Oh the Humanities!

October 4, 2012 3:57 AM

What qualifications do I need to teach humanities, beyond the normal education teachery qualifications? Victoria, Australia, to be specific. I am a Spanish/English methods teacher, but would love some more advice on applying for all those English/Humanities jobs out there.

I am at the stage of my life where I am applying for real grown up jobs, as a teacher, being in my final weeks of a Graduate Diploma of Education (Secondary), methods English and Spanish. (yay and argh at the same time!)

As I expected, Spanish jobs are thin on the ground (non-existent), and I am focussing on English jobs, and most of those seem to be English/Humanities as I understand budgets are tight and it's nice to get two teachers for one.

I have applied for those jobs anyway, but would like to know what schools are looking for in a humanities teacher. Is Humanities code for 'history teacher'?

I have done 'official' history subjects at university (Medieval and Renaissance, first year) as well as history, culture and politics as part of my Spanish major, at higher than 1st year level, including 3rd year level. I think this is enough, but is it?

Thanks.

PS (hello Metafilter! it's been a while.)

posted by titanium_geek to Education (4 answers total)

Best answer: I'm currently studying an MTeach. My methods are history and humanities. I've been trying to work out exactly what I can apply for, too, and this is my interpretation.

Generally, humanities refers to History, Geography and Economics -- they're the subdomains within the Humanities domain of VELS. It also includes a range of subjects that aren't assessed as part of VELS, including civics, politics, legal studies, business studies, etc.

VIT requires certain minimum qualifications to be a specialist teacher in a given method. For humanities, it specifies:

Sub-major study in one of the specialist Humanities areas:
Economics
Geography
History
together with a Part in another area of study: Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Economics,
Environmental Studies, Geography, History, Indigenous Studies, Legal Studies, Philosophy,
Politics, Sociology

What "sub-major" and "part" mean, exactly, depends on your undergrad course, but VIT defines them as follows:

Part: A quarter of a year of higher education study at any level (usually two first-year units).
Sub-major: Half a year of higher education study, with no more than a quarter of year at first-year level (usually 2
first-year units plus 2 second-year units or above).

posted by robcorr at 4:35 AM on October 4, 2012

Response by poster: Sub question- you're qualified to teach whatever 7-10 with a teaching qualification, right, and your specialism 11 and 12?
posted by titanium_geek at 3:23 PM on October 4, 2012

I'm almost certain that's true -- that's certainly what our lecturers have told us, but I've been trying unsuccessfully to pin it down on the VIT website.
posted by robcorr at 9:17 PM on October 4, 2012

Response by poster: Got an English-only job, for those of you following up. :)
posted by titanium_geek at 11:50 PM on December 14, 2012 [1 favorite]