No sentient being considers an “eddikashun” degree to be worth more than that of Monopoly money. Yes, there are intelligent and very good teachers out there. However, that and their degrees are not related.
They missed the part about teachers being the worst students and bring low achievers.
I’m a Mechanical Engineer (~45 yrs).
What is a Media Engineer and what do they do??
“His disparaging remarks were aimed at the education bureaucracy that everyone but leftists knows is politically and morally corrupt.”
Therein lies the biggest hurdle of them all. Getting rid of and keeping out politically and morally corrupt bureaucrats.
It’s not that difficult to teach subject matter assuming one has a firm grasp on said subject matter. Being a people person is definitely a plus as well as the ability to impart the subject matter to attentive students.
In general, administrations simply get in the way of teachers by “fixing” what’s not broken and/or reinventing the wheel resulting in our current education morass.
Thank you for the reminder to write a check to Hillsdale college.
Bookmark
I know when I was a teenager, the not too bright girls wanted to major in education, especially primary education. My theory is that the women’s movement is at fault. At one time, most females who went to college became a nurse or a teacher. By the time I graduated from college in 1984, we had other options.
“ This pressure campaign on Thursday caused a Tennessee public school to drop its use of high-quality, time-tested curricula”
Funny that parental pressure has no effect on the teaching of gender misinformation or the lies of CRT. Only media pressure has an effect. Anyone who doesn’t see Big Media as the enemy isn’t paying attention.
Its true. Teachers go to the easiest colleges. They get the easiest degrees. Then they get masters degrees that are also very easy. Teaching and teachers are far different than those of 30 and 40 years ago. Women have far more choices for jobs now. And the smart women are choosing these far more lucrative and interesting jobs. Teaching is now left to the Ne’er-do-wells that get a teaching certificate after a very easy indoctrination degree. These teachers are not able to teach math. They know very little history. They think science is planting seeds or boiling water. Our public and much of our private school system is no longer education. Its indoctrination and babysitting. Your kids can learn more on google or Khan Academy than anything they get in school.
The difference between a good school and a bad school are the other kids in the school. And they are the only benefit as well. These friends at school do far more to shape the expectations of your child than any teacher.
The book,” The Graves of Academe”, written 30 years ago by Richard Mitchell, said the same thing...and was ignored.
Teachers are the most militant unionists and negotiate largely with their willing accomplices in government. Kids and education are not in their minds.
“teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country”
It has ever been thus.
Those who do, Do. Those who can’t, Teach.
....“teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”.....
So are all those woke university administrators!!!!
However, some of them are trained in the dumbest parts of the smartest universities in the world—i.e., Harvard Graduate School of Education!! More woke, and not much smarter!!!!
I’ve been a teacher for 26 years, and I have to agree with the president of Hillsdale College.
My post-secondary education started at American University with a degree in political science, where I graduated in 1978 with the expectation of law school. I decided that polite courtroom warfare wasn’t my cup of tea, so I worked in a variety of jobs until deciding to return to college when I was 39 years old to do what I had really wanted to do ever since I was in the second grade.
The education classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage were easy beyond words. I took 24 credits a term in addition to 30 hours a week working and a 45-minute commute to the college from the valley. 4.0 GPA. Many of my colleagues over the years have been great people, and a few extraordinary teachers stand out, but the lemons in the baskets get to remain due to job protection embedded in tenure and union agreements. One third grade teacher asked me once to tell me that names of all seven continents. I worked with a horticulture teacher who never planted a single plant but was well loved by students because she handed out energy drinks and chips while showing Hollywood movies. The superintendent’s office was on the other side of the wall and must have heard what was going on, but never did anything about it. There was less rigor in my master’s degree classes than the classes I had in high school back in the early 1970s. The support staff, in my observation, tend toward mediocrity.
Students routinely tell me that they know American schools are failing them; they can see what schools look like with excellent teachers and stringent standards by watching anime and seeing what high school is like in Japan, superpowers and supernatural forces notwithstanding. There’s a popular anime called “Deathnote,” typical Japanese fare about a demon giving a teenager a book with the power to kill; all you have to do is write the name of a person in the book, and they die 10 seconds later. In an early episode, the demon asks the teenager why he’s not writing names in the book, and the boy says he needs to study for a chemistry test. Many anime series center around the need for study, respect for teachers, and overcoming the hardship of academic failure. The comparison is not lost on the American teenage viewer.
I’m going to be 67 on my next birthday, so this is my last year. My students tend to enjoy honest feedback and a focus on excellence. There are fewer of us every year.
Here’s some solutions to the current problem, based on my experience and observing places like Finland and South Korea, where there is robust student achievement.
- Colleges of education should be far more rigorous, on par with medical and law school. Weed out incompetence at the gate.
- Reduce barriers to professionals from other fields who want to teach, like engineering or medicine, so they can share workplace experience.
- Eliminate tenure. Poor teachers need to be quickly shown the door.
- Treat students with respect by requiring stringent competency tests to move through grades and graduate.
- Understand that teachers work for the families of the students. It’s unethical to use a classroom for advocacy.
- Every district website should have lesson plans, curriculum, readings, and other assignments posted daily.
- Salaries should be linked to student achievement.
It’s been an awful experience watching the education system deteriorate. Maybe my next step should be running for a school board in the community where I retire.
One thing that schools could do to immediately improve: make their teachers take the academic proficiency exams which high school seniors are required to take, and fire any teacher who does not get at least a “proficient” score in reading, writing, and math.
“teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”He forgot to add that public school teachers are also taught to be the most sanctimonious, overpaid, underworked members of the so-called professional class.
Our alleged First Lady, “Dr.” Jill biden, has a doctorate in education from the dumb-dumb University of Delaware.
Her doctoral thesis is a pile of trash!!!!
Nevertheless, she wants us all to call her “Dr. Jill”! PHOOEY!!!!