Sunday, February 21, 2010

How to Find a High School Psych Teaching Job

Before I was hired for my first job, I was really clueless about how to find a job teaching psychology.  For the younger folks, this was in the days before the internet and before online job application forms.  Everything was either done by hand or very carefully on my IBM Selectric typewriter (insert groans or knowing smiles here).  I made lots of phone calls (remember long distance in the time before cell phones?) and checked the classifieds.  In any case, things are much easier now. 

In California, there is one website that nearly every school district uses to advertise jobs. That site is: http://www.edjoin.org/. If there is a school job in the state, it will be there.
There is also a site for community college jobs. https://www.cccregistry.org/jobs/searchForm.aspx.  These are site for all teaching jobs, and you will have to narrow your search.
In California, one will be probably not be able to teach only psychology—we often have to add other social science classes to our schedules (I've also taught US Government, Sociology, and World Religions here). It has to do with graduation requirements and the culture in the past 20 years or so.  Also, many electives in Cali are being cut as a result of the budget issues at the state level.
Here is where we really need your expertise--especially for those of you not in California. Since this blog is about teaching high school psychology, I suspect most of us will be at the high school or community college level. I'm not aware of any centralized location to seek out psych teaching jobs at the high school level across the US.

I recall that making contacts at the AP reading was a great place to find out what was available.  I vaguely remember how counties in Illinois had listings for their areas.  I can thank the Psych-News listserv for finding out about my current job. 

What is out there now?  If your state has such a web site(s) or services, please add the information and any insights in the comments section.  Thanks in advance for your contributions.
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2 comments:

  1. Mr. CantorFebruary 22, 2010 at 9:24 AM

    One good place to look for teaching jobs in the Chicago Public Schools is to download the bimonthly e-bulletin.

    http://www.cps-humanresources.org/Careers/per_bull.htm

    You can also fill out an online application and search for vacancies per subject or geographic area at

    http://www.cps-humanresources.org/Hronline/logon/ProspEmpLogon.asp

    There are a few schools where there are pure psychology positions teaching two sections of AP and three sections of regular psych, but most AP psych teachers teach other courses in social sciences or other departments. I'm a science teacher, and I know one Spanish language teacher who also teaches AP psych.

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  2. HannahSeptember 22, 2010 at 11:10 AM

    What is typically the major you have when you teach these courses? Im going to be a freshman in college next year, and my major is currently education. I would really like to be a HS psychology, sociology, world religions etc. teacher. Any tips? Thanks :)

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