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Thursday, June 20. 2013

Report Sharply Rebukes Universities Nationwide For Shoddy Teacher Prep


I am not sure why schools of education exist. It seems like an odd concept to me. It would seem to me that an apprenticeship system would work better for the lower grades.


The best private schools do not demand teaching credentials, and do not want to hire education majors. Likewise, college faculties do not need to be taught how to teach.


For what it's worth, Report Sharply Rebukes Universities Nationwide For Shoddy Teacher Prep


Posted by The Barrister in Education, Our Essays at 13:16 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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Why do schools of education exist? Because college undergrads on the bottom of the bell curve need to have another option besides law school! [/rimshot]
#1 Agent Cooper on 2013-06-20 14:30 (Reply)
Why do schools of education exist? Because flipping burgers or driving a taxi requires more smarts? [/rimshot]
#2 Agent Cooper on 2013-06-20 14:35 (Reply)
Why do schools of education exist? Can you think of a better way for someone to get back at the public education system? [/rimshot]
#3 Agent Cooper on 2013-06-20 14:39 (Reply)
The best private schools do not demand teaching credentials, and do not want to hire education majors. Likewise, college faculties do not need to be taught how to teach.

And they can select out the less competent, through admissions and by flunking out. These options are not readily available to public primary and secondary schools. It is also a hell of a lot easier to teach bright, motivated kids at a place like Sidwell Friends or the Dalton School than to try teaching in the DC or NYC public schools. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself.

As a former teacher, I see a need for pedagogy. It is not intuitively obvious how to best present a given subject to a given student population. As there has been formal classroom instruction for over 2,000 years, there is a lot of information out there on what works and what doesn't work in classroom instruction.

Unfortunately, the Ed Schools are more concerned with producing the next big theory of education that will explain everything or with proselytizing the latest politically correct education fad, than in instructing prospective teachers in what works and what doesn't work in classroom instruction.

But Ed schools have always been disasters. All of my older relatives with degrees taught school at one time or another, and all considered Ed schools to be a disaster.

I would go with some sort of apprenticeship program with a greatly pruned down Ed school.

Regarding dumb/smart education majors, I would point out that people with much lower test scores than mine were more successful teachers than I was. Being bright will NOT guarantee that you will be a good teacher, nor will being not so bright guarantee that you will not be a good teacher. A good teacher needs to be persuader, a salesman. Persuading and selling did not come easily to me.
#4 Gringo on 2013-06-20 16:42 (Reply)
What about a 4-year education in something like English, math, sciences, and then the last year of your degree program, you take a 'teaching certification' class that gives you the basics in classroom management, lesson planning, etc.? That would make the most sense to me. Even for the elementary grades, a teacher should have a specialization in something. Kindergarten teacher and possibly even 1st and 2nd grade would just need a 2-year degree from a community college that gives you the basics in managing a classroom with small children and instruction in basic math and basic language teaching.
#5 MissT on 2013-06-20 17:07 (Reply)
How dare you propose something rational.
#5.1 Dorf on 2013-06-20 20:16 (Reply)
I so agree. More than a few of those who teach teachers how to teach have never taught a K-12 public school class. And I would guess that virtually all of the teachers I respected when I taught (mid '60s thru '90's) understood what a waste of time "teacher education" was no later than the second day of their career.
#6 Watts Gary on 2013-06-20 21:58 (Reply)
My brother was an english and history major and used to teach. He joked, those who can do, those who can't teach and those who can't teach, teach teachers. He didn't have much respect for the education majors. When I was in college the education majors were famous (infamous?) for being the dumbest kids on campus. We used to make jokes about somebody being a space cadet or in the space program because they were in college just taking up space. Those people used to be tossed out in a year or two but today they seem to graduate. Everybody gets a college degree.
#7 Ray on 2013-06-21 16:14 (Reply)
It doesn't take a college graduate of anything to teach a child colors, or counting, or the alphabet or reading *or any other subject*.

We homeschool our 4 children and all 4 learned to read out of the Bible and were fluent readers by 4-1/2" years old (and needless to say learned colors and numbers and other things along the way) from someone without a college degree (me).
Sure you want to read up on a subject to teach it, but no degree needed.

If you don't know what approach to use for a subject, say reading for example, go to a local homeschool group and ask them what they do.

Now, years later, 3 of the 4 have taken national tests:
a perfect 1600 on the SAT,
a 1570 on the SAT,
and a 35 on the ACT--all without a credentialed, certified, college-graduated teacher.

I'm not blowing my own horn here, I'm trying to underscore that a college degree in teaching is not a needed thing for education to happen.
#8 Steve on 2013-06-22 09:27 (Reply)
I'm not blowing my own horn here, I'm trying to underscore that a college degree in teaching is not a needed thing for education to happen.

Agreed, but what works with 1-on-1 instruction for bright kids will not necessarily work with a classroom of 30 in DC. These are populations with different motivations, capabilities, and classroom management issues. I for one am much better at 1-1 instruction than I am with teaching a big class.
#8.1 Gringo on 2013-06-22 15:16 (Reply)

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