just marathoned the Crash Course YouTube series - I hadn’t ever wanted to teach chemistry, but the school decided that they were going to make me teach it and emergency certify me for it. I figured that would mess with my student loan forgiveness incentives, so took the test to be legit.
I am a relatively new teacher in Oklahoma. In my experience, the teachers I've worked with are a fairly mixed bag. There are absolutely amazing teachers working in Oklahoma that are knowledgeable and passionate about their content areas. I have also noticed a fair amount of teachers that are wildly under qualified or seem to only be in a classroom for the opportunity to take advantage of the system (frequently missing work, not actually teaching their students content, etc.) Oftentimes, though schools don't have many options because they simply need bodies to supervise the students. It is very heartbreaking.
"My first year teaching I was pulled aside and told by my principal, “you actually have a degree in this, you’ll have to step in to help your team” - because the other science teachers were a Physical Education teacher and the schools secretary."
I can relate to this. I'll be entering my 4th full-year teaching. In my short time working in education, I have become the most senior and qualified teacher for my subject and grade level. I do the bulk of the curriculum planning for my subject.
The politics injected into public education via State Superintendent Ryan Walters is absolutely disgusting.
Oftentimes, though schools don't have many options because they simply need bodies to supervise the students.
And sadly, this is why schools are being defunded and requirements for teachers are simply "a warm body, but don't be woke".
Red states especially only want baby sitters because they want "education" to occur at church. With the DoE almost completely gutted, this problem is going to get worse and we'll pay the price in about 10 years.
I will qualify that I struggled with the mild/moderate test (still passed but had to study) because it was quite literally incorrect about ASD. But Oklahoma is mostly about torturing autistic kids anyway.
This is just most education systems in America. You're autistic or have other learning disabilities? Fuck you.
Unless you're in a wealthy school district without easy access to a specialized school for "those people", your options are limited if you're in public school.
And I love teaching autistic kids. Please put me in a group of autistic children. I would absolutely fucking love to teach science to a group of autistic children.
But I am transgender, so I can’t. I don’t count as a human being where I live. Nothing would make me happier than spending all day teaching chemistry and physics but I can’t.
Ah, America. My condolences.
My husband taught middle school math for one year. He didn’t have a teaching degree but had enough college credits in the subject to be emergency certified. While he was teaching another teacher asked for his help in passing their test. He was a little taken aback that the teachers of the subjects couldn’t pass the tests in the subjects they were teaching.
When I took my tests as part of my education undergraduate I had zero issues passing and was a little concerned about my classmates that did. A decade in public education has not lifted my opinion of the general intelligence of some educators. (Many are genuinely fantastic, but that’s not always the case).The teacher profession is all but dead in America. A lot of people that would be bad for students get weeded out through years of education and training. Most school districts are luck if they have more than 50% of their teachers educated/trained. The rest are individuals who could pass a background check. Poor areas, are under 30%. Just because someone can pass a background check doesn't mean they should be around minors. But schools have no other option.
My student loans are about to come due.
It’s all but illegal for me to teach here. And I can’t get out. I’m so sick of being alive.
Please hang in. This may be the darkness before dawn. But dawn may not come right without you.
It depends on the state. Oklahoma is ranked 49 of 50 for its k-12 public education system, and we are seeing evidence of this here.
I am a physics teacher in a New Jersey high school (and not even a high ranked school) and I would say that a majority of the teachers are true professionals with masters degrees in education. New Jersey is ranked 2 of 50 though (just behind Massachusetts). We also see teachers salaries around and over $100,000 in New Jersey so it entices more people to become teachers and treat the job very seriously.
In my twenties, I was a teacher. In my thirties, I said fuck that. System is so fucked.
In my state, there was a state level exam to qualify to become a teacher. I don't know what Oklahoma's is or what it looks like. What I do know is that it was as hard as the written portion of a drivers test.
Some people speedrun it. I had to take it twice because the phasing always gets me confused. But, it wasn't difficult at all, not to the level where I'd complain on Facebook to say it's "difficult". Maybe it's difficult if you were homeschooled and weren't taught a lot of the public school way of thinking.
Ryan Walters is a the worst thing to happen to education in Oklahoma. I don’t know his involvement in testing, but he is just the worst.
There was a principal at Western Heights (iirc) who did drag on the weekends. No one knew. He was a great principal, had excellent performance reviews, was loved by his community.
Ryan Walters showed up to the school every day to tell them to fire him. And they did.
Ryan Walters is also gay himself. Everyone in the community knows this. He’s a chicken shit human, who helped write the evil woke social science standards, before he decided to have a political career.
you’ll have to step in to help your team
If you had impostor syndrome starting out like most people do, that must've been a wild ride. Feeling like a fraud while also being inarguably the most qualified person there sounds like a special hell.