History Teacher or Fitness Related Job?

[quote]texas man wrote:
I’m going to college in a year and I’m stuck on what to do. I’ve had always wanted to be a history teacher because I love teaching and I love history. All my biggest role models in my childhood till here have always been history teachers. Lately however I’ve been thinking about a job in the fitness business, like a personal trainer.

I love the thought of doing it and surround my self with my passion of weights. I’ve always had a dream of opening a gym. I’m stuck between the two and wonder if I could get any incites on either such as what you really need to succeed in both, day in the life, type of stuff. Money is not big deal to me. I know both Arnt going to make me rich. I figured I need to love what I do and ill be happy.
Ps. Ik personal training ill be stuck with mostly people wanting to lose weight and training kids.[/quote]

how do u know if u love teaching if u never been a teacher

[quote]
but do you dont think it is good to give all members of society some insight into philosophy? And isnt a intellectual blue collar worker a positive thing for himself and for the entire society?[/quote]

Obviously.
It was sarcasm.

A school that do not exist to further education and general knowledge but to teach only (or mostly) job specific skills.
Mainly industrial jobs (electricians, plumbers, garage mechanics, etc)
and tertiary sector jobs (accountants, sales clerk, office worker, etc).

Teaching a classroom full of thirty 17-year-old soon-to-be secretaries may sound like a fantasy.
Until you actually have to do it.

Just my opinion, but I think people that want to teach a subject should have a masters in that subject.

The ME.d is the most useless degree ever. Learn the content first. Why do college kids get lectured by PhDs?

Working in education, I see “math” teachers, that could not integrate to save their lives.

This also depends if you want to do public or private school. If you want to do public, get ready for bureaucracy, and unruly classrooms. Some of your pay would be tied to credentials, thus the proliferation of ME.d’s that dont know shit, but want more pay.

Private schools, at least around here, purposely recruit people with subject content expertise. The pay may be lower or higher depending on the school, but your employment is more at will. Granted, I am in PA, where there is a strong teachers union.

That being said, for the right person, teaching is a very rewarding career for both the teacher and students. Certainly getting some sort of strength background or coaching credentials can only help you.

[quote]belligerent wrote:

[quote]texas man wrote:
I’m going to college in a year and I’m stuck on what to do. I’ve had always wanted to be a history teacher because I love teaching and I love history. All my biggest role models in my childhood till here have always been history teachers. Lately however I’ve been thinking about a job in the fitness business, like a personal trainer.

I love the thought of doing it and surround my self with my passion of weights. I’ve always had a dream of opening a gym. I’m stuck between the two and wonder if I could get any incites on either such as what you really need to succeed in both, day in the life, type of stuff. Money is not big deal to me. I know both Arnt going to make me rich. I figured I need to love what I do and ill be happy.
Ps. Ik personal training ill be stuck with mostly people wanting to lose weight and training kids.[/quote]

how do u know if u love teaching if u never been a teacher
[/quote]

The irony in this post is rich.

my son has a math degree from UCSD, and is making a good living as an actuary - fwiw.

Get the History degree, obvi you dig it (as do I), teach at a HS or Middle school, and volunteer as a strenght/training coach. after time, it would be a paid position also, and you have the best of both worlds.

kinesiology is also a good degree to have, but sounds like you dig History and teaching, and the kinesiolgy information does not always transfer into a meaningful career -

[quote]kamui wrote:

my sarcasm detector was off.

I actaully spent a year in high school in something that must have been a vocational school. We spent half of our school days in school and the other half we spent at a job.
Since I wanted to get a artium and not become a carpenter, electrician etc( I suck at practical stuff like that ) I was the only one in that school who had history classes.
I worked a period during that year as a helping man on a truck that delivered furnitures, I was 18 years old, under 170cm and weighed less than 50kg. In short that job was hell lol.
I was able to transfer to a kindergarden-ish job.

I fail to see the ironing there.

[quote]texas man wrote:
I’m going to college in a year and I’m stuck on what to do. I’ve had always wanted to be a history teacher because I love teaching and I love history.

[/quote]
Be careful about “I love teaching” based on positive experiences individually tutoring cooperative people. I tend to think you will need at least somewhat of a dominant, confident personality to teach effectively in a classroom full of non-adult persons, where only some of them will be completely cooperative if dealing with a non-confident albeit knowledgeable teacher. From what I have heard, you will also need a decent amount of tolerance for bureaucratic absurdity and mandated inflation of actual student achievement, if you are going to teach in a public school. I have had positive, personally satisfying experiences in the past doing informal individual tutoring in math: but I have no illusions that I would survive as a math teacher.

If you have difficulty in either of those two areas (self-confidence in the face of other people’s unreasonable behavior; tolerance for organized absurdity): be wary of committing to a career in teaching in a public school. If you have difficulty with self-confidence in the face of other people’s unreasonable behavior, be wary of any job teaching any sizeable group of non-adult persons in any institution whether public or private.

Just be aware that tutoring one motivated person is not the same thing as teaching while maintaining control of a classroom and appeasing a political bureaucracy.

[quote]undoredo wrote:

[quote]texas man wrote:
I’m going to college in a year and I’m stuck on what to do. I’ve had always wanted to be a history teacher because I love teaching and I love history.

[/quote]
Be careful about “I love teaching” based on positive experiences individually tutoring cooperative people. I tend to think you will need at least somewhat of a dominant, confident personality to teach effectively in a classroom full of non-adult persons, where only some of them will be completely cooperative if dealing with a non-confident albeit knowledgeable teacher. From what I have heard, you will also need a decent amount of tolerance for bureaucratic absurdity and mandated inflation of actual student achievement, if you are going to teach in a public school. I have had positive, personally satisfying experiences in the past doing informal individual tutoring in math: but I have no illusions that I would survive as a math teacher.

If you have difficulty in either of those two areas (self-confidence in the face of other people’s unreasonable behavior; tolerance for organized absurdity): be wary of committing to a career in teaching in a public school. If you have difficulty with self-confidence in the face of other people’s unreasonable behavior, be wary of any job teaching any sizeable group of non-adult persons in any institution whether public or private.

Just be aware that tutoring one motivated person is not the same thing as teaching while maintaining control of a classroom and appeasing a political bureaucracy.[/quote]

That’s very true.
And i would add this :

Be careful about “i love history” based on intellectual curiosity and academic passion.

Be aware that the history you love and learn and the history you’ll teach are two very different things.
You’ll teach very basic things. And you’ll be happy when they durably remember at least a small part of it.
and you’ll do that years after years after years.
No matter how much you love history, it can get old pretty fast.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]666Rich wrote:
Your first “insight” into being a teacher, is learn to fucking spell.[/quote]

He’s from Texas. That kind of stuff isn’t important to teachers down there.[/quote]