Hello!
Prefacing this with I’m Still In College, for clarity 😃. I’ve seen a bit of stuff on this subreddit, done some of my own research and went through the wiki but I still have some lingering questions that I’d like to see if anyone can help me solve!
I’m currently completing my undergraduate in History, and I have half a mind to one day get my PhD in it and become a professor. It’s that or law school. I’m currently looking to focus on Western/Soviet Cold War politics (i.e. Post-WWII western and EU history). With that said, here are my questions.
1. I’m fine teaching English as I love writing and linguistics, but is there any market for teaching western history?
2. In that vein, would I need some sort of education minor / experience in US / different certification if there is an opportunity to teach history? I don’t have a minor declared, but I’m running out of my college fund so I want to be careful with it !
3. Does an education minor even make a difference ? How are non-education B.A. degrees viewed for teaching professions? (outside of the ALT/eikawa world)
Thanks!
2 comments
If you want to teach Western history in Japan in public schools, you’ll need
* Japanese fluency
* a Japanese teaching license, which usually necessitates getting a degree at a Japanese university
If you want to teach the same at a university in Japan, you’ll need
* Japanese fluency
* a Ph.D.
* (often) experience teaching at university, usually as an adjunct
If you want to do the same at an international school, you’ll probably need
* a teaching license from your home country
* teaching experience in your home country
You might get better answers posting in r/movingtojapan.
I’ll focus specifically on teaching a humanity at a university in Japan.
First, it is not impossible.
Second, an education minor or teaching license is thoroughly irrelevant for teaching a humanity at a university (basically anywhere – but having a foreign teaching license in Japan is completely irrelevant).
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A major thing to think about is *what sort of university position*:
For regular positions, you will be at a disadvantage against Japanese applicants regardless of your citizenship, fluency, or research profile. In all fairness, being a faculty member at a Japanese university is about being on committees conducted in Japanese and applying to JSPS for research grants. As such, it’s not just about your ability to research and conduct courses.
Conversely, for positions to teach non-Japanese international students, it’s often best to have a Japan-related expertise rather than something else, because the international students that come want to learn about Japan and be in Japan.
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There’s several factors that would determine the likelihood that you can be hired:
1. pedigree of your degree (not by US standards but by Japanese beliefs – e.g., they’ve heard of Harvard, Yale, Chicago, but they might scratch their heads at U.Penn in terms of ranking)
2. Subfield – I don’t think there’s much of a market for cold war history in Japan but I’m a philosopher … EU history might interest them.
3. Japanese fluency – this will be critical for regular positions and also for positions targeted at international programs.
4. necessity of your courses – most Japanese universities don’t even mandate that students take a history course. So for most universities, you’ll primarily be running your zemi and offering some courses that can fulfill general education requirements.