Math Should I Teach High School Before Pursuing a PhD?

[mathmollusk]

Is it a bad idea for me to get a master's in secondary education and teach high school (math) for a few years before I do a PhD? My main goal is to teach college. However, I've missed all the PhD application deadlines this year and figured I might as well pick up the HS teaching degree as a "backup" before I do my PhD in case I can't get a tenure track job in academia down the road (likely not, I know).

My main concern is that my rec letter writers will forget who I am when I ask them for letters 3-4+ years after college.

Related question: Is it really any worse to teach HS than college? I'm thinking another option would be to just stick with HS teaching and not even try for the PhD if my rec letters are going to be "stale" by that time. What attracts me to college teaching is less hand-holding and having to take trash talk from problem students and their parents as well as less issues with administration. Am I mistaken in this belief though? Seems like college could be just as bad/good in different ways.

 

[jedishrfu]

For PhD it’s always best to go straight from undergrad to PhD not some circuitous route of work some, get a masters then work some and then get a PhD. Graduate programs expect you to sacrifice a lot to get the degree. People that have succeeded in doing this have had to retake courses from their masters in order to complete PhD course requirements. Sometimes it’s due to the length of time you were away from it and sometimes because you took it at another university and they choose not to honor it for your PhD course requirement.

Of course this also depends on the PhD program as some are geared towards education and teaching and most of not all applicants have been teachers who want a higher degree like one in Math Education or something similar.

While I can’t speak to teaching in either case, I’d like to point out that college students are different from high school students. You can expect college students to be more self motivated to get good grades, you don’t have to cater to them in the same way you do with high schoolers and their parents.

However, I've seen some high school kids who could run rings around college honors scholars especially in the motivation arena. These were kids planning to go to college and they had to prepare for it with extra curricular programs, competing in science programs ... and some would wind up going to top flight schools.

The college standing will give you some idea of the level of college student you will teach but in high school you will find a wider range of students and their abilities will vary wildly too.

Bottomline, it’s probably better to teach at the college level for better pay and better more focused students. However, high school is where you will find the dreamers who don’t know enough knowledge not to dream And where your dreams may be reborn.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

Is it a bad idea for me to get a master's in secondary education and teach high school (math) for a few years before I do a PhD? My main goal is to teach college. However, I've missed all the PhD application deadlines this year and figured I might as well pick up the HS teaching degree as a "backup" before I do my PhD in case I can't get a tenure track job in academia down the road (likely not, I know).

My main concern is that my rec letter writers will forget who I am when I ask them for letters 3-4+ years after college.

Related question: Is it really any worse to teach HS than college? I'm thinking another option would be to just stick with HS teaching and not even try for the PhD if my rec letters are going to be "stale" by that time. What attracts me to college teaching is less hand-holding and having to take trash talk from problem students and their parents as well as less issues with administration. Am I mistaken in this belief though? Seems like college could be just as bad/good in different ways.

Im not sure. Introductory college classes (first year/second year) may be just as bad, or even worse. You have to deal with laziness, know it all attitude, and not caring or being spoon fed the information. It seems more like a place to break bad habits than to teach. But, if you have a few motivated students in the class, then it would make your job enjoyable if you like to teach.

 

[Choppy]

I don't think it's a bad idea to pursue a master's in education if teaching in some capacity is ultimately what you see yourself doing.

One thing to think about that will help with reference letters and keeping the PhD route open is to stay involved with some kind of research project. Talk to your professors. See if you can get some kind of summer position working for them, or something that might be ongoing that you could do on the side while pursuing your education master's. Not only will that keep your references current, but it will also keep your head in the physics game so that you're not returning to it 3 years out without having done much physics.

As far as teaching high school vs university... there's different challenges and advantages to each.

In high school you're dealing with a more general sampling of skill and motivation levels. The students are less mature. And this means you have to work more at catering to the different ways that people learn. On one hand you could end up teaching advanced placement courses that aren't all that different from first year university in terms of content. On the other hand you could end up teaching a grade nine remedial science class to kids who have somehow slipped through cracks in the education system with unidentified learning disabilities and who are weighed down with social problems that most adults would have a hard time navigating. Particularly as a new teacher you may not have a lot of say in what courses you teach and you could end up teaching classes you don't have a lot of expertise or interest in. Your goals are different here too. Most high school science students are unlikely to go on to careers as scientists, but you need to both give them the foundation for higher education while balancing that with a basic skill set that enables your students will go out into the world as educated citizens.

 

[berkeman]

Related question: Is it really any worse to teach HS than college?

Related comment of mine from an old thread:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/sub-vs-full-time-teacher.976884/post-6228414

What grade levels do you want to teach? I'm assuming that you want to teach at the high school level? I'm not of any help on the certification requirements, but on the issue of challenging environments, I do know that teaching math or science in public high schools can be a frustrating endeavor. In my experience (as a parent watching some HS classes in recent years), the level of disinterest and disrespect of many public school students right now is pretty hard to deal with. Teaching in a private school would probably provide you a better set of students...

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Is it a bad idea for me to get a master's in secondary education and teach high school (math) for a few years before I do a PhD? My main goal is to teach college. However, I've missed all the PhD application deadlines this year and figured I might as well pick up the HS teaching degree as a "backup" before I do my PhD in case I can't get a tenure track job in academia down the road (likely not, I know).

My main concern is that my rec letter writers will forget who I am when I ask them for letters 3-4+ years after college.

Related question: Is it really any worse to teach HS than college? I'm thinking another option would be to just stick with HS teaching and not even try for the PhD if my rec letters are going to be "stale" by that time. What attracts me to college teaching is less hand-holding and having to take trash talk from problem students and their parents as well as less issues with administration. Am I mistaken in this belief though? Seems like college could be just as bad/good in different ways.

I'd consider how much debt the masters degree adds and whether it is really needed. A lot of districts these days have alternate certification routes for folks with BS degrees in STEM who want to teach high school. Also, many private schools have different certification requirements where the masters is not needed.

Is it worse to teach HS than college? Ultimately that depends on the specific school, the motivation of the students, and how they treat you. Generally, teaching high school is a lot more work and more time in the classroom.

The college teaching jobs I've had were about 15 hours a week of classroom time, which is about four courses - and there were usually multiple sections of the same course which made preparation easier. The semesters were about 15 weeks long. The high school teaching jobs I've had were about 25 hours a week of classroom time (five courses), and semesters were 18 weeks long. I never had multiple sections of the same course, so there was a lot of prep time. College teaching also had fewer bureaucratic requirements and was less likely to change the curriculum on me.

One can encounter lots of whiners and complainers in either high school or college teaching, so if your administration does not have your back, it can turn into a headache. But at least in college, you don't have to interact with parents - in high school, you often have both parents and students whining and complaining.

In high school STEM, you'll likelyhave more students in class who don't want to be there. In college, the students who don't want to be there usually just stop showing up. This makes the classroom management and discipline issues much trickier in high school.