Posted on 01/15/2005 7:15:35 PM PST by Coleus
I see many preparing teachers in the college where I work spending most of their time taking learning how to teach classes and struggling to get through even the most rudimentary science classes. These graduates will in all likelihood be teaching our kids science.
No wonder our nation lags behind in education.
But at least when the nuns were teaching us Latin, Science, Maths, English, French etc. you were SURE that they (tough taskmasters that they were) were teaching you. >>
They drilled it into you using the rote method. It's too bad many American Teachers don't use that teaching arithmetic any more.
I see. Yes, of course, a typo.
Oddly enough, I'll take my chances with the imported brainiac teachers over the homegrown variety. It's a fact that they value education, and I mean subject matter (math & science especially).
I know a brother of the Christian Brothers catholic religious order with 3 Ph.D's from Fordham U. who can not teach in a public school.
I thought about teaching high school but discovered it would take two years to get certified. Just not worth the trouble.
You miss the point of teacher certification. By the time you are certified, your opinion has been fixed by the instructors in your "educational" courses.
You are correct. I suspect some of the questions are there to make sure your opinion is the same as the education establishment.
Right. Anytime you have to deal with the education system (from the inside) you have to put on your "PC" hat or they will think you are not "one of them".
Students in Florida's rural outposts and inner cities, those from housing projects and migrant camps, and those from black and Latino families were far more likely to have a teacher who struggled.
That is a true statement. But they don't tell you why. These schools are so bad that they can't get good teachers. The teachers leave just as soon as they can. Clean up the schools and put discipline back in and then the teachers that know what they are doing will come back.
If a major is listed with the certificate it means a certain number of courses were taken in that major. 12 units of college math for a math minor, and 16 units for a science major. (In my case -- CA school certificate)
As far as basic skills tests, they are being implemented to weed out teachers who got in when the district needed warm bodies. Frequently a foreign born teacher has weak language skills and fails the test. Many teachers got through math by guess and by gosh, and really need more math before they be allowed to teach it.
Without good skills, a teacher had a big chance of creating a "turn off experience" for a student. The kid thinks "Gee, I have to teach myself this stuff, the teacher does not know it, or is unable to address my questions, this stuff can't be very important or I would not be led by someone who does not know what they are doing."
There are plenty of great teachers who don't pass the test for one reason or another, but these basic tests are not that hard, and most districts allow unlimited retakes. So the teacher who wants to keep the job will find a way to learn the material necessary to pass.
As for the psyc stuff in the teacher credential, most of it is a waste. Teacher certification also covers things like legal liability and how to avoid being sued. Good things IMO for a teacher to know these days.
Tja. Classic Patton mistake.
Gonna love this one. First too much money is spent bussing students all over the countryside not on teachers and facilities. Students spend literally hours each day riding and at times making a 12 hour school day down to and including first grade resulting in exhausted students with little quality time for homework.
Teachers with special considerations were pushed thru collage to meet quotas and turned loose on an educational system so desperate it fill positions that they didn't care who they got or how good they were as long as the paperwork was acceptable.
It inconceivable to me that persons who can't pass a simple test in their teaching subject are allowed to continue teaching, worse even after repeated failures they're still there.
You wouldn't hire a limo driver that can't pass a driving test, a carpenter that can't hit a nail, a deep sea diver that can't swim. they can't teach either but hire them anyway.
We have been discussing inexpensive ways to fast track kids through high school to avoid the liberal agenda:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315730/posts?page=84#84
Unfortunately my thread title was not well thought out, because some parents might instinctively skip over it due to attached stigma, whether real or imagined.
The short answer is "Local Control". It is assumed that those who live in a community will actually care more about the kids in their community than some bureaucrat in an office far, far away.
I have lived in communities in both extremes. There are some communities who demand the schools be given the best of everything, then there are some communities that see schools as a necessary evil.
However, in my very limited teaching experience (several years as a substitute teacher and one year of teaching full-time K-12), I've rarely seen a student fail who had parents that were interested in his education. In almost every case, when I had a student who was uninterested in getting an education (and who was unwilling to put in the effort to get an education), I found a parent who wasn't interested in their child getting an education.
I was raised in a farming community in West Texas. The schools were horrendous! As mentioned by a previous poster, we had several teachers who did not know the subject matter and we (the students) had to teach ourselves. The only reason I got a decent education is because of my mother.
Now, take a look at the statistics. The worst schools are frequently the best funded schools. DC pays over $11,000 per student per year. Yet, they are consistently ranked as the worst schools in the nation.
While looking for that statistic, I came across this article in which Kentucky's 20% increase in per-pupil spending is analyzed. The net result was that more money did not result in better schools. "In fact, for students evaluated using the federal National Assessment of Education Progress reading test, scores for Kentucky students declined."
My Mom and I were discussing this tonight. If we want our schools to improve, we need to get good teachers into the schools and, IMNSHO most importantly, give the parents an incentive to be certain their student behaves and works towards getting the best education he is capable of obtaining.
Again, IMNSHO, the first step is to eliminate compulsory education. If a parent wants his kid to go through life ignorant, then they should have that right. It's not "fair" to the kid, but neither is it fair for a bored kid to ruin the education of those who want to learn.
Second, expel the little brats who will not obey their instructor. If the parents want someone to look after their kids for eight or ten hours per day, put the onus on the parents to make their child behave. If the parent won't motivate their spawn, then dump the kid back on the parent.
Third, vouchers, and vouchers. That's two types of vouchers. A) Vouchers for parents to help send their child to whatever school they choose and B) vouchers for the taxpayer to send the tax money the state mandates they spend on education to any educational institution (public, private, primary, secondary, whatever). Do not lock any person (user or payer) into one school district just because of geography.
That's my 2¢.
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