Teacher Aide Career Information

Remember the lunch room monitor who yelled at you every time you tried to start a food fight? Or the person who answered your questions when the Teacher was too busy helping other students? Both of them were probably Teacher Aides. Their job is to assist a Teacher with lessons, classroom discipline, or general clerical duties like grading.

A little less than half of all Teacher Aides work part-time, and many of them hold the position while working towards a teaching degree. It may not apply to all Teacher Aides, but this job is usually a good stepping stone to a full-time position.

As a Teacher Aide, you work in the classroom, helping students when they have questions about lessons. You also assist the Teacher in administering tests, grading papers, putting up billboards, or setting up materials for a lesson-anything to make their job easier. And your responsibilities continue outside the classroom too, where you monitor students at lunch, recess, or before and after school, making sure no fights or problems occur.

Many jobs are available in special education classrooms. In this setting, you either work with an entire room of students, or just one student in particular. Depending on their level of development, your tasks can include helping them with basic things like riding the bus, grooming, or feeding. Or you might work with a student with a relatively mild disability, such as a speech impediment. You might also be tasked with assisting someone-say, a foreign student-who needs to brush up on their English language skills.