Are the Right People Becoming Teachers? ( Teachers are NOT Professionals)

EdNews.org ^ | January 9,2007 | Martin Haberman

[wintertime]

(snip)

1. The practitioners know and can do things the public in general cannot do. They have a specialized body of knowledge.

2. The specialized body of knowledge practitioners have takes an extended period of time to learn.

3. The educators who prepare the practitioners are experts who agree upon the specialized body of knowledge practitioners must have.

4. Admission to a professional training program is highly selective.( snip).

6. Only members of the profession set the standards for licensure and certification.

7. The primary responsibility and loyalty of a professional is to serve the client and not simply the institution or governmental agency in which the practitioner may be employed.

8. Neither the public at large nor an employing institution may control the way in which professionals relate to their clients, or the treatments, methods or procedures they use.

9. Neither the public at large nor an employing institution may set the purpose, goals or objectives for the practitioner’s practice with clients.

10. The public at large does not decide how to evaluate professionals.

11. Only members of the profession can determine malpractice and dismiss or disbar practitioners.

12. Professionals determine the cost of their services.

19. Professionals are trained to serve clients with problems. By definition “professionals” do not seek to perform services to clients without problems.

21. Professionals share a code of ethics to which they commit and adhere. They cannot be directed to perform or not perform services for clients which conflict with their professional code.

The case that teaching does not meet any of these twenty one criteria can be readily made.

[perseid 67]

Many of the old school Catholic nuns went straight from high school to the convent. Nonetheless, they were extraordinary teachers. Convents are rigorous environments where women develop discipline. I can not say the same about most college campuses these days.

I honestly think the Marine Corps could produce better teachers than colleges produce.

[WV Mountain Mama]

I think we are somewhat arguing the same point. Although, I would never be an administrator, no matter the pay. The crap s/he has to put up with from parents is despicable, and with the laws, etc, they have their hands tied most of the time.

I put much of the blame on the parents because the attitudes of apathy I have experienced with my students came directly from their parents. We also have all kinds of "disorders" being created that fall in to categories that now must be re-mediated by the teachers (through parents/IEP's) so the student can be in class. It is the student's right to be there. It doesn't matter if the two aides that he or she requires, special equipment (which the school pays for) or outburst because they can not control their behavior bothers every other student in the class and slows down the entire class. If this student does not have their needs met by the school, the school is required to pay their tuition to a different school (even if it is across the state as was the case where I taught!)

It is up to the administrator to do all the BS paperwork, avoid lawsuits, support the teachers, make sure federal regs that are feel good measures are met, put up with intolerable parents that know every law that must be followed or they are suing the school, discipline students and meet with the school board (another political nightmare!) Plus, during the contract negotiation, the teachers who loved them, turn on them in a heartbeat. I don't begrudge them their money, they earn it just with the aggravation they put up with in their job.

Does your state require that the illegal alien student be taught? Are they taught in special ESL classes? All on taxpayer dime? That is not the unions, that is the government. Are unions bad, imo, yes, but they are not alone. There are many sharing the bed of corruption. Can the problem be fixed? I hope so. Do I think there are good teachers and school districts? Yes. OH, and teachers can be sued. I know of one student, a real smart alec, disruptive, parents let him get away with murder, no discipline at home, if he got in trouble at school, the parents said it was his nature, they couldn't do anything with him, etc. After he graduated, he got a doctor to diagnose him with a learning disability (my guess would be a-hole syndrome) and he and his family sued the district and the head of the special education department (a wonderful, card carrying republican who helped me nearly give a colleague across the hall a heart attack during the 2000 election, my articles from FR helped) for a couple of millions. And, the union only helps defend you if they think they will win. We were also taught to never be alone with a student because they could claim anything and sue.

[em2vn]

"A woman who today would be a first rate engineer, college professor, or medical doctor, in my day was teaching 4th graders math and science."
That is the same whining, unsupportable blather that the feminists cult has been spouting for decades.
What you are mischaracterizing is an expansion of opportunity caused by an increase in population and economic vibrance, plus an expansion of college and university access nationwide.

[Ouderkirk]

My assertion is true.

Education Dept have the highest overall GPA and the lowest overall IQ.

Engineering/Physics/Math/Chem Depts. have the lowest overall GPA and the highest IQ.

Proven to be true over and over.

Most courses in education and pedantic techniques are set up to filter out those who philosphicaly disagree with the current fad techniques.

[the OlLine Rebel]

I've already covered that. We engineers don't need more than 4 years to be professionals, at age 21 or 22.

[oldenuff2no]

I'm not against testing, in fact I'm for it. I believe in all the tests that teachers have to take in this state to get their credentials too.
What I am against is these people taking shots at teachers who bust their butts to take undereducated kids and bring them to a predetermined level.
My wife had 4 new kids in her 6th grade class last year who had never been in a school in this country and who didn't speak a word of English. Test time is going to be fun for them. We are both bilingual by absolute necessity.
The other thing I'm against is parents who do not, will not help their children with their homework. The teacher will get blamed at the end of the year when Junior can't spell. As far as I'm concerned the parents of any child who does not turn all of their homework every week should be forced to sweep the hauls for an hour or two. We do unpaid tutoring at our home 4 evenings a week and usually for a few hours on Sat. for those kids whose parents can not help them with their studies. There are homework clubs after school run by certified teachers. After all of this extra help, there are still those kids who never do or turn in their homework or study spelling words. There are some parents who really need fired!!!!!

[Joe 6-pack]

Interesting observations...If I'm not in 100% agreement, I do believe you're onto something, and your point is certainly deserving of further consideration...

[the OlLine Rebel]

I am absolutely convinced 1 does not need to waste 4 solid years doing "education" education when it can most assuredly be done at best as a minor in undergrad.

[Gabz]

I was a bit unfair in my comment, and you are correct there are those that are not lazy, but for various reasons just can't be more involved. Every time I go head to head with the bureaucrats I remind myself that I am not just battling for my own child, but for every other child facing whatever it is I'm battling about at the time.

I admit that I gave up on the district where I lived in Delaware, it was an absolute losing proposition and I never had a child in school in that district and I refused to put my child in a school in that district, which is in part why we now live in Virginia. My husband, his sisters and his nieces are all products of that school system in Delaware, but despite that, they are all productive members of society :)

[WV Mountain Mama]

We aren't allowed to do that. Nice try. Did I go to the principal? Yes. Principals can't remove student from class who doesn't want to learn if they aren't disruptive. Another nice try. I taught Title 1 Math, by definition not the students in special ed. I could apply consequences that I was allowed to that were set by the federal government. I had no power to grade students, as I was not their teacher. Did their teachers fail them? Yes. Did the parents over ride that and demand their student be passed? Yes. Should I refuse my paycheck even though I was doing the job I was allowed to do and the one that I was performing that did get results through, as shown by my performance requirements the students had to do?

Which category do you belong in?

Naive
Ignorant
Hateful
All of the above

[SoftballMominVA]

Would you, or your fellow engineers, deliberately employ faulty construction or engineering techniques that you KNEW could, or would, result in injury? Would you, or your fellow engineers, work for a company or firm that demanded that you use faulty engineering?

This happens all the time. It's called the lowest bidder on the project.

[MinnesotaLibertarian]

My mother once said almost the exact same thing, in reference to my sister's decision to teach. She said her generation (she's a baby boomer) was the first where college educated women could do more than teaching or nursing. Despite that, a fair number still chose those types of professions, including my librarian mother. Among my generation (the Gen-Xers), the number dwindled even further. All of my female friends from college are in law, business, medicine, etc. I went back and visited my old high school in St. Paul, and was shocked to learn that some of my dumbest classmates were now teachers there.

However, with my sister's generation (not sure what it's called, quite frankly), it seems that more are choosing teaching voluntarily again. If this is true, that would be a great start to making the schools better. I think we could attract more good teachers by making it harder to become a teacher. We should also raise teacher pay, but NOT WITHOUT RAISING THE STANDARDS. This is what liberals don't seem to grasp.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I went to HS in the 60s and probably wrote half a dozen term papers. Some for Government and History courses and others for English. I had one on Capital Punishment that was 30 pages, with charts, maps (done by hand) and attached interviews. Upon entering college, I still had a somewhat rude awakening regarding my writing. I can't imagine how a college student with no experience in writing papers would manage college English.

[SoftballMominVA]

Would a heart surgeon allow whiny parents to dictate the techniques of his surgery?

The answer is yes, this happens all the time. Not only to heart surgeons but to all surgeons. Patients whine until a doctor performs a specific surgery in a specific way.

How else can one explain Michael Jackson?

[Tenacious 1]

[Education Dept have the highest overall GPA and the lowest overall IQ.

Engineering/Physics/Math/Chem Depts. have the lowest overall GPA and the highest IQ.]

Interesting if true. I have often wondered about this. I deal with very intelligent "professionals" daily. Very few speak of high GPAs in their college days (of course it doesn't come up very often) My collegiate GPA ended up being about 2.7/4.0. My IQ (according to Internet tests) is consistently between 125 and 130. For this reason, I have often written off the whole Intelligent Quotient thing as a BS measuring stick. About once a year I look for and take those silly on line IQ tests for fun (I like brain puzzles like Soduko). I also think that exercising the brain keeps me sharp.

Where do you find this information since it is "proven to be true over and over".

[twigs]

I accept. Thank you for your honesty. I still don't agree with you, though. Of course, I live in a district that has a reputation for good school teachers. However, I did send my child to a private Christian school. For my education classes, I have had to sit in a lot of classes. To my surprise, most have been excellent. One was absolutely horrible. Several were so-so. Most were excellent, although I didn't necessarily like what I saw posted in the classes (liberal claptrap). But the quality of classroom instruction was excellent for the most part. In this school district, they receive 100 resumes for every one teacher hired, so they have their pick of the best.

[Gabz]

Good morning :)

The usual suspects are out in force.

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bump for later

[twigs]

I did not have to take four years worth of education; I had to take a handful. I believe it was about 6 or 7 courses. The only one that was a complete and total waste was multi-cultural education. It could have been a good course because this is a big issue today. But the teachers chose to make it into a course that tried to force students to think and feel a certain way about cultural/ethnic issues. I resented it and complained about it. In my English curriculum, there were certain English courses that ed majors had to take and were options for the others. I knew some students who decided to drop out of education because of these more demanding courses. I think that's entirely appropriate and it weeds out unsuitable teachers.

[Thywillnotmine]

It's called 'dumbing down' the curriculum. One can't expect as much from them. You see, the courses are divided into 'reading' and 'writing'. The reading ones can demand that the students read up to 12 novels in a full-year course, but they would write exams or short pieces in preference to essays -- perhaps do 1 essay per term. The 'writing' courses can demand more essays, but I don't think anyone does more than 2 in a half-term, and lots of little pieces to develop skills.