Replies

I taught for decades in urban high schools (see my post #29). And you are right about the Education degree. Most of the better teachers I knew had real degrees (in math, in chemistry, etc.).

But there is a much bigger problem with Education degrees. It’s the Doctorate in Education. Almost all school administrators have them now. And that degree is worthless trash. No, it’s worse than that. It’s counterproductive worthless trash.

Permit me to explain. Every other academic discipline has an accepted, core body of knowledge. For example, in chemistry every chemist agrees that the hydrogen atom has one proton.

This is not so in education. Anything goes in that field! So public schools are whipsawed back and forth by the latest fads, all based on a paper some EdD read in some garbage education journal. And here’s the thing. Today’s fad well could be contradicted by tomorrow’s fad.

And by golly, when that new fad comes along, teachers had better immediately embrace it, no matter how nonsensical it is.

Let me give you an example of that. At the end of my career I taught physics. A new fad came along: Do not correct any wrong student classroom answers on the day they are given. All answers are valid, even completely wrong ones. That’s nuts, and I ignored it. Lucky I wasn’t fired before I could retire.

Sorry for the long rant.