Are you one of those people who has always had a knack for kids? Everything from babysitting in your teens to doing silly faces, you only live for moments in which a kid smiles or learns new skills. You may have begun to consider taking a career path that lets you work with children.
A career in education can make a positive difference in other people's lives. Most individuals spend many years of their lives in school. Teachers truly shape future generations. This is especially true for early childhood education instructor. They teach more than just the traditional topics, and they should be qualified to be able to combine all fields including, but not limited to, mathematics, physics, and social sciences.
Aside from teaching curricular and non-curricular subjects, early childhood education instructors also create and enforce children's schedules and routines. They may have to use their leadership skills to inspire and empower students in the right way. They should also have the wisdom and the ability to address issues in the class like disagreements between children or challenging questions asked by students.
Early Childhood Education Instructor Overview
Working as an Early Childhood Education Instructor
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an early childhood education instructor. For example, did you know that they make an average of $17.43 an hour? That's $36,263 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -10% and produce -7,000 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does an Early Childhood Education Instructor Do
There are certain skills that many early childhood education instructors have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed cultural sensitivity, communication skills and patience.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be an early childhood education instructor, we found that a lot of resumes listed 19.2% of early childhood education instructors included special education, while 12.5% of resumes included child care, and 9.8% of resumes included childhood. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the early childhood education instructor job title. But what industry to start with? Most early childhood education instructors actually find jobs in the education and non profits industries.
How To Become an Early Childhood Education Instructor
If you're interested in becoming an early childhood education instructor, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 42.3% of early childhood education instructors have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 33.7% of early childhood education instructors have master's degrees. Even though most early childhood education instructors have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an early childhood education instructor. When we researched the most common majors for an early childhood education instructor, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on early childhood education instructor resumes include associate degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become an early childhood education instructor. In fact, many early childhood education instructor jobs require experience in a role such as teacher. Meanwhile, many early childhood education instructors also have previous career experience in roles such as director or substitute teacher.
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Early Childhood Education Instructor Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of lead teacher you might progress to a role such as assistant director eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title center director.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for an Early Childhood Education Instructor
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Sc Department of Public Safety Early Childhood Education Adjunct Instructor (Adjt21) Early Childhood Education Adjunct Instructor (Adjt21) | Sc Department of Public Safety Sc Department of Public Safety | 01/19/2021 01/19/2021 | $62,61001/19/2021 $62,610 |
Dcsdk12 Early Childhood Instructor Early Childhood Instructor | Dcsdk12 Dcsdk12 | 12/23/2020 12/23/2020 | $36,23012/23/2020 $36,230 |
Cincinnati State Instructor-Early Childhood Education (Tenure Track) Instructor-Early Childhood Education (Tenure Track) | Cincinnati State Cincinnati State | 11/05/2020 11/05/2020 | $63,70311/05/2020 $63,703 |
Shalom Austin Early Childhood Infant/Toddler Educator Early Childhood Infant/Toddler Educator | Shalom Austin Shalom Austin | 09/11/2020 09/11/2020 | $25,04409/11/2020 $25,044 |
Dcsdk12 Early Childhood Instructor Early Childhood Instructor | Dcsdk12 Dcsdk12 | 08/26/2020 08/26/2020 | $36,23008/26/2020 $36,230 |
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Top Colleges for Early Childhood Education Instructors
1. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
2. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC • Public
3. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
4. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
5. Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD • Private
6. University of Washington
Seattle, WA • Public
7. New York University
New York, NY • Private
8. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Public
9. California State University - Long Beach
Long Beach, CA • Public
10. SUNY at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY • Public
Top Skills For an Early Childhood Education Instructor
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 19.2% of early childhood education instructors listed special education on their resume, but soft skills such as cultural sensitivity and communication skills are important as well.
- Special Education, 19.2%
- Child Care, 12.5%
- Childhood, 9.8%
- Student Learning, 7.8%
- Infant, 7.1%
- Other Skills, 43.6% See All Early Childhood Education Instructor Skills
Best States For an Early Childhood Education Instructor
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an early childhood education instructor. The best states for people in this position are New York, California, Massachusetts, and Delaware. Early childhood education instructors make the most in New York with an average salary of $49,186. Whereas in California and Massachusetts, they would average $46,617 and $46,280, respectively. While early childhood education instructors would only make an average of $45,597 in Delaware, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. California
$46,618
Avg. Salary
2. Kansas
$44,492
Avg. Salary
3. New York
$49,187
Avg. Salary
How Do Early Childhood Education Instructor Rate Their Jobs?
4.0
4.0
Lead teacher • January +0000