Kelsey

Kelsey Davis

AP English III

Mrs. Rayborn

26 March 2012

Elementary School Teacher

In today’s society there are several elementary school teachers. They usually work with children in fourth to sixth grade. Elementary school teachers have the privilege to help develop young minds to become successful in their life. They also are needed for present and future years to come. Becoming a teacher has a lot of educational requirements, and there are positive and negative benefits of being a teacher.

Elementary school teachers have the chance to touch the lives of young students by giving up their knowledge and time (“A Day in the life of an Elementary School Teacher”). They work from 7:15 to 4:00p.m or later (“A Day in the life of an Elementary School Teacher”). The love of play and sense of humor help the teachers win the respect of their students in their classroom (Heaton 49). The main focus in the classroom remains reading, writing, and arithmetic also known as math (Heaton 49). Working with young people requires a lot of energy and a positive mind set (Heaton 49). Elementary school teachers stay with the same students for most of the day, every day of the school year (Heaton 49). The teacher must understand the mind set of children to avoid conflict within the classroom (Heaton 49). Not only do elementary school teachers work with children’s academic development but also work with their physical, emotional, and social development (Heaton 49). A normal class size is twenty to thirty students in a classroom (Ferguson’s Careers In Focus 62).

When becoming an elementary school teacher, one is required to have a bachelor’s degree in education or in the subject one wants to teach (Ferguson’s Careers In Focus 64). They are also required to have a teaching certificate (Silivanch 42). Each state’s education department specifies which courses one is to take for each certificate (Silivanch 44). Elementary school teachers are required to have a certain number of hours...