Interesting read.
Talk about dumbing-down tho, I spent 12 years teaching at uni level and was also involved with the campus education department responsible for ‘making’ teachers. Things have gotten so bad with prospective teachers not being able to pass the PRAXIS that their is no ongoing considerations being made to ‘make it easier’ for prospective teachers to PASS the PRAXIS cause nearly half of them utterly struggle to pass it. Yeppers, dumbing-down the system so as to make becoming a teacher easier, all the while, forgetting that dumbing-down the program only invariably hurts the student(s) these prospective teachers are eventually going to teach.
no = now
I had several careers over the years and ended up teaching high school biology and chemistry for seven years. I retired this summer. I support what you say. Among my teaching colleagues were many teachers who wrote abysmally and had little comprehension of math. Typically our older teachers had good literacy and reasoning ability. Many of the younger ones were clearly products of a lax system of instruction and certification. They used all the proper progressive buzzwords, did lots of group projects and used plenty of technology in the classroom. Unfortunately, they also wrote in fractured English and conveyed incorrect information to their students. It is a very deep-seated problem in our educational system.
I found high school students weak in basic skills. Except for the very best students in the school, they struggled to understand textbooks, and lacked understanding of even basic arithmetic. I taught a lot of 15-16 year old students who could not figure out practical applications of division or calculate percentages. In talking to 'old timers' in education, most linked the widespread weakness in literacy to mobile devices. They experienced rapid declines in student literacy about the time cell phones and tablets became widely available to young people. Few students read books now. Book reading involves greater concentration and engagement than much of what they read on their devices. As they spend more time on social media, flitting from message to message, their immersion in complex writing and challenging vocabulary is reduced. Technology brings change - some good, some not. Teachers are told throughout the school year that kids have changed since we were in school and that we have to change our methods to engage them. That means making school fun and doing lots of team projects and using a lot of technology. Having students listen to a lecture, take notes, and be individually accountable is pretty much considered 'dinosaur teaching'.