…teach. And those who can’t teach, teach teaching:
It sounded like a great idea: Stanford education professors would create a model school to show how to educate low-income Hispanic and black students.
Or, as it’s turned out, how not to.
In March, Stanford New Schools (aka East Palo Alto Academy) — a charter high school started in 2001 and elementary grades added in 2006 – made California’s list of schools in the lowest-achieving five percent in the state.
It seems to me that if Stanford doesn’t have a good school of education, no one should be expected to. If I were running the Department of Education (assuming that I couldn’t simply abolish it) I would make it a condition of getting federal money that every teacher in the system have a real degree, where you actually have to know something to graduate — no degrees in “education.”
no degrees in “education.”
Not just a degree in education. Not everybody who has a real degree can teach his or her subject.
No, but knowing a subject is at least a necessary, if not sufficient condition to teaching it. A math teacher should have a degree (or at least a minor) in math, not in “education.” There may be some pedagogical instruction required, but it doesn’t justify a four-year degree (or masters). Also, traditionally, applicants to schools of education have among the lowest scores of all students, which should tell you something. It would also explain the misspelled protest signs in teachers’ strikes.
That’s how it works for say certified instructors for Microsoft certified classes. You have to have 1) an MSCE certification, 2) some kind of teaching certification and 3) you must have passed the class you’re teaching yourself. Funny how no government regulations are needed to make this happen…
Teachers should learn to teach by apprenticeship. Master teachers would pass on practical educational skills in a hands-on setting. Prospective teachers should get a degree in the subject they wish to teach. No one with an educational degree should be allowed to apply.
Sorry for the double post, but I must unburden myself further. Every school board member and school administrator should be required to spend one week per year as a substitute teacher in their district.
I agree with Martijn. Education, the ability to teach, is something not every expert in a subject can do. With that in mind, education should be a minor to another degree in English, Math, History, etc…
Why is there such a degree as “education”? Teaching is a trade. That’s why teachers have unions. If teaching were a profession they’d have a professional association like engineers or doctors or lawyers or accountants, instead of a union.
Depending on the particular state’s licensing requirements, a certain number of credit hours in a subject is required in order to get endorsed by the state to teach that subject. From everything I have seen in the field of public education, we have plenty of extremely-qualified teachers who do a yeoman’s job for a fraction of what they should be getting paid. The biggest problem that I have observed at the middle-school level is the utter apathy of a majority of students. This is a problem that can be most directly attributed to their parenting (or lack thereof.) If students have no desire or motivation to succeed in a “compulsory” educational environment, even Jaime Escalante couldn’t teach them.
If teaching were a profession they’d have a professional association like engineers or doctors or lawyers or accountants, instead of a union.
Are you being sarcastic? Is there a fundamental difference between a professional association and a union? Depending on where you live they may have comparable government given privileges.
Is there a fundamental difference between a professional association and a union?
Yes, there are at least two. You don’t necessarily have to be a member of a professional association to be in that profession, and there is usually some kind of credential or other requirement to become a member, as opposed to simply paying dues. The biggest problem with public education is that the NEA enforces mediocrity.
The last “what’s wrong with education” book I read made it priority number one that no teachers with “Education” BA degrees should be employed teaching.
Today, Education is like the weather – everybody talks about it but only left wing ideologes actually try and do something about it.
@ CFE:
While I agree w/most of that, I need to take issue with the ‘it’s all the parents’ part.
When I discussed school with my kids (truth in advertising: they’re in there 20s now), their most common complaint was that the teachers were either boring or completely dislikable. I’m not sure how much of that is syllabus and how much is personality.
I will admit that many kids show up for school these days just because they have to and would rather be just about anywhere else. That said, when are we going to put the onus for kids’ education where it truly belongs – on the teachers and the kids themselves? When are we as a society going to say to kids “If you screw this up, it’s your own d@#$ fault.” Yes, parents should be held to account if the kid either doesn’t show or is disruptive/etc. At some point, it becomes their responsibility.
Oh, wait – responsibility. Never mind.
The introduction of Colleges (or Departments) of Education and Unions into our education systems has lead to chaos, feel-good promotions, and diplomas for the ignorant. I’ve argued for years, with nobody in particular, that we should abolish them along with Journalism Schools which seem to have only homogenized our news media with a tilt to the left. Neither one of them serve real excellence in their field or the freedoms they claim. Diversity of opinions and approaches is the real evidence of freedom, unless we’re talking about hard science. Trying to apply the rules of hard science to the fields of history, literature, politics or other humanities, has usually resulted in indifferent or terrible results.
I am so happy to find someone who thinks along the same lines.
My wife is a teacher. I don’t believe getting an education degree “spoils” you, it’s just pretty useless. You learn a bit about preparing lesson plans and such but you have to sit through lots of educational theory that’s not worth the paper it’s written on. And they absolutely fail to cover the number one issue in many public school classrooms: dealing with disciplinary problems. It’s a societal issue – a symptom of deeper dysfunction in our culture. I have written at length about this elsewhere.
The problem with classrooms is that they teach to the dumbest kids in the room. That is why most students grow bored and restless and lose all focus because they don’t fall into the lowest 10% of idiots. Why don’t we make a classroom that sets the bar to that of the level of the most incredibly bright student in the room and then dictate to all the others to REACH! Our society reflects a collection of miscreants looking for handouts because they have all learned from an early age that if they whine and flail enough that someone will gasp and say, “oh okay we’ll let you have XYZ!” It used to be in one point in time that those you couldn’t or wouldn’t take study seriously would quickly find themselves shucking some vegetable out in some field in hundred degree heat. Seeing first hand a life without school was probably the quickest motivator for kids to learn what a privilege it is to have someone take their time to teach you a trade or pass on a kernel of knowledge.
I’m not being sarcastic at all, Martijn. I wish I was. The difference between a union and a professional association is that a union exists to ensure that the lowest-performing 51% don’t get fired. A professional association sets high standards of performance as a continuing condition of membership.
Teaching used to be a profession at one time. Not anymore. Forming unions instead of ensuring high quality education is the biggest disservice to children that teachers have ever done.
You don’t necessarily have to be a member of a professional association to be in that profession, and there is usually some kind of credential or other requirement to become a member, as opposed to simply paying dues.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the term professional association, but I was thinking of licensed engineers, architects, lawyers, doctors etc. Where I live those are basically guilds that enforce a government sanctioned monopoly. This is no different from what many unions get away with: legally mandated universally binding wage agreements.
In principle I don’t think there’s anything wrong with either unions or professional associations as long as they don’t restrict competition, which both typically do, at least where I live.
Why don’t we make a classroom that sets the bar to that of the level of the most incredibly bright student in the room and then dictate to all the others to REACH!
That would be even more unfair on the lower performing students. I think one size fits all is horrible – in many different areas of life. I was a bright student at school and bored stiff. On the other hand, I could have used some help with certain emotional problems I had at the time. The son of one of my cousins goes to a special needs school and his mother had to move heaven and earth to get him into that school. Different children have different needs.
And they absolutely fail to cover the number one issue in many public school classrooms: dealing with disciplinary problems. It’s a societal issue – a symptom of deeper dysfunction in our culture.
Part of the problem is that the kids don’t want to be there, they are being forced to be there. In part it is because they need an education, but it is also about giving their parents time off to be gainfully employed, run a household, perhaps even to relax a little and to keep the kids off the labour market and to provide teachers with captive customers.
Schools are being run mainly for the benefit of teachers and low skilled union workers.
Schools are being run mainly for the benefit of teachers and low skilled union workers.
Again, being married to a teacher I would not make such a blanket statement. Maybe it’s just different here in Texas (weak unions) but most of the teachers I know are there because they feel it is their calling. It is certainly not the preferred way of getting rich or having an easy life! There are many, it is true, who are burned out and waiting for retirement. But they didn’t start out that way. They were worn down by the oppressive atmosphere of working with disruptive students, hostile parents and ineffective administrators.
Now I also know some incompetent teachers and some with bad attitudes. They need to be fired. Unfortunately, working for the school district is like working for the federal government. It is so hard to fire someone that principals usually just try to shuffle a bad teacher off to another school. But most teachers aren’t like that. They are doing their best in a bad situation.
Bill, you have pointed toward the way out of this mess.
Get disruptive students out of the classroom. Fire incompetent teachers. Reduce bureaucratic overhead. Assign students to classes/courses based on achievement/needs (tracking). Restrict teachers’ unions to pay/benefits/qol areas only.
I guess Clausewitz applies here.