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As I've said over and over and over again. There are no bad teachers there are only poorly trained teachers who are not properly trained.
I disagree. With teacher's salaries rising and increasing numbers of skilled jobs requiring post-graduate degrees, more and more people are choosing teaching merely because it offers a better salary than the alternatives. These people do not make good teachers, because they do not go into teaching out of any love for the principles and rewards of education. They become assembly line workers who don't care about the quality of the widgets as long as there is a paycheck on Friday. Often, they don't even have any love for the subject they teach. "Can you teach history, too?" "Sure, why not."
These are the bad teachers, and their numbers are increasing, and no amount of training will make them any better.
As I've said over and over and over again. There are no bad teachers there are only poorly trained teachers who are not properly trained.
But--as far as I know--most studies show that a masters in education provides no improvement in teacher quality. I'm not aware of any literature demonstrating an appreciable change in teacher quality as a result of a degree or certificate program.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zarathu
As to denying teachers tenure, teachers don't get tenure until at least two years of successful and skilled teaching, and in the current climate most have to wait three or four years. They have to be observed by administrators, and their performance in all areas must be at the proficient level.
But do you want to give tenure to a proficient individual? As a reward for an exceptional teacher? sure! But should proficiency be a sufficient measure for tenure?
To answer your question...because we don't care about our kids. We may say that we care, but come on..our actions speak louder than words. If we really cared about our kids, teachers would be paid an actual living wage. There would be competition for those salaries. I love it when I hear about people in other fields who decide after working for 20 years as an engineer that they are going to be a teacher, why didn't you become one out of college? Oh yeah the pay sucked.
We have no set of national standards, and every state and locale wants to be its own little fifedom. That was fine 100 years ago when the population was not transient, but today we have people moving all over the place. I teach GA history, in the course of the school year I had 12 kids move into my class from other states. How in the world are they supposed to pass the standardized test for my class when they just moved in and they spent most of the year learning about world history in the state they came from? Even the concept of states funding schools is antiquated. I am so sure that an education friendly state like South Carolina brings in as much revenue from sales tax and spends as much on education like Connecticut. If we cut 20% from the defense department budget, we could help fund every school district in the country.
To the article...What a joke. First, what was the point? It smacked in the face of "This is why we need merit pay to me" Really is the point to show we have some good teachers and some bad. Like we all didn't know that. Second, did the article examine the tests given? In GA they had to throw the standardized social studies tests for 6th and 7th graders for 3 years in a row because they couldn't get the tests to align to the standards. Third, if they are going to publish how well I did as a teacher, they better publish the kids scores. Maybe there is a pattern of crappy kids to scores. Last year I taught 4 classes. In three of those classes, my scores averaged around 70% passing. In the fourth class, the average was 35%. That was because the kids in that class just didn't care. How reliable is the data now?
That article was a joke.
I just became a teacher 20 years after graduating from engineering school . Why did I go into engineering instead of teaching? #1) my counselors told me teaching was a glutted field and I'd never find work #2) my counselors advised that I could always go back and get a teaching certificate after getting my engineering degree but I would not be able to go back and get an engineering degree after getting a teaching degree. They were right on both counts. Unfortunately, it's still a glutted field. I'm one of the lucky ones. I just landed a job in a great district.
Teaching was my first choice but my aptitude tests were much higher than the average teacher. In hindsight, I'm glad I did it in the order I did. I think I bring a lot to the classroom having been in engineering for so many years. And then there's the fact that I many years of great wages to lay a good foundation but that's not the reason I chose engineering over teaching. It's just much easier to become a teacher after having been an engineer than become an engineer after having been a teacher. I picked the path that hedged my bets.
One big problem I see in teaching is, to a large extent, it's on the job training and we're being self trained. In the past two years, there have been few observations of my classroom, little feedback as to what was/was not effective and nothing to measure my success/failure by other than student evaluations at the end of the year...
I don't understand this. You're right in your statement that in private industry, an employee is regularly evaluated. In this article what struck me was the response to the students from each teacher. John Smith, who had been teaching for 14 years (14 years!) never learned a different way to respond to his student than "not so much" when the student incorrectly divided a fraction? And he stated this aloud to the entire classroom. I am not clear on what brought this man to the teaching profession. It's no wonder his students consistently fell behind. What's appalling is that this was allowed to happen beyond his first year of teaching.
I don't understand this. You're right in your statement that in private industry, an employee is regularly evaluated. In this article what struck me was the response to the students from each teacher. John Smith, who had been teaching for 14 years (14 years!) never learned a different way to respond to his student than "not so much" when the student incorrectly divided a fraction? And he stated this aloud to the entire classroom. I am not clear on what brought this man to the teaching profession. It's no wonder his students consistently fell behind. What's appalling is that this was allowed to happen beyond his first year of teaching.
If you want my opinion, teachers don't help each other enough. When I met with the exiting teacher for the position I'm starting next month, she showed me the room and handed me the keys. When I asked what her favorite labs and demos were, I got silence. I was hoping to have a master teacher pass down some of her best activities but all I got was a tour of the room. I did get some classroom management tips that were good though.
Seriously, if you teach better than me, I WANT to watch you teach. I want to see what you do that I don't. I want you to watch me teach and tell me what I'm doing right/wrong. If I don't see anything different....if I don't get feedback....I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing as long as I"m having some success at it.. I might not ever realize that there is another way that's better. It kind of irks me that it's trial and error (more error than not) for most of us. There are master teachers out there who should be working with incoming teachers and not just after school.
I will take an engineers approach to teaching. I will keep what worked this year (knowing there are degrees of "working") and fix what didn't. Once I have a whole year of material that works, I'll look at the degrees to which things work and start working on the ones that, maybe, don't work so well. However, it will be me making this assessment and there's a problem in that. I really think new teachers should be, regularly, videotaped and have to attend meetings where they and their mentors critique each other. We treat the teacher like she's the boss of the room when she should start as an apprentice.
IMO, master teachers should have multiple preps just so they can work with newer teachers. In industry, a new engineer is assigned to both a supervisor and a mentoring engineer. Both the supervisor and the mentoring engineer work with that engineer to develop them into the best engineer they can be. This includes on the job training and sending them out for training as need be as well as critiquing their work. I was an apprentice for over two years (you're supposed to be one for three to three and a half years but I was a bit older when I graduated so I was deemed ready to be cut loose a little sooner than my peers).
Engineers don't jump into industry and reinvent the wheel. First they learn how things have been done in the past and do it that way. Then, when they have some experience, they start working on improvements. It seems teacher training programs skip the first part here. When I've asked other teachers how they do things, they clam up and tell me I'll have my own way of doing things. Yeah, I will but I have no idea what to compare it to. So I'll spend years reading books on classroom management, developing and tweaking procedures and practices and never know how I compare to the teacher next door.
It's like it's taboo to compare yourself to other teachers and taboo to critique another teacher. IMO, this does not lead to the best teachers. I want a mentor who comes into my room and watches me teach. I want the feedback.
The people who need to be lambasted in education are not the line level staff; they are the management personell who make the big bucks. In a district where the average teacher salary is $50K, the average administrator salary is usually around $100K and the two or three top dogs make upwards of $130-150K. Few people seem to complain about this. And this is especially disheartening as these people are the ones who determine how successful the school actually is.
Salaries aside, I thought principals were involved in helping ineffective teachers do a better job but possibly in some districts they're not. It's unclear why some districts have mentor teachers when others do not. What about training seminars, etc? And in most schools, it would seem teachers of same subjects or same grade levels would work together to evaluate lesson plans or give each other pointers.
I agree with you that most college teaching programs probably don't prepare teachers for the job.
the article...What a joke. First, what was the point? It smacked in the face of "This is why we need merit pay to me" Really is the point to show we have some good teachers and some bad. Like we all didn't know that.
I disagree. With teacher's salaries rising and increasing numbers of skilled jobs requiring post-graduate degrees, more and more people are choosing teaching merely because it offers a better salary than the alternatives. These people do not make good teachers, because they do not go into teaching out of any love for the principles and rewards of education. They become assembly line workers who don't care about the quality of the widgets as long as there is a paycheck on Friday. Often, they don't even have any love for the subject they teach. "Can you teach history, too?" "Sure, why not."
These are the bad teachers, and their numbers are increasing, and no amount of training will make them any better.
Your disagreement is based on what? You're saying that teaching is not something that people can be trained to do well? You're saying that there are no scientifically researched methodologies that have been shown to work effectively no matter who is teaching them?
You're saying that school districts cannot manage their teachers and keep them focused on scinetifically based principles of pedagogy developed from consistent research into exactly how humans learn?
If you say that, then you simply haven't kept up. What you are saying may have been true in 1978, 32 years ago when such methodologies were not developed. It is no longer true today.
Your view is hopelessly behind the times, and unfortunately so are many people's view. Just as most subjects from medicine to Biology to physics to psychology, things have changed dramatically over the past 30 years.
You're saying that there are no scientifically researched methodologies that have been shown to work effectively no matter who is teaching them?
You're saying that school districts cannot manage their teachers and keep them focused on scinetifically based principles of pedagogy developed from consistent research into exactly how humans learn?
Your disagreement is based on what? You're saying that teaching is not something that people can be trained to do well? You're saying that there are no scientifically researched methodologies that have been shown to work effectively no matter who is teaching them?
You're saying that school districts cannot manage their teachers and keep them focused on scinetifically based principles of pedagogy developed from consistent research into exactly how humans learn?
If you say that, then you simply haven't kept up. What you are saying may have been true in 1978, 32 years ago when such methodologies were not developed. It is no longer true today.
Your view is hopelessly behind the times, and unfortunately so are many people's view. Just as most subjects from medicine to Biology to physics to psychology, things have changed dramatically over the past 30 years.
I disagree. But this time I'm not going to waste my time explaining to you why I disagree, because you won't read my explanation. I did not say any of the things you said I said. Please try to learn to read with comprehension.
For the benefit of other readers, I'll add this. Your "scientific methodology" is not a substitute for dedicated and motivated teachers who want to excel out of love for teaching and education. Your "flow chart mentality" is the problem, not the solution. Yes, any teacher can learn to salivate when the bell is rung, but that is not quality teaching.
Most harmful of all is the belief that all humans learn in "exactly" (your word) the same way, a false idol that you seem to fervently worship.
Last edited by jtur88; 08-17-2010 at 07:55 AM..
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. Why did I go into engineering instead of teaching? #1) my counselors told me teaching was a glutted field and I'd never find work #2) my counselors advised that I could always go back and get a teaching certificate after getting my engineering degree but I would not be able to go back and get an engineering degree after getting a teaching degree. They were right on both counts. Unfortunately, it's still a glutted field. I'm one of the lucky ones. I just landed a job in a great district. 
but that's not the reason I chose engineering over teaching. It's just much easier to become a teacher after having been an engineer than become an engineer after having been a teacher. I picked the path that hedged my bets.
