>> For the state of Maryland in Montgomery County and specifically we have
to have a four-year college degree from an accredited university.
And also within ten years after being hired in Montgomery County,
you must have a Graduate Degree or a Graduate equivalency.
You also to have to be content-certified in another subject area.
So, it's Special Education, you have to a Special Education emphasis
on your education degree and then you also need
to have a content area whether it's Social Studies, Science, Mathematics, English,
you must have that in Montgomery County to be certified.
Part of the Undergraduate process in most universities is
that there is a student teaching period.
Practice teaching.
And that certainly gives the aspiring teacher or graduate to opportunity to work
in that environment and to see, you know, what they're going to be hopefully faced
with as they teach independently.
I personally had the opportunity to substitute teach before I came into teaching full-time
and I found that to be very, very helpful.
Not only to narrow down the population that I wanted to work with,
but where I felt comfortable and where I felt I could help the most.
And so, not all students have the opportunity to substitute teach as they're going
through their programs, but volunteering in the school if there's time, or you know,
even in the summer program when they don't have classes, might be very helpful working
in summer camps with students with disabilities or you know, something in that way
so they can sort of narrow down the field that they would like to work with,
the population that they'd like to work with.
That might be very helpful.