Secondary Education & Special Education Teachers

1. Secondary Education &Special Education Teachers Brynn Callahan 7th Hour Contemporary English

2. Description & Duties of Special Education Teachers: • Teaching the emotionally, cognitively, physically, & autistic impaired. • Develop or implement strategies to meet the needs of students with a variety of disabilities. • Encourage students to explore learning opportunities or persevere with challenging tasks to prepare them for later grades. • Talk with parents and/or guardians, staff members, guidance counselors, or other administrators to help resolve students academic problems. • Give the students the extra help they need to help them gain confidence in themselves. • Collaborate with other teachers and administrators. • Assisting children with specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, multiple disabilities, hearing impairments, orthopedic impairments, visual impairments, combined deafness and blindness, traumatic brain injury, etc. • Ensure appropriate accommodations are available in class and when a student needs to take a test. • Inform parents or guardians about the child’s improvement. • Help general educators adapt curriculum materials and teaching techniques to meet the needs of students with disabilities.

3. Working Conditions for Special Education Teachers: • Special Education teachers can either work in private, public, or charter schools. They also teach at private religious or secular schools as well, or with younger children at childcare centers. • Some Special Education teachers can also work in residential facilities or even go tutor students who must stay in a home or a hospital. • They also work with toddlers and infants, and can go work at the child’s home to help and work with/for the parents of the children.

4. Description & Duties of Secondary Education Teachers: • Participating in and organizing extracurricular activities, such as outings, social activities and sporting events. • Participating in departmental meetings, parents' evenings and whole school training events. • Working and meeting with other professionals, such as learning mentors, careers advisers, educational psychologists and education welfare officers. • Secondary school teachers teach one or two national curriculum subjects to pupils aged 11-18. • Having daily/weekly lesson plans. • Grading homework, tests, & quizzes during & after school. • Marking work, giving appropriate feedback and maintaining records of pupils' progress and development. • Keeping in touch with not just the students but also with the students parents/legal guardians. • Preparing students for tests, exams, & most importantly college. • Must also keep up to date with developments in their subject area, new resources, methods and national objectives. • Maintain regular office hours to be able to give students the extra help that they need, & to be able to be reachable by students or parents.

5. Working Conditions For Secondary Education Teachers: • With a Secondary Teaching degree, you can work at a public high school, private high school, and religious or secular schools. • Secondary Teachers also do a lot of their job outside of school hours. Like staying after school hours to grade papers, grading papers at home during the week and even sometimes on weekends, communicating outside of school with parents and/or legal guardians, and also spending some of your summer vacation planning lessons for the following school year.

6. Earnings for Both Special & Secondary Education Teachers: Earnings is one main thing that both teachers have in common. Depending on where you live and where you teach, you can usually end up earning anywhere from $52,000 to $55,000 dollars a year.

7. Some Similarities & Differences: • Differences: • Special Education teachers have to go to school a little bit longer than regular teachers. • Other teachers only have to do a semester of student teaching, while Special Education teachers have to do a full year. • Special Education teachers may sometimes work with less students than regular teachers, who have several different students every hour. Similarities: • Both Special & Secondary Teachers make about the same amount of money. • They can both work in the same types of work places. • They have some of the same duties. • They both have to have a lot of patience.

8. Located in Saginaw, MI. • Tuition & Mandatory Fees: $7,861.00 • Room & Board: $8,040.00 • Books & Supplies: $1,200.00 • Total Cost: $17,101.00 • SVSU is well-known for their College of Education. They have a great Elementary & Secondary program along with Special Education as well. • Elementary Education includes: Early Childhood, English as a second language, French, Spanish, Integrated Science, Language Arts, Mathematics, & Social Studies. • Special Education includes: Cognitively Impaired, Emotionally Impaired, and also Autism Spectrum Disorder. • Secondary Education includes: Biology, Chemistry, Communication & Theatre, Economics, English, French, Geography, History, Industrial Technology Certification, Mathematics, Music K-12, Physical Education K-12, Physics, Political Science, Spanish, & also Visual Arts K-12.

9. My Plan: I’m going to go to Delta for my first year or two to do my pre-requisites & other classes. After that I plan on transferring to SVSU to finish the rest of my degree. It usually takes about 5-6 years to complete a special education degree, because you have to take different classes than regular teachers. You also have to do a whole year of student teaching rather than only a semester which is what regular teachers have to do. Five years is awhile to be in school, but in the end it will be worth it because I’ve always wanted to be a special education teacher, & I’m really excited to go to Delta this coming fall & get started on it.

10. Work Cited: • http://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/25-2052.00 • http://www.allthingspolitical.org/careers/special_education_teacher_working_conditions.htm • http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/special-education-teachers.htm • http://www.k12.com/cava/who-we-are/career-opportunities/high-school-teacher#.UoPWdHBNHTo • http://www.special-education-degree.net/special-education-teacher-qualifications-employment-requirements-work-environment-and-salary/ • http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/high-school-teacher • http://www.myfuture.edu.au/The%20Facts/Work%20and%20Employment/Occupations/Details.aspx?anzsco=241411D