Can you actually be too short to be a high school teacher?

I'm not a teacher, but I was six foot two in high school. My German teacher may have had ten pounds on you, and she's easily on my top five all-time K-12 teacher list. She ruled the roost, graded strictly and we all loved her. My physics teacher was a man my size, but the class just walked all over him. It's all in the bearing.

I used to be a high school teacher at a pretty rough school, and while I'm not slender, I am 5'3" and frequently got mistaken as a student in the hallways at first glance. When walking my kids out for fire drills and the like, they'd constantly say things along the lines of, "I thought you were taller!" I have told 6'3" 300 lb boys to sit down, shut up, and stop screwing around, and they have obeyed quickly and with alacrity. This is totally realistic, and you can do it!!! The trick for this (and really, 60% of classroom management) and for job interviews? Self-confidence. Stand, sit and walk with good posture and your head up--this makes you look more authoritative. Project calm, sound decisive and sure of yourself, and be even-handed about everything. Dress up (Seriously. Whether they'll admit or not, most people DO judge people by how they dress, so suit up or at least do a blouse/blazer with nice shoes. You can make yourself look like authority pretty easily and cheaply via Ross or Marshalls). With kids be firm but fair and consistent, make your class interesting, show you care about them without trying to be one of their friends, and you'll have it made. It won't be easy, but you'll have student teaching to practice these things, and never before has "Fake it til you make it" been more true. It took me student teaching & then two classes of crazy kids in summer school to finally nail this down, but if I can do it, you certainly can! Good luck!

What everyone else has said, plus Whoever interviewed me would surely laugh or joke about my size; There is no "surely" here, and that you say this indicates that it's an area you need to work on, in terms of confidence (and projecting it). If, however, an interviewer were actually to say this to your face, this is good news: it means you should not work there, because you'd be working for an unprofessional jerk, and you get to find this out before they offer you the job!

Thank you all for your job advice, stories, inspiration, and encouragement. I almost want to mark every single one of your comments as a best answer. You've convinced me!

Whoever interviewed me would surely laugh or joke about my size; he or she would never consider me a serious candidate. Furthermore, I'm afraid of getting this same incredulous reaction when I stand in front of a classroom for the first time. How would my students feel to have a teacher who is tinier than even the smallest one of them? Would they ever be able to trust and respect me, when I look and sound like a twelve-year-old? How could I put up with the inevitable laughing, teasing, and dismissal? How could I be taken seriously? You are certainly not too short or slight to be taken seriously as a teacher. But your attitude sounds so incredibly self-defeating. It is indeed going to be difficult for you to be taken seriously if you insist on valuing the uninformed opinions and superficial reactions of others as more credible than your own experience, emotional maturity, and knowledge. I'd advise you to stop thinking of yourself as looking like a child. If you've spent any time with twelve-year-olds, you must have noticed that there are obvious physical differences between barely-adolescent girls and women in their twenties. People are terrible at judging age even when they're not delivering a little jibe to cover their own insecurities. (Complete with that condescending little chuckle about it being such a compliment to be mistaken for younger, right?! Ugh.) It will behoove you to be more meticulous about your professional appearance and demeanor than others your age, sure. And you can get a head start by taking some classes in public speaking and taking on leadership roles wherever possible -- practice getting comfortable projecting your authority.

All high school students come pre-equipped with a full decade of intense Pavlovian conditioning that runs like a powerful current through their heads and can be tapped into if you can project the right stimuli. Your ability to tap into that flow will matter much more than your percieved age much less size.

Building on Blasdelb.. I only talked about the interview process because getting your foot in the door is the bigger deal. The kids really are programmed to respect the teacher. The only reason you wouldn't get respect in the classroom is if you were a teacher w/ poor classroom management skills - not because you were a short teacher. Good interactions with parents/guardians will help you there, too. And I forgot.. have a quip ready for parents and co-workers. "Wow you look young!" say something like "I really should lay off the Oil of Olay at night.." or "I can't wait for my first wrinkle!" When the kids say something, say "I look this young so that I can spy on you all that much easier - you'll never notice me! "

Also, read the later Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables books - both Laura and Anne become schoolteachers at, like 16 years of age - that was the done thing, back then. And in both situations, it's a rural community with no stark separations by grade level. Which means you had these teenage girls often teaching students who were not only bigger than them, but older, too. That'll definitely put being a 22 year old high school French teacher in perspective.

If you have the opportunity to do a summer study program in France, just that can be something that will add a lot to your confidence. If you're going to be teaching French, being perceived as really knowledgeable will work in your favor as will the student teaching, your education courses and the opportunities you seek out to present yourself as a leader while you are in college. Even presenting in class or volunteering to lead some project can help you develop confidence. The reason you don't know how completely insignificant your physical size is in the way you are perceived is because you do not have experience as an adult. All your peers are asking this same kind of question about how others are going to perceive them except they have in their minds whatever flaw they imagine is going to make people reject them as not really adult or professional. They're asking, "Am I too tall, too fat, too ugly, too shy, too country . . ." The only way out of this is just to forget about how you imagine you look to others and focus on what you can prove to yourself that you can do and learn to do. Take these chances to stretch your powers now while you are in the relatively safe college environment. That's what college is for. Good luck. I hope you make the most legendary, elegant, effective and beloved high school French teacher your selected school has ever seen. Your students will tell stories about how awesome you were and you already know the punchline they'll always end that story with! You're the story, not the punchline, and right now you're just looking at your story backwards.