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.

[No Truce With Kings]

"Perhaps more qualified people would go into teaching if they were not so often denigrated by those who have usually not spent even a day teaching in a regular classroom."

With all due respect, I spent five years in a classroom, teaching, on the college level. Despite being an adjunct, I was the highest rated instructor in my department. The other instructors sent problem students to me because I would straighten them out.

Then, in an effort to increase the "professionalism" of Community College instructors, the accreditation board changed the requirements for teaching from a Master's Degree to a Master's Degree with 15 hours in the subject being taught (computer science). I had nine hours postgraduate in Comp Sci -- as well as 20 years in industry (but that did not count). So I was no longer "qualified" to teach.

Further, a few years later, when a school district needed someone to teach computer science on the High School level -- which I could do quite easily -- I again was not "qualified" because I did not have the teaching certificate. Instead two English teachers -- who prior to that year had NEVER touched a computer . . . but were qualified because, you see they HAD teaching certificates -- taught those classes.

How do I know? Because I tutored those teachers on the computer (I did not need to be qualified for that). So the school district ended up paying for their salaries (even though they did not know a mouse from a keyboard) as well as my tutoring rate (and I stuck it to the District, too -- why not?) instead of hiring me to teach a class I was capable of teaching at a much lower teacher's salary.

If that makes sense to you, I guess that is why you are an educator and I am not. But, yeah -- I have taught 30 to 40 people, and it ain't rocket science. In fact, the Armed Forces can turn out an instructor that can outperform most K-12 public school teachers I know with three months training.

Perhaps more qualified people would go into teaching if there were not the silly barriers to entry that exist in a trade that is pretending to be a profession.

[Alberta's Child]

Teacher ping!

[arroyo run]

I can think of lots of professions which recognize broadly the importance of professional oversight ... even barbers and hair stylists have to be evaluated by a state examiner's board made up of professionals in the field, though I don't know how rigorous it is from state to state. Medicine and law probably just take longer to learn.

I don't see how this applies to "teachers" as far as elementary and high school education, where the student isn't learning unique skills for a specific profession but basic knowledge and rudimentary social skills.

[SoftballMominVA]

There are two categories of problems here: parents doing illegal activities and claiming to homeschool their kids, and parents not educating kids to some standard. In case one, prosecute the crimes and ignore the homeschooling aspect.

It goes back to what I've said before, there is a difference between truancy and homeschooling. The two should not be lumped together. One is wrong, the other is right and reasonable people can tell which one is which at a glance.

[SoftballMominVA]

there is NO WAY I could keep my patience with a class full of third graders (any grade actually!).

Well, I have to agree with you on third graders. I teach 8th grade and I get the willies if I go any lower. I taught 6th grade for 2 years and I was pretty glad to go up to 8th when given the choice.

Although, that being said, when I work on my doctorate, I just might go to early, early ed because I have a fascination with the meta-cognition of reading. I'd like to see that association happen with a variety of children from different levels. I have a theory that there are markers of making the symbol-meaning connection that can be found in the scribblings of 18 - 24 month old children. I'd love to use that theory in a dissertation. Can you imagine what it could mean to identify at 2 years those kids that are going to struggle with reading and have an idea of which approach would work best? It's a thought. One day, one day.

[Domicile of Doom]

Regardless of what you may think expectations are being lowered, and kids from broken homes en-masse are helping this process, along with bloated admin staffs, under-trained teachers, etc. Public education in the US is in a vicious circle from which there is no return. We can go all day with who did what wrong, but the sooner people stop getting divorced and essentially hanging the kids out to dry nothing will change. You don't like each other - tough sh#* if you've got kids, stay together for them at least.

Maybe there ought to be schools for kids from divorced families and other schools for kids from intact families? Feminists probably wouldn't like that, but there again I guess there would have to be two separate "Winter Holiday" programs.

[LanPB01]

Please put me on the Ping list. I never get tired of these threads. What would really be fascinating is a count of how many times our subject has managed to mention they possess a doctorate degree. It has to be approaching triple digits. It appears not all doctorate degrees require training in social skills or self-awareness.

[JenB]

It goes back to what I've said before, there is a difference between truancy and homeschooling. The two should not be lumped together. One is wrong, the other is right and reasonable people can tell which one is which at a glance.

Oh, I agree, I agree... I just wonder, from a conservative point of view, why are there truancy laws anyway? Why do we set certain areas the government can intrude on parents and tell them what to do, and other areas we tell it to stay out of? Almost everyone is against the government telling you what religious beliefs you can pass along. But nobody has a problem with the government telling parents that their kids have to learn math.

Don't get me wrong, it's just a thought exercise - why and how have we justified what we have, as far as laws go?

[-YYZ-]

"If they were true professionals they would refuse to cooperate, or they would quit!"

Many would probably like to, but they've invested time and money in getting certified in the teacher's colleges so they could be teachers, and now need to make a living. Strongly-held convictions don't put food on the table. But teachers are only a small part of the problem with our schools. They are just part of a system that is doomed (or more likely designed) to turn out poorly-educated students. Poorly educated by classical standards, but well educated in what the system is designed to encourage - conformity, dullness, lack of originality, acceptance of the opinions of "experts" of all sorts. No, don't blame the teachers (although many ARE quite marginal, to be sure, as the system intended, no doubt), they're just trying to make a living in the system.

[RobbyS]

The implication is that the problem is that somehow we are going to recruit a corps of school teachers that is as intellectually capable as scientists and engineers.
That is not going to happen. What education schools seek to do is to train people to man(so to speak) the public schools as they exist, and generally they take who they can get. Generally speaking the people they can get are women of above average intelligence who who not at all bookish and not at all rebellious. No more than the average lawyer, doctor or soldier are they likely to want to change the institutions they serve.

[Gabz]

I'm not answering for SoftballMominVA, but your comment on truancy law with the combination of government intrusion on religious beliefs reminded me of something that happened to me a loooooooooong time ago. Back when I was in the 1st grade, in Catholic school, in 1966.

I hated school, I absolutely HATED it and I was only in 1st grade. One morning after having lined up in the schoolyard and starting up the stairs in the building I had the "brilliant" idea that I wasn't going. Somehow or other I avoided detection and made it back down the stairsbetween all the other kids coming up and out the door I went.

I really wasn't hard to miss, I lived on the same street as the school, but I actually avoided detection for about an hour by hiding on the front "porch" of a neighbor's house.

40 years later and I still remember the "visit" to the principal's office with my parents after that stunt. Sister Mary Gemma sat behind her desk and explained to me that my father would be arrested if I didn't attend school. I actually said to her "My daddy is a policeman, he can't be arrested."

Long story short, I never tried that stunt again, but the point is that truancy laws existed that long ago and did apply to private schools, at least in NYC.

[oldenuff2no]

Jen B
I do not know where yo live but a BA/BS with an emergency credential in Ca allows you to sub. Another year of graduate school and pass all the tests and you can be full unrestricted credential. Another year of graduate school and you can be a special needs teacher. That's a masters. Then since we live in a bilingual community we chose to become fluent is Spanish so we can teach all the kids and not just half of them.
We are now up to 6+ years of college, have taken three major tests of knowledge and learned a second language.
JenB, you seem to think that our investment in time, money and energy is for nothing and is not worth the pay one can expect from a MS/MA. Oh, and by the way, many teachers I know have a degree in their teaching specialty such as Math, Science, and English. Many states require this education to teach math, science and English at high school level. Then they go to grad school for their teaching credentials.
I wish people would learn something on the subject that they pretend to be an expert.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Good points. My first course teaching the Grad courses, I assigned more work and my exams were tough. I had several complaints from students of too much work and too tough exams. Still, they rated we fairly high on the scale. Over time, I tended to relax a bit. I think the students that I had in my earlier courses respected the rigorous effort, since I had more than one comments to me later that they really learned the subject well.

I think my effectiveness lessened when I was assigned to teach a couple of courses that were somewhat outside my specialty. I was still qualified to teach the courses, but did not have the passion for the subject matter. One course in particular was Business Ethics, and the course material tended to be more to the left. The text had articles from Michael Moore.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I have been told that you need at least a 120 IQ to learn calculus. I don't think most teachers would pass.

I agree with you about the technical courses. My son finished at Ga. Tech and if you had a 3.0 you were in the top 10% of the class.

[JenB]

If teachers really are so highly educated that makes it even worse! That means unpaid amateurs, often with 'inferior' levels of education, are beating the socks off these so educated professionals on a daily basis.

I'm two classes short of my master's in computer science currently, so there's no awe of graduate school in me.

And if teachers have undergraduate degrees in their subjects, why are there education majors? Your statements don't match what I've encountered in real life. Particularly in math and sciences, the education students I have know are woefully underprepared.

I wonder if the reason girls in general do not like math and science is partly because their generally female teachers, who do not have mathematical aptitude, manage to convince them that girls just aren't good at such things, in order to make themselves feel betteR? On a subconscious level, I mean.

[dfwgator]

to a young man with a state allowed modification of lesson plan that allows him to masturbate one per day in class.

Get out!

[WV Mountain Mama]

When I was teaching Title 1 Math, many of the mom parents told me to my face that their daughter was lousy in math because they were too. They wouldn't be able to help them at home (this is just 7th, 8th grade math for crying out loud)And it is the way girls are!!! To make it worse, they said it in front of their daughters. Gee mom, could you make my job harder by telling their child that they probably won't be able to get it, that is just how girls are?!?!?! Talk about programming them to fail and excusing it.

[Thywillnotmine]

I know -- I've done the same. But I'm not going to anymore. I don't want to teach Michael Moore, or Chomsky. I don't want to base my theory on Edward Said... or Jung, for that matter. I want fallacy-free argumentation, and properly constructed essays. I don't want to pass on this $#** about women being good at journalling as opposed to logic. I won't accept shoddy work, and I won't give high marks to something that insults my intelligence by being all music and pictures and no content.

[Gabz]

I wonder if the reason girls in general do not like math and science is partly because their generally female teachers, who do not have mathematical aptitude, manage to convince them that girls just aren't good at such things, in order to make themselves feel betteR? On a subconscious level, I mean.

I went to an all girl HS, and most of my math and science teachers were male. This school expected us all to excel, and most of us did. In fact more than 85% of my graduating class received some sort of scholarship to college, including to IVY Leagues.

All that said, I sucked at math and science.

[Gabz]

Something I fogot to mention in my comment to JenB.......my daughter excels in math and science.