Two persistent problems beset American schools.
First, teachers must leave the classroom and become administrators or counselors to earn above the standard teacher salary.
Second, colleges of education can’t prepare new teachers nearly as well as an apprenticeship under a veteran teacher who has consistently demonstrated mastery of the craft. Thankfully, K-12 education can rework how it prepares new teachers and rewards quality veteran educators to solve both problems simultaneously.
One of the big problems with current teacher education is the notion that the teacher needs to major in education, rather than in the subject(s) they will teach. The standard now is that the teacher doesn't need to know the subject, but rather how to teach the subject. With a "proper lesson plan" tghey can supposedly teach something about which they know virtually nothing.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago, I taught a graduate level class for the School of Education, "Methods and Materials for Social Science Instruction." One of the chief complaints I got from my students (these were grad students working on Master's Degrees, mind you) is that I was spending too much time teaching history and not enough time handing out pre-made lesson plans for the various historical events we were covering.
In my book, the teacher should be an academic major first, teacher education minor second. If you are going to teach 8th grade Social Studies, you need to be a History or Political Science major. If you are going to teach 10th grade science, you need to be a Chemistry, Physics, or Biology major.
Couldn’t agree more! I’ve been a H.S. And College Science teacher / Professor for 35+ years and prepared myself for my profession by getting my B.S. and M.S. in Botany. I did take 30 credits of ‘Education’ courses which were largely a waste of time. I would suggest that H.S. Science teachers have at least a masters in their field so that they have some research experience and learn how science really is accomplished. Oh, I did have 15 years research experience as well which has truly helped me with my presentations. Here in Oregon, however, there is such a severe shortage of science teachers my district has had to hire and English teacher to teach Biology & Physical Science. Bless his heart, he tried… and this year the district has hired a Political Science major to teach Biology and Anatomy / Phyisology…. Not what you’d call the best situation… They have me teaching the upper level courses so I can’t take on any of the basic courses. Little wonder Oregon ranks 36 in the nation in science education.
DeleteTeaching was a second career for me, and I recently retired after 25 years as a Physics teacher.
ReplyDeleteI've talked to hundreds of teachers. A nearly infallible method to get the measure of a teacher, is to ask if the Education classes they took in college, were helpful. It's a friendly, general question, that a new acquaintance is happy to talk about. Good teachers will say that there Ed classes were a waste of time.
Ed classes are easy and irrelevant. A good high school teacher is smart and wants to share that knowledge with students. Effective teaching techniques are what the good teacher wants to learn.
Most good teachers will say that all their useful training, occurred while student-teaching.
A teacher apprenticeship would be great, but I have no confidence that the education establishment would implement an effective system. It's not clear that administrators can, or want to, identify a good veteran teacher. It's not clear that good teaching students could be matched with the veteran teacher.
A system that could work, is to have the veteran teacher choose the padawan. The deal would be that the veteran teacher shares part of his salary with the padawan and expects the padawan to be a useful asset. Getting the establishment to surrender control and lose the ability to extract tuition, is the challenge.
The education majors are the ones that can't do STEM degrees and also are predominately female looking for a husband as much as a degree. But if you can do STEM you are not qualified to teach it without an additional degree in education. So an engineer needs to pay a school for 2 years of worthless education classes to teach math in a lower paying job. Instead we get women that can't do basic arithmetic to teach it.
ReplyDeleteThis right here would solve SO many of the current problems in this country.
ReplyDeleteThose that can do
ReplyDeleteThose that can't teach
JD
And those who can't teach, manage
DeleteAnd those that can't do either teach gym.
DeleteJpaul
I see others are getting it
DeleteJD
Better be a little more certain about the teachers you're using to train the apprentices, first.
ReplyDeleteI toyed with the idea of teaching when I got out of the Army. BS degree, Officers Basic & Advance courses, CAS3, etc etc etc.
ReplyDeleteI called a local university to inquire about a teaching certificate. The witch on the phone told me everything I had was useless and I needed to start a new 4 year degree program with them.
Phuq you very much and I hung up.
There are a ton of highly educated, subject matter experts who don't hold the certification, but would be more than capable educators.
100% agreement here. Veteran teachers who are retired have TONS of good advice for brand new teachers.
ReplyDeleteMy wife retired from teaching after 36 years. My daughter who graduated with other college degree is having a difficult time finding a job in her field, and decided to accept a substitute teaching job. 1st day of school last week - daughter was nearly in tears with frustration. Had no idea corrralling 20 + kids was so hard. After asking what happened, my wife gave good advice for her next teaching assignment.
NIght and day. Daughter had some shortcuts on how to keep the kids on task. How to recognize the troublemaker(s) and separate them away from their friends causing in class distractions. Daughter was much happier after that and wife continued teaching her how to keep a class engaged.
New teachers and substitutes should have an additional 'tutoring hour spent with veterans on how to deal with their classrooms. A couple of weeks is all it takes, doesn't have to be a full year of instructions.
The easiest degree to get is a social worker degree. The second is an education degree. Both don't require any medium hard to hard science or math. Let alone knowledge of proper grammar and composition.
ReplyDeleteMany moons ago, we had a friend who was a teacher, retired in 1960s with the removal of Prayer in school. she taught for over 40 years. Her education was a 2 year degree and 2 years teaching in a Normal School. Apprenticeship in the worst school in the state.
ReplyDeleteMany people have friends that are, or were teachers. Your point was?
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