Military veterans bring many positives — and some needs — into teaching

Abstract

Public schools have hired over 17,000 veterans who have participated in Troops to Teachers (TTT), a federal program designed to assist those leaving careers in the military to transition into teacher careers. Despite some educators’ bias against former service members, the advantages of hiring veterans as teachers are manifold. Veterans typically encounter a number of problems in their first year of teaching. An effective way of supporting veterans new to teaching is with three levels of support: mentoring, support teams, and support networks. Many veterans new to teaching are alternatively certified. Typically they have taken a few credit hours in general pedagogy and little if any coursework in pedagogical content knowledge covering, for example, how to teach particular content, like math, science, and so forth.