I’ll finish my M.Ed. this summer (or in the fall if I get lazy). So far, I’ve enjoyed almost all of the classes. Sure, some of the profs lean, politically, in different directions than I do, but they have all been very intelligent and fun to debate with. All of them were, or still are, high level district administrators who only recently began teaching at the college, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Linty, consider the value of the M.Ed. as a credential separately from its value in actually teaching useful skills. If your application is going to get thrown out without it, it doesn’t really matter if you learn anything at all. My impression of education degrees is that educators (like most fields) are very into driving demand for their own products.
You know, skylyn, this is a pretty good point. With regards to the professor I mentioned in the OP, I’ll say that at the time I started this thread, we were in the middle of a fairly serious debate on the benefits of Marxism vs. capitalism on the Internet. We didn’t resolve much of anything, but he did end his part saying that he was happy I was so passionate and interested in the topic and recommended a couple of books to read. Whatever his viewpoints, he argued them well, and he was courteous about it; I seriously doubt my grade will suffer in any way for expressing my beliefs. So I’m in a better mood than I was when I wrote the first post.
I guess after what I’ve studied in life, the course materials for the masters–while not what I would call useless–just aren’t as vibrant and engaging in comparison. I just need a bit more motivation than usual to crack down on the readings and such, and that’s affecting my mood. I see my language and math texts gathering dust on the bookshelf while I’m reading the latest boring article on cultural hemogeny, and next thing I know, I’m starting threads like this and receiving warnings by mods for getting into pissing contests with other Dopers outside of the Pit. I just have to chill out and keep my eyes on the prize this one last time.
And this is what it ultimately comes down to, isn’t it? In the end, I have to be practical. I’ll confess that in the back of my mind I realized that whatever I would have read in this thread, I most likely would have stayed with the program until the bitter end, if for no other reason than many, if not most, employers expect it, and also because I’d already started it. I tend toward finishing programs I start, better judgement be damned. I don’t mean to say that I’m not paying attention to what you’re all writing. I’m seeing a lot of good insights into the whole process, and I’d very much welcome any more, but one way or another, however long it takes, I’m going to walk away from this with my second masters if it kills me.
Education is the biggest joke of all disciplines at the college level, which is really saying something. I clenched my teeth together and put up with the exact nonsense you describe when I was getting my undergrad degree in History/Education. The idiocy that I learned in those classes had zero relevance to anything that goes on in the real world. Every now and then I get a letter from my alma matter asking me to evaluate the education program and I just destroy them. (Shockingly, I am no longer a teacher.)
Heh. Reading this and other posts, I get the feeling that studying for the masters in education is quite a bit like going to high school. It’s twenty parts shit to one part good, and a royal pain in the ass to go through, but at the end of the whole thing, you’ll be better off for having gone through the bullshit and graduated than you would be otherwise.
Would you all say that’s a fair summary? I’m not particularly overjoyed now, but it’s still better than high school ever was, and I’m glad I got through high school. That’s my next question: In the end, is it worth putting up with the bullshit and tuition bills or am I fooling myself?
This has been an interesting thread to read. All of my grad degrees are in education, including an M.Ed. I do think the quality of programs differs significantly. I earned mine at Harvard in what was then called an “individualized” program, and it was pretty amazing to study under profs like Eleanor Duckworth, who was Piaget’s student and translator. (In fairness, I had far more contact with her as a doctoral student - the critique of the program for me is that it was too short.)
I think an M.Ed. program should move beyond inservice-type learning - that is, it’s an opportunity to really unpack educational theory. Most traditional education teachers I know have very little understanding of constructivism, or the influence of Dewey on US education… and the development of the teaching profession in the US, for instance. A good M.Ed. experience would orient one to these concepts and many more.
I now teach in a educational administration program, though to be fair my only M.Ed. students are focusing on higher education. I do sometimes wonder what students expect from a masters program - it’s grad school, and sometimes people seem to want a simple credentialing process. (I’m talking about folks I’ve talked to who are enrolled in M.Ed. or M.A. in education programs across the nation, not my program particularly.)
It is hard to find the proximal zone of development for the class as a professor - because some students want more theory than practice, and vice-versa. I think there’s something of a false dichotomy, and in my courses I expect students to be well-versed in the readings but also bring significant perspectives and questions to the seminar. The reality is that a good program is as much about your peers as it is the professor. I’ve been known to give tongue lashing in courses when students are not coming to the course to engage with the material and each other.
The problem is that so many districts like their teachers to have a master’s degree, any master’s degree so that they can say “X% of our teachers hold advanced degrees”. To get this, there is a significant pay bump, creating a large number of people that want a master’s degree and are willing to pay for one (or even have a district willing to pay) but don’t really want a rigorous program. So all these programs spring up, and many are pretty negligible.
You’ve nailed it. It’s not like the field doesn’t already have perception issues about rigor, etc. (much due to sexism and the feminization of the profession). Here in Texas we’ve had many situations in which a superintendent, or even a deputy, gets a Ph.D. from a diploma mill for the pay boost. And there are so many instances of alleged plagiarism with Ph.D./Ed.D.'s in education in college presidencies - I can think of two right now, one at UT Brownsville and the other at Jacksonville State in Alabama - that the value of the degree is taking a considerable hit.
I really wish that an administrative credential - not a masters or doctorate - would be created for folks wanting to advance themselves in practice. Reserve the M.Ed. and doctoral degree for people who want to truly immerse themselves in the world of theory and research. Earning a terminal doctoral degree means conducting original research and writing it up in a dissertation; and one should be comparable to terminal work in any other discipline.
I’m probably a little harsher than most as I have an extremely low opinion of the professionalism/competency of the educational establishment, but at least in general theory or methods classes I learned nothing at all. Typical classes consisted of things like: Spending hours practicing how to write a correct lesson goal - "Students will demonstrate knowledge of so and so by…, learning wacky instructional techniques that clearly would never work in real life, using those wacky techniques to plan interdisciplinary lessons between subject that would never collaborate in real life. If you take a discipline specific methods class (secondary level history in my case), then things become much more practical and you actually learn useful things.
But as far as being better off going through it, no, if your state has an alternate route to certification program, do that. You spend a lot less time on the nonsense and gain practical experience that is actually valuable. Then, you can wait until you have a job and find some accelerated masters program that is designed for working teachers.
For what its worth, my school’s program was NCATE certified and I still found it a bunch of useless nonsense.
At my school we had to take an educational foundations class the covered the development of education in the U.S. and the different theories like progressive education. It was nice to learn that and all, but the problem is that it generally has little to do with actual teaching skills and much more to do with setting educational policy, something that obviously takes place at a level much higher than your average teacher has anything to do with.
Obviously some level of theory is necessary, but at least in my experience the theory was so disconnected from reality as to be meaningless.
Putting up with bullshit is good practice for what is to come. As much as I loved teaching, it was in spite of the nonsense that was constantly distracting me and interrupting my classes.