Then you are having a dishonest debate, as that statement has been proven wrong. Oddly enough, by people who seem to somehow know how to make an argument better than you do.
For goodness sakes, no teacher needs a masters in anything to teach.
For secondary school, you need a bachelors that gets you subject matter knowledge, and a teachers certificate, which can be done concurrent to your degree, as a standalone program after, or through one of many alternative certificates programs. The main component of a teachers certificate is time spend in the classroom under observation, which I hope we can agree is a smart step before throwing new teachers in the classroom.
Elementary school teachers get education degrees, because most people have their A, B, Cs down pretty well, but building a curriculum, teaching a youngster and running a classroom actually is a pretty specialized skill.
On many cases, getting a masters will give you a pay bump, but its never needed. Most people I know with Ed masters (and its a lot) either plan to go into administration, or added masters coursework to their teaching certificate course.
What is the “real” grade?
Oddly, according to that online meme I mentioned earlier, they do in Finland (allowing for the differing systems, of course). This is presented as an advantage of their system over ours. So is this a disingenuous comparison?
I just don’t think it’s been shown to matter. One would think it would, along with plenty of other factors, but it’s hard to test and get good results.
it has? Really? Someone who doesn’t understand a subject does a better job teaching it than someone who understands it?
>>CPR doesn’t work too often in many cases, you likely need to be certified regularly, and have the temperament to not choke under pressure. It’s certainly not something that needs to be taught to everyone at the expense of educational time.<<
So saving lives isn’t worthy of “educational time” but learning tree trivia is!?!
>>Additionally (and maybe most importantly), your daughter needs to memorize these things because the person in charge told her to<<
Then why not just use a taser to force kids to remember Jeopardy trivia in the one in a million chance that they wind up on Jeopardy? That would certainly be faster, quicker, cheaper, more effective. But that isn’t really the issue; it’s more about, IMHO, preserving and increasing teacher salaries and benefits regardless of performance (getting back to the respect thing). But I do see your point re “because the person in charge told her to.”
She isn’t a she, she isn’t my child (I’m just trying to help) but when I tell him to fasten his seatbelt, that would be awfully nice if teachers could help me out but they aren’t; they are too busy teaching the most popular tree in a state on the other side of the friggin country rather than teaching the importance of fastening a friggin seat belt.
And regarding how many times I’ve visited a teacher-student-conference…I don’t need to attend an engineering conference so engineers can do their jobs, ditto accounting professionals, and on and on.
Um. That article is about the pay bump that teachers who get a Masters typically receive, not about any requirement to have an advanced degree.
Furthermore, it says nothing about any kind of requirement for a Masters in Education. I assume you are okay with math teacher’s getting advanced degrees in math, right? Teachers getting Masters often go with the Masters of Education because it can open administrative jobs and may be rolled into the process of getting their credentials. But someone who gets their Masters in particle physics gets the same pay bump.
Ack! Please excuse the typos. Early AM posting is not my strong point.
Actually, it is true that someone who is an excellent teacher but not a subject matter expert can do a much better job teaching than someone who is a subject matter expert but a lackluster teacher, especially on the introductory level (just ask any undergrad at a research focused university.)
For example, lets say you’d like to learn German, which I don’t speak. The first thing I’ll do is work you your goals, If you are preparing for a trip, I’ll focus on quick and dirty conversation. If you are learning to improve your understanding of language, I’ll do more work with grammar and structure. Then I’ll set up some lessons. Humans can absorb around 10 new words or phrases into their memory a day, so most of my lessons will work you through about ten new words and one or two new grammar concepts, all built around a theme designed to help you gain a specific competency (introducing yourself, ordering at a restaurant, describing your vacation, etc.). I’ll use an incremental system for getting these things in your short term memory- first exposing you to a new word or concept, having you mimic it in a fairly formulaic way, and finally cementing it in your memory by having you use it in novel ways. In later lessons, I’ll systematically revisit previous concepts, ensuring that they are really cemented in there. I’ll keep the grammar light at the beginning, allowing you to absorb some of the structure for conversation. Then, when you have enough basic vocab to make the practice sentences meaningful, I’ll work on grammar. While I won’t be much help with your accent, I do know a plethora of online resources for language learners, and can set up a language exchange with a native speaker for you. Before these sessions, I’ll set you up with an individual plan to help you get the most out of them, and debrief with you to go over new concepts and any questions or difficulties.
A poor teacher, which many laymen are, will not do this. I’ve gone through a lot of bad language tutors, all native speakers, in my time. The first they do is point to about thirty random unconnected items and say the words, with you parroting him. Eventually, if he does this enough, you’ll be able to say the right word when he points, but this won’t be put in long term memory and it will all be forgotten next session. Then he’ll get frustrated that you can say anything, and launch into a detailed English-language explanation of a grammar concept, which will likely go over your head because you don’t have enough vocab to practice it with or enough structural background to tie in to the language as a whole. You’ll spend half the session speaking English, and come out unable to actually do anything new. When you get to your next session, any vocab you’ve learned is long gone. You might remember the grammar, but only enough to be able to do drills, not enough to use it to communicate.
Of course there are always exceptions. A teacher with limited German isn’t going to be able to help you understand obscure German literary allusions or explain the subtle variations of regional dialects. But if you want to learn the things you would learn in a primary and secondary classroom, and you have to choose, the good teacher is almost always the best bet.
My point was that you will not likely save any more lives. In fact, you might even cause more harm by making everyone think they can correctly perform CPR under pressure. Besides, there are likely already enough people who know CPR, or at least, not too few that we need to make it compulsory.
Either way, what your son was learning is not just “tree trivia” absent any context. It’s likely part of a broader lesson about nature that will have several benefits beyond knowing the fact itself. Also, it’s likely in line with nearly everything else we teach kids. Do you really need to know all the noble gases? Is that just “chem trivia”? Do we need to know how to factor, or who the president of x country is? Why or why not? Also, who do you think is in a better position to answer that question, you or multiple educational professionals?
**Plus, please learn how to use the quote function. It’s not that hard.
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Or maybe we can force them to come up with really stupid analogies under threat of torture? Re-read what I said. I doubt the teacher really thinks knowing those 3 trees is for vital importance. What is important is that students can complete a task given. Your son was given a task; he failed to do it. That is not the teacher’s fault because the task was not unreasonable by any stretch.
Then why are you making absurd analogies and excuses for your kid?
Sorry about the mis-identification. I’d imagine many schools do go over those types of things, but the question is, why you think they should? Why do you think they should primarily work to make your life easier?
Are you 100% sure they did not actually teach that? But again, at what point can schools count on the parents to teach life skills? Do they need to teach your kid how to wipe their ass and how to use chopsticks? What about how to swim, or be a good spouse? How much of the burden of raising, socializing and educationg a kid do they need to take?
I would think your kid’s education is more important to you than what some engineer does. More importantly, education is a collaborative and cooperative process, civil engineering is usually not. Even so, I do expect people who have complaints about roads or anything else to get involved if it is really important to them.
It does say “the Maryland State Board of Education . . . effectively requires a teacher to earn a master’s degree to maintain his or her teaching license”.
As mentioned above, it does state it’s a requirement. If I remember correctly, there was an SDMB thread on the topic years ago.
And education classes in California are at a master’s level although completing the master’s degree (usually 2-3 more classes) is not required.
And I think Magiver’s argument suffers from a fatal flaw. Yes, a teacher that has no clue about their subject cannot teach it well. This is a problem in elementary school where a teacher is expected to know 4 subject. But at what point does more not mean more? I have a bachelor’s in math so did getting a master’s in math make me a better middle and high school math teacher? Would someone with a master’s in math and no pedagogy be a better teacher than I was with my bachelor’s but after working to get a credential?
And incidently, some of you need to study logic. Magiver claimed that knowing the subject made you a good teacher but some are now saying that what was meant was NOT knowing the teacher means you are a bad teacher. That is the inverse of the argument and thay are not logically equivalent so although I agree that a teacher should know their discipline, that does not mean the same thing as simply knowing your discipline makes you a good teacher.
And going “old school”? You realize of course that in the early 1900’s teachers got degrees in pedagogy right?
What do you do for work that you have to buy all of your office supplies?
“Effectively” is a rhetorical device people use when the point they are trying to make isn’t fully backed up by facts. I don’t recall the earlier debate, but it just isn’t true that you need a Masters of Education to teach in Maryland (and I doubt it is true anywhere else in the US.)
In the case of Maryland, according to their Department of Education website, to get a teacher’s certificate through traditional methods, you need to complete an “approved program” and take a set exams. The “approved program” include both undergraduate and graduate programs. For secondary education, all of these program are subject focused, with the exception of special education.
Many of the graduate programs are one-year “graduate certificate” programs, not a full Masters, and a large portion of the program is focused on a classroom internship. If that’s still too much teacher training for you, there are no less than thirteen alternative certification programs, most providing 8-10 weeks of training before you are in a classroom full time.
What Maryland (and most other states) does do is require continuing professional development for its teachers. This is meant to keep classrooms fresh and up to date, and it’s absolutely the norm for teachers everywhere. You personal professional development plan is created in conjunction with your schools needs, and is typically paid for out of their budget.
In Maryland, that requirement is six credit hours every five years. The horror!
I am sure lots of teachers choose to spend their PD time working towards an advanced degree, as that seems smarter than just aimlessly taking classes. But requiring teachers to take 1.2 credits of coursework a year is not the same are requiring them to get Masters degrees, “effectively” or otherwise.
New York State does require a Master’s in order to maintain your teaching license. I am not going to look for a cite, but there are tons of them. I don’t remember if you need a Master’s right out of the gate or if you have a couple of years to get one, but it is necessary at some point in order to stay licensed. Any masters will do though, it doesn’t have to be an education masters. I am currently job hunting in the New Jersey area and my lack of an MA (or MFA) is preventing me from expanding my search into New York.
It’s hard to make people swallow the line about how all teachers and teachers’ unions are unqualifiedly good when everyone has experiences with teachers. Many people don’t really know what it’s like to be a steelworker or a retail cashier or a CEO, but we all went to school, and we saw that some teachers are more dedicated than others, to say the least. Right now it’s a taboo to question the orthodoxy of “underpaid and overworked” teachers even when the facts say otherwise, which makes the large mass of people who know it’s not universally the case even more disgruntled about being peddled a line of bullshit.
Looks like you left school too soon.