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Unlike professions like law and medicine, there is no consensus in how teachers are trained in the US. There are undergraduate programs, masters in teaching programs, combined 5-year undergrad/masters in teaching, alternative certification, etc. Many say there should be more training in academic subjects and less in the "art and science of teaching."
In Finland, an educational leader, teachers get master's degrees, with secondary teachers getting them in subjects such as history or chemistry, and elementary teachers taking masters programs that include child development, etc.?
No, teachers need to be content experts in addition to teachers. The teaching portion of our degrees is mostly common. Only my math and science methods courses were unique to my content.
Sorry, maybe that was unclear. What I meant by a common path is subject mastery + one specific post-graduate degree akin to say a first professional degree like the J.D., MLS, etc. I most certainly didn't mean they should JUST have a teaching degree.
You do know, of course, that most states in the US require the attainment of a Master's or equivalent within a set number of years after initial employment as a teacher? The length of time can be as few as 3 years to as many as 10.
I "enjoyed" your "just a teaching degree" comment. What, pray tell, is your degree status?
Unlike professions like law and medicine, there is no consensus in how teachers are trained in the US. There are undergraduate programs, masters in teaching programs, combined 5-year undergrad/masters in teaching, alternative certification, etc. Many say there should be more training in academic subjects and less in the "art and science of teaching."
In Finland, an educational leader, teachers get master's degrees, with secondary teachers getting them in subjects such as history or chemistry, and elementary teachers taking masters programs that include child development, etc.?
Discuss...
I'm not from Finland, I'm from the U.S., and in the state where I got my bachelor's degree and concurrent secondary education certification, part of becoming a middle/high school teacher was having a major in the content area you intended to teach. So I don't "just" have a teaching degree, I have a degree in my content area.
Let's frame it another way: there are no undergraduate professional programs in law and library science (OK there are some "legal studies" type undergrad degrees but they don't make lawyers). Many elementary teachers have stand alone bachelor's degrees, while many secondary teachers "double major" in secondary ed and their subject. Arthur Levine talks about what he calls the "Wild West" of teacher training:
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Teaching lacks a common first professional degree; students can earn a host of degrees and certificates. Nor do prospective teachers have a uniform length of study. A teacher preparation program may take one year or two, four years or even five—unless it is a campus-based alternative certification program, in which case any length is possible. Programs are offered at the undergraduate level, the graduate level, or both. Across programs, there is a chasm between theory and practice, and limited fieldwork leaves many students unable to handle the realities of the classroom.
Of course, conservatives and even a lot of liberals think the "solution" is union-bashing, more testing, charter schools, etc. and stuff like TFA where the idea is to throw a bunch of 23-year-olds with Ivy League degrees who see teaching as a stint to put on the resume before heading to law school. I do not back such schemes as these "reformers" don't seem to respect professional autonomy much and have a paucity of evidence to support their success.
Last edited by King of Kensington; 08-26-2013 at 06:18 PM..
Sorry, maybe that was unclear. What I meant by a common path is subject mastery + one specific post-graduate degree akin to say a first professional degree like the J.D., MLS, etc. I most certainly didn't mean they should JUST have a teaching degree.
That depends on whether you want to make it useful. Honestly, with a few of the better seminars I have attended since becoming a teacher, I'd be a better teacher today if I'd apprenticed with a good teacher for a year and then took over my own class. My degree did not prepare me to teach and neither did 15 weeks of student teaching.
In this video day and age, I should have had to have watched 200 hours of teaching in my content area complete with teachers dealing with common classroom issues before I apprenticed. Apprenticing is being coached by a master and given responsibility a bit at a time until you're ready to take off on your own. Student teaching was 1 week of me watching my supervising teacher followed by 1 week of her watching me followed by 12 weeks of me in the classroom pretty much by myself. The week before the last she started taking back over and the last week I spent watching other teachers. In her defense, sink or swim seems to be the most common way to "train" a teacher.
I think teachers need an internship/apprenticeship with someone whose job it is to train teachers. I'm sure my supervising teacher thought she was doing me a favor by forcing me to just do it but I came there to learn. It seems to me that every teacher reinvents the wheel. If industry ran this way, we'd never build anything. In industry, you learn from the masters. You start where they left off. They hand you best practices. That was TOTALLY missing from my teacher education.
I'm still struggling with discipline with resistant students. I would LOVE for someone to say, "These are the things that have worked for me." It's as if it's taboo to give away what you know as a teacher. I go to seminars given by ex teachers and I pick up things but it will take me years to get to where I should have been after a good internship.
I find it interesting that I was still in training 3 years after graduating with my engineering degree but as a teacher, I was handed the keys to my room and told to go teach as if I already knew the job. The education was useless. What's missing is training.
Let's frame it another way: there are no undergraduateprofessional programs in law and library science (OK there are some "legal studies" type undergrad degrees but they don't make lawyers). Many elementary teachers have stand alone bachelor's degrees, while many secondary teachers "double major" in secondary ed and their subject..........
The bolded is pretty much, well totally, incorrect.
Also your vocabulary is off. Teachers don't typically have a double major in a subject area and Education. They are part and parcel infused, merged, whatever, in the degree.
What Ed majors do have to do is complete at least a smester of Student Teaching in a school setting. Many have also had to, since at least 40 years ago when I got my degree, teach in a lab school type setting (it varies) prior to Student Teaching.
The bolded is pretty much, well totally, incorrect.
Also your vocabulary is off. Teachers don't typically have a double major in a subject area and Education. They are part and parcel infused, merged, whatever, in the degree.
Mine wasn't considered a double major (although it took the same number of courses as a double major), nor was it merged... it was considered a major and a 2.5 year certification program, taken concurrently. You had to declare your intent to seek teaching certification by second semester your sophomore year, or you wouldn't finish the required certification program coursework in time.
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What Ed majors do have to do is complete at least a smester of Student Teaching in a school setting. Many have also had to, since at least 40 years ago when I got my degree, teach in a lab school type setting (it varies) prior to Student Teaching.
Mine (late 90s) involved a four-week pre-student teaching practicum experience that was more of a job shadow than student teaching...observing a teacher in your content area, and performing teaching assistant duties, versus planning and teaching your own courses. Then was student teaching, the final semester, full time practicum. No other courses. In the 2.5 years of the certification program, you also had to amass a certain number of volunteer hours working with students in several different settings. I did a Saturday morning creative writing program for high-risk ESL migrant students, did a weekly gig reading to a kindergarten class, and tutored at an alternative school.
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