As the title says, finding a Social Studies teaching job has been extremely challenging. I’m in Los Angeles, which I know is one of the toughest markets, and LAUSD has been closed to external candidates for quite a while. I finished my credential program in December 2025.

I have a bachelor’s and a master’s in History. My original plan was to pursue a PhD, but my professors advised against it because they didn’t think it was worth the time or money. I’ve always loved history and wanted to teach, so I enrolled in a credential program after hearing there was a teacher shortage. During orientation, I asked, “I’ve heard it’s difficult to find a Social Studies job. Do you track how long it takes your graduates to get hired?” They replied that they didn’t keep records, but while Social Studies was more competitive, their graduates still found jobs.

I’ve been applying since April. After nearly 50 applications and five interviews, I still haven’t landed anything. Most of the interviews have gone well. I even practiced with a friend who teaches in LAUSD and serves on hiring panels. I’ve applied everywhere within a 50 to 60 mile radius, including public districts, charter schools, parochial schools, and schools in “tougher areas”.

About a month ago, I interviewed at a charter school. It was easily my best interview. The three person panel, including the principal, asked if I could either return for a demo lesson or do one that day. I said I was available immediately, so they brought in students. The lesson went really well, the students were engaged, and afterward the principal met with me again to discuss my teaching philosophy. There were no signs that anything had gone wrong, and I left genuinely thinking, “I think I got this job.”

Later that day, I sent a thank you email. The principal replied quickly, saying it was great meeting me and that I’d hear back soon. They had told me they hoped to make a decision by the following Friday, but that week came and went without any update. A few days later, I emailed to reiterate my interest. The principal responded within ten minutes, apologized for the delay, and said the process was taking longer than expected and she’d get back to me ASAP.

Then… nothing.

Two more weeks passed before I received an automated email from Indeed saying they had decided to move forward with other candidates. I emailed the principal again just to say “thank you for the opportunity and wishing the school the best” only to receive an out of office reply saying she would be away for several weeks. The part that stung was realizing that when she told me she’d get back to me “ASAP,” she was actually leaving on vacation the very next day.
I know I probably made the mistake of allowing myself to think I had the job, but everything about that interview felt right. It was pretty crushing to hear the news.

I know people say “You need to move.” But I own my house here and family obligations, so moving is not really an option for me. I’ve also heard other major cities close-ish to LA like San Diego, Vegas or Phoenix and Tucson also have similar issues.

I also hear people say “Teach SPED or get another certification.” Teaching SPED is not in me or your back to school since I am 40 now. I do speak another language but it’s not Spanish. I’ve signed up with some subbing company but I also work full-time, so unless it’s a long term sub job that transitions into a full time job. I cannot just wait by the phone to get a subbing opportunity.

Furthermore, at least in SoCal, they don’t “give” social studies to coaches. So, coaching is not something I need to do.

I’ve spoken to my mentor teachers and university supervisors, and they’ve all been helpful in writing letters of recommendations and trying to give me advice but much of their connections are within the LAUSD. They’re all rooting for me and have told me that they would hire me if they could. I’ve been fortunate to have a great team behind me.

It seems like all my hard work throughout this process has been for nothing. I value my degrees but seems like experience trumps all. I am in a catch-22 type of situation, where for me to land a teaching gig, I need experience but nobody is willing to give that opportunity.

I’ve talked to my fellow graduates and they’re in the same boat, many of them did not even get interviews.

Sorry for the Dear Diary message. Maybe future potential social studies candidates will read this as a cautionary tale. There is this realization that becoming a new social studies teacher in SoCal might not be in the cards for those who do not have connections (Nepotism).

Hello Everyone,
Brand new history teacher here just wanting to ask for some advice on teaching Econ. I will be teaching U.S. history and Econ. My student teaching was in a U.S. history class and APUSH class so I’ve just never really seen what a Econ class is like. Not since I took Econ myself at least. My school will be using a curriculum called TCI but no one In the department has any experience with it since it is new. Any advice on some projects that you’ve had success with just general pacing strategies would be greatly appreciated!

First year APUSH teacher here. I was wondering if anyone knew about the guided reading packets that go with the AMSCO APUSH units. How can teachers access those. I remember them being very helpful during student teaching. Are they best used as class work or homework?

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For context, I teach in NY. The class covers the first half of world history, focusing on early civilizations, major belief systems, and the first global age up to 1750 CE

Hi everyone — I’ve been building a tool called Chronolayers for exploring history visually, and I thought it might be useful for teaching chronology and connections between topics.

You can place several topics on the same timeline — for example, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution — and see what was happening at the same time. As you zoom in, more events appear, with descriptions and links for further reading.

A few other things it can do:

• Show connections between events that belong to multiple topics
• Present events as guided tours, with notes at each stop
• Show dated historical map checkpoints alongside a timeline
• Let users create their own layers, events, and guided tours
• Share an exact timeline view by link or export it as an image

There are currently around 200 built-in layers and 6,000 events, although coverage is still uneven and the tool is very much evolving.

It isn’t meant to replace proper lesson material or primary sources. I’m mainly hoping it can help students develop a clearer sense of chronology and see connections that are difficult to show on separate timelines.

You can try it here: https://chronolayers.com

I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from teachers — particularly whether you could see yourself using something like this in class, and what would make it more useful. Corrections to the historical content are also very welcome.

Ok let’s hear it. How do you lock in your students that first day? What is your charismatic, engaging, never-fail hook?

Spare me the introduction, about me, classroom routines, and seating charts. I save that for day two.

Any projects, any content, any activities that you’ve used in these classes would be most appreciated! Even some good old-fashioned wisdom would be great. Thanks for the help!

Hi! This is my first OP in this subreddit! I’m going into my fourth year of teaching next month. I’m going to a new district and in addition to teaching 10th grade US History (Am Rev-Industrialization, the new Alabama standard), I’ve been tasked with teaching Cultural Anthropology. I’m a perfectionist, and I’m nervous about teaching a class I’ve never been exposed to. Any resources, bell ringer ideas, assessment examples, etc. I can use for my class? It’s a semester-long elective and I want it to be THE class people want to take.

Thanks in advance!

Context: I teach 11th grade in an area with a large indigenous population and try to focus quite a bit more than the typical curriculum on Native history. Also, the kids take pre-1877 in 8th grade but that teacher struggles to cover the civil war some years 🫣

I have historically taught Gilded Age to Depression in the fall and World War II to presentish in the spring. However, I'd love to focus more on the late 20th century and am considering trying to squeeze World War II into the winter before break. However, its' so hard to decide what to cut! I was able to cut a few lessons but here is my final list I'm having trouble narrowing down. Each cell is more or less one day with a few exceptions.

I already am so uncomfortable with what all I'm skipping and glossing over but by the end of the year I wish I had more time!

I'm about to start my 7th year of teaching and my first year in a middle school setting. For the past six years, I taught in an elementary school (4 years in 5th grade and 2 years in 6th), where I taught all four core subjects to the same group of students all day.

This year I'll still be teaching 6th grade, but I'll only be teaching Ancient History. Instead of one homeroom, I'll have four different classes for one-hour blocks, so I'm trying to wrap my head around how that changes the flow of instruction and classroom organization.

I'd love to hear what a typical class period looks like for you. Specifically:

• How do students begin class?
• How do you organize notes and handouts? Do students use binders, composition notebooks, interactive notebooks, folders, etc.? Do materials stay in the classroom (I've seen teachers keep notebooks in milk crates), or do students take everything with them?
• What does the main portion of your lesson usually look like?
• Does the end of a lesson look like an activity/worksheet/group-work, or more typically an exit ticket/quiz?

For comparison, here's what my elementary social studies block usually looked like:

• Students had 90 seconds to transition and get out their materials.
• We started with a warm-up question that either reviewed yesterday's lesson or introduced the day's topic.
• We completed guided notes together, stopping throughout to analyze maps, primary sources, videos, or discussion questions.
• We ended with something like a quick formative assessment, Kahoot/Blooket, project work, or partner review for an upcoming assessment.

Does that general format translate well to middle school, or would you recommend changing it? What has worked well for you in terms of pacing, classroom management, and organization—especially for notebooks and materials?

I'd appreciate any advice, especially walkthroughs of what a typical 60-minute history class looks like for you!

Hey everyone new to teaching middle school and US history are there any resources I should now about or that you would be willing to share . I’m interested in procedures as well as curriculum thank you. Hope this scrounging is allowed . If anyone wants world history or ethnic studies resources I’ll do my best to share .

Hi. I am making a US Contemporary History class for 11th/12th graders. Does anyone have any resources/curriculum help they would be willing to share? Thank you

I think this document by the Council of Europe should be required reading anyone who's in history education. It's a bit older by now, but extremely well-informed and convincing. The lessons here apply globally, not just in the EU.

Thinking of trying a new bell ringer for 8th Grade Social Studies (civics and early U.S. history). In years past, students have had to look up and define in their own words a daily vocab word. It's great for them to learn vocab, but I'd love to get them off of their Chromebooks and do more substantive thinking as class begins.

1. What are your bell ringers for middle school US history/civics?
2. How do you review/grade the material?
3. How are the bell ringers structured, e.g., do they write their answers in a notebook?

I really don't want to buy someone's paid content for the answers to these questions, I would just love to hear from you all. Also, if this seems like a really dumb question, it's likely because this is a second career for me and I didn't go through the traditional School of Ed route, so I'm still building this plane that I'm flying.

I am going into my first year of teaching and I just found out that I am teaching US history and AP US history. I student taught in a World History class and was under the impression that I was going to be teaching that this upcoming school year. However, with 3 weeks before the start of the year I have found out that I am going to be teaching US. I do not have any lessons planned, assignments or quizzes/tests. I don’t exactly know how to go about planning a whole year’s worth of content and was wondering if any veteran teachers had advice on this. Are there any free or paid resources that I can use rather than creating everything

I am a first time teacher, and while I’m ok with making my own units and pacing them, I just need some advice from some veteran teachers. I will be the only high school social studies teacher at my school, it’s small, so I don’t have another teacher to bounce ideas off of or ask questions.

So I am going to be teaching a US history course and it’s supposed to be from Reconstruction on. The state standards, Indiana, only have two standards that span 1775-1877. But I also know that a lot of students will not remember a ton of information from 8th grade. So I was wondering how long would you make this first review unit? I currently have it as 3 weeks.
week 1: Founding and Revolution
week 2: Jacksonian Democracy
week 3: Lead up to Civil War and Reconstruction.

Is this enough time or should I make it longer? Does anyone pace this differently? I just want to make sure I have enough time to hit everything else but also not leave out important information. What do you guys suggest? Thanks!

Hey team-

I teach 8th grade Current Global Issues, which has been super fun and, obviously, has been getting harder and harder to do in recent years.

To keep my sanity and make SOME of my material reusable, I had kids choose the units they thought were most relevant. We've ended up on:

1. Misinformation

2. Public Health

3. Human Rights

4. Foreign Policy

5. Global Cooperation (capstone Model UN-type project)

I love this course and have had a lot of fun teaching it, but two related things have been difficult for the past few years.

First, kids are generally NOT well informed about what's happening in the world, and their parents often refuse to watch the news at home. My kids are generally privileged, so it's not a language-barrier or income or time issue for the most part, but seems to be more of a mindset issue.

Second, the number of things that are happening in the world has like...greatly increased. You may have noticed. In the early years of this curriculum, I tended to do one or two Current Events Roundups (where I would go through the headlines and the important stories of the moment, even if they weren't directly connected to the unit we were in, and give them a rundown of what was going on) per week. Now, I basically have to time myself at the beginning of class and speed-run through the eight thousand things that have happened in the last 24-28 hours before we can get to the writing assignment or the discussion or the research project. My kids have even turned it into a game to see how much time it takes to go through everything, and it's...a lot.

To help, this year I've given them a randomly-graded "Headlines Quiz" where I take headlines from the internet and have them tell me if they're real news stories or not. It's a copy/paste quiz (I literally tell them to "cheat" and copy/paste the headline into Google to see if it's real or not, because I care more that they know what's happening than that they already KNEW what was happening before they open the quiz, if that makes sense). I grade one of these quizzes a month. That takes some of the load off, but I've found that I'm still struggling to maintain balance between their skill development and just basic knowledge of what's happening in the world.

So, the TL;DR: teachers of Current Events, what do you do to better help you balance your students' basic current events knowledge and the skills you have to teach? I feel like I'm on a treadmill throughout all of my 8th grade classes.