And that is the thinking that has led to the modern-day student. The idea is that elementary teachers to not need to know the subjects they teach but merely need to be a caretaker until the kids get to a secondary school.
“When subject matter is actually taught”? Are you implying that some suject (like math or science) are not taught in primary grades? Sadly you’re right.
In what school district in the developed world is math not taught in primary grades?
I’m seeing much anecdotal evidence in this thread, and little real evidence. Which is typical of any thread about teaching, actually.
It’s too bad the field needs to be professionalized; I thought it already was one, what with required credentials, degrees, and state board certification. I can’t say that I ever had a teacher in high school who didn’t seem to thoroughly know his or her stuff, but the idea that most teachers, generally, don’t know much is not new at all. I’ve seen Blackboard Jungle numerous times, and never failed to cringe when Glenn Ford says essentially that he wasn’t smart enought to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer so he chose to devote himself to molding the next generation of minds. And I’m not even a teacher. But if I were, I’d be glad to have you entering my profession, based on your posts here, over the years.
What proportion of teachers have only education degrees? I thought the usual route was to get at least a bachelor’s degree in some subject like history or English, and then do some postgraduate work in education to get a certificate, or perhaps a master’s degree. I know that UCLA, for example, does not offer an education major, but can still train you as a teacher in five years or so by having you go through the process I just described.
As a math teacher and a special ed teacher, I’ve had a lot of experience with elementary teachers that do not teach math (or only minimally). The truth is that there is stuff going on in classrooms that administrator don’t (or don’t want to) know about in terms of implementing the curriculum.
As for evidence, I’m actually writing an article tenatively called “Does the State of California Care About Math Education?”. My evidence points to the answer of no. I’ll just give one example. A few years ago, Calif. implemented the RICA (Reading Instruction Competence Assessment) to see if elementary teachers could teach kids how to read. At the same time, the state tried to implement a MICA to see if elementary teachers could teach math. The pilot testing indicated that most elementary teachers would fail the MICA. As a result, Calif. dropped the plan for a MICA requirement for a multiple-subject credential.
I’m not any kind of teacher, nor an engineer, but I have to ask if this attitude might not be justified in many fields. By definition, a professor of engineering (or anything else) works in a different milieu from that of a practitioner in industry. Therefore he/she’d naturally be out of place, at least temporarily, if suddenly thrust into a job outside academia. Or consider this: if you were arrested for murder (unjustly, of course), would you want the dean of Harvard Law defending you, or a top-flight practitioner from your city? I think you’d you’d want the latter, but it certainly doesn’t make the dean inferior intellectually.
I think that just strengthens my point. To be an effective teacher, you only require a competant level of intelligence. It’s much more important to have a desire to teach and the interpersonal skills to deal with children.
Define ‘effective teacher’ and ‘competenet level of intellingence’ and we might get somewhere. Otherwise, you’re making a statement which nobody can argue with, because it’s defined in your own terms.
Funny, when I was in college and grad school I heard a lot of complaining about how the profs knew their subjects, but didn’t know how to teach.
Ever tried learning a tricky subject from someone who intuitively understood the material, but couldn’t get it across to another person? Well that skill is called “teaching”.
I spent some time as a teacher, and I can tell you there have been a lot of misleading generalizations in this thread.
As to the rigorousness of teacher preparation, that varies widely according to state requirements and the training institution. My state requires a bachelor’s, and then a master’s degree after a period of time. During my bachelor’s we took the same science classes as pre-med students, such as anatomy and physiology. To suggest this was not rigorous requires either ignorance or foolishness. For my master’s I wrote a thesis requiring statistical analysis complex enough to require enlisting a mathematician as a consultant.
After I left teaching I was able to utilize my training as a part-time flight instructor. And I can tell you, my ability to teach is my major strength compared to other instructors. I don’t have the 5000+ hours of other pilots, but I turn out better students because of my ability to teach. This has been remarked upon numerous times by my flight students and FAA examiners.
In my teaching career I was certainly frustrated at times with bonehead co-workers. But that’s happened in every career I’ve had. Most teachers of my experience are quite dedicated. However, the job is difficult, and survival does require abandoning some ideals at times.
Let’s not forget, public school educates EVERYBODY who shows up. You try instructing people who don’t want to be taught, and see how far you get. If you have the right training and temperment, you might be able to do it. We call these people “teachers”.
And I would argue that coming up with ways to deal with children requires quite a bit of intelligence: you have to be able to process information in a multitude of ways in order to understand how to convey it in different terms until it sticks.
As far as erudition goes (as opposed to creativity or interpersonal skills) It also matters what you teach: I teach an AP course to some amazingly bright kids. I have to be able to stay one step ahead of them, and, perhaps as importantly, follow them when they get ahead of me (and sometimes they do–it’s what I am working towards, after all). I daresay a great many adults could not pass my class, even if they wanted to.
As far as workload is concerned, I think teaching is just like any other profession. Ambitious people work their butts off their whole careers to get where they want. Teachers can have ambitions: to teach certain courses that they like, to administrate (shudder), to consult, to specialize. To aquire prestige and professional respect. People that want these things work hard for them. Some people don’t, and they take a more relaxed approach. This is the same as any office or other work enviroment.
Funny, when I was in college and grad school I heard a lot of complaining about how the profs knew their subjects, but didn’t know how to teach.
Ever tried learning a tricky subject from someone who intuitively understood the material, but couldn’t get it across to another person? Well that skill is called “teaching”.
I spent some time as a teacher, and I can tell you there have been a lot of misleading generalizations in this thread.
As to the rigorousness of teacher preparation, that varies widely according to state requirements and the training institution. My state requires a bachelor’s, and then a master’s degree after a period of time. During my bachelor’s we took the same science classes as pre-med students, such as anatomy and physiology. To suggest this was not rigorous requires either ignorance or foolishness. For my master’s I wrote a thesis requiring statistical analysis complex enough to require enlisting a mathematician as a consultant.
After I left teaching I was able to utilize my training as a part-time flight instructor. And I can tell you, my ability to teach is my major strength compared to other instructors. I don’t have the 5000+ hours of other pilots, but I turn out better students because of my ability to teach. This has been remarked upon numerous times by my flight students and FAA examiners.
In my teaching career I was certainly frustrated at times with bonehead co-workers. But that’s happened in every career I’ve had. Most teachers of my experience are quite dedicated. However, the job is difficult, and survival does require abandoning some ideals at times.
Let’s not forget, public school educates EVERYBODY who shows up. You try instructing people who don’t want to be taught, and see how far you get. If you have the right training and temperment, you might be able to do it. We call these people “teachers”.
Educational levels and intelligence do not necessarily automatically translate into being a superior teacher. Most of my fellow teachers where I work have Masters degrees, but if they can’t or won’t relate to the students in a way that connects the material to their lives, all that knowledge does them no good. Also, a lack of enthusiasm for the job on the part of the teacher can kill whatever motivation a student might bring to the class. Our school has a teacher who has earned a doctorate in English, but his World Lit. classes are incredibly boring. Having said that, I love being in a profession where I can consult an expert on just about any field (Renaissance art, biology, grammar, etc.) if there is something I need to know.
I teach English (as a language, not as a literature). I know quite a bit about the Grammar, the History and the function of language. Still I make spelling mistakes and sometimes find myself caught out by a student.
(Most recently by a student who asked me which part of speech “yes” was.)
So any average bear can think himself smarter than me if he were to observe a couple of months of my class. This is human nature.
Still, few people can do a good solid forty-five minutes on the Passive Voice, or stand up and present an explanation of Object and Subject Pronouns with no preparation. (Hint: Use the Chicken Method.)
Teaching is a skill quite separate from being a subject matter expert. Lots of people know more about the language than I do, few can communicate it to students as well as I can.
This is a variation of the original quote:
He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
–G.B. Shaw, “Maxims for Revolutionists” in the play
Man and Superman (1903)
I don’t know what “Anti-teacher” means in the abstract, but there are many who have a problem with the teachers’ unions, which do not always have the best interests of the students at heart.
Granted, they aren’t really supposed to; unions exist solely to benefit their members. But if you come to the conclusion that large-scale school reform is necessary or that a certain percentage of teachers are incompetent, and you find “teachers” (in the form of their unions) fighting any changes to the status quo, you start to conclude that they’re part of the problem.
And lest I be misunderstood: I am a teacher.
I think it’s essentially a vicious cycle. As mentioned by another poster, modern education, with its overstuffed classrooms, is a hell of a lot more about crowd control than pedagogy. So you end up with overstressed teachers and students who get a negative educational experience.
The negative students then grow up to elect leaders and vote on ballot propositions that decide how much of a limited supply of resources go to education. WHAT?!? Give those bastards who made my childhood miserable more dough?!?
So they show their hate of their experiences (if not education itself) in their decisions, ensuring that another generation has a negative experience.
I work in industry, but I also work well with a lot of professors (of engineering.) Most of them would kill to get closer to practical stuff, but for some reason companies don’t release their latest designs to them. They can’t use CAD tools as well as expert users, but people in industry often have a myopic view of the field, know (very well) just what they need to know, and don’t see what is coming. Anyhow, remember senior professors are more like managers than worker bees, supervising their grad students doing the real work. How many managers are truly experts and up to speed with the latest advances?
Rote memorization will never let you know enough stuff to get on. It really rewards wide but shallow reading and TV watching, and a good memory.
I do think this is some of it - this and anti-tax mania which has cut school funding, at least here in California. They eliminate a period from the day, then yell that the kids are not learning enough.
When I was in school the teachers were of my parents generation, who grew up in an environment where teaching was one of the few safe jobs in the Depression. In that tradition, it got the very best. My view might be skewed, since I was lucky to be in the honors classes at one of the best high schools in New York, but all the teachers I knew were either bright or very bright.
Those insulting the profession for years should not be surprised when it starts meeting their expectations.
Might be why I did reasonably well on the show then.