Free Sample
The Complete Guide to Becoming A History Teacher, Postsecondary
What you'll really do, earn, and need to know before committing to a life in the college classroom
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: What Does a History Teacher, Postsecondary Actually Do?
Let's start with a scene, because "History Teacher, Postsecondary" as a job title sounds straightforward until you actually sit in an office with one and watch a Tuesday unfold. You might picture someone in a tweed jacket standing before a lecture hall, holding forth on the causes of the Civil War. That image isn't wrong - it's just incomplete. It is maybe fifteen percent of the actual job.
The official title covers a wide spread of positions. There are roughly 22,000 history teachers employed at American colleges and universities. Some of them are full professors at research universities with ten or twelve graduate students under their wing. Some are adjunct instructors lecturing at a community college for $2,800 per course. Some are teaching assistants or visiting lecturers. The common thread is that they all teach college-level history, and their workdays are built around a surprisingly consistent set of activities.
Let's break the job into its real components. The largest share of your time - typically thirty to forty hours a week, even during a "teaching only" semester - goes to what the job description calls instruction. But instruction is not just the three hours a week you stand in front of a class. For every hour of classroom time, expect to spend two to three hours preparing. That means reading primary sources, updating a lecture on a 200-year-old topic because new scholarship has shifted the interpretation, designing a new discussion