| | A friend and I recently got into a discussion / argument recently over education reform. It all started when I scoffed at the fact that prospective grade school teachers who lacked a degree specifically in "education" needed to take an three extra semesters of education (get a Masters).
My argument was that if person A went to undergraduate school B, a respected, accredited American university and did reasonably well but majored in something than education, then that person should be not have to borrow more money just to attend another year and a half to two years of school to get the necessary qualifications to teach. The current requirements are in many ways, too burdensome. Not to rely on anecdotes, but, I have multiple friends who excelled in undergrad, got honors, wrote theses, etc. who wanted to become teachers but cannot (at least not immediately) because of the hoops and hurdles involved in entering the system. At least one will not become a teacher any time in the near future because of them. To be sure, I'm not in favor of a simple standardized test that tests nothing but your ability to take that test. But, I think that an alternative combination of a test and a shorter more affordable certificate program possibly coupled with an evaluation period or apprenticeship may be sufficient. (Teach For America aside) | | | I'm very interested in input, even if its slight. Please take apart and eviscerate my argument. | |
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> | -- MatthewZorn - 07 Feb 2010 | | |
Hey Matt -- interesting discussion, here's my input: | | | On your other argument, I agree that too many people are attending college, given the number of students who are dropping out or who are merely floating through the system. This documentary provides an interesting snapshot of the problem (which is also on Netflix instant play if you're interested): http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/show-synopsis.html.
-- EricaSelig - 07 Feb 2010 | |
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< | -- MatthewZorn - 07 Feb 2010 | >
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I saw two major threads/points in the OP, 1) Reforming the elementary/secondary education system so that more kids are getting a quality education, 2) Reforming the post-secondary education system so that it is more efficient, in the sense that the money spent is going towards learning the skills necessary to get a monetary return on your investment. Obviously, these threads are intertwined, for example, if students come out of high school unable to do basic mathematics, they are going to be at a disadvantage when they try to get into an engineering program. I'll respond to the first section.
Teaching involves more than knowledge of the material. Classroom management, understanding of the child's psyche, diplomacy, the drive to help children (sometimes in the face of enormous resistance from the community/parents), and the ability to develop an engaging curriculum are, in my mind, much more important than a thorough understanding of the material, except for the most advanced classes in the later years of school or technical/trade classes. These are skills you cannot learn by just getting a history, English, math, or science bachelor's degree. When it comes to elementary/junior high education, I would much rather have a teacher with excellent classroom management skills who graduated middle of the class at a state school than a teacher with average management skills who received a 4.0 from Harvard. I am not familiar with UG/Graduate education programs but they should be teaching child/teen psychology, communications/public speaking (including non-verbal communication which young children respond to much more), political science (to understand how decisions about budgeting get made), sociology, history of education, etc. etc. Failing that, we would need a lengthy apprenticeship program, which would place more of the burden on schools and may not produce effective results in all cases. Would people want to spend two or three years figuring out if they had the skills to control a classroom of 30-40 children?
I had a math teacher in high school who was probably the most brilliant person on the faculty. He worked for years in the private sector and held a number of patents. He'd quit his job after he made enough money and took a teaching position so he could have summers off and travel around the country on his bike. He did crazy stuff like try and get on game shows, and was generally (I thought) an interesting person. The first class I had with him was Trig, and the class was a madhouse. The problem was that his classroom management was awful. He let the students walk all over him. Years in the private sector made him accustomed to a certain level of professionalism that just didn't exist at a large public high school. Additionally, he confided that he was frustrated at the constant politicking involved in every aspect of the school life (we had a school system that approved budgets based on an anachronistic city-wide popular vote). I took Stats with him the next year, and class was marginally better, however, his teaching style seemed better suited for a college level course for students majoring in the material than an intro course for HS students.
The problem is not to produce either excellent or average teachers but to figure out what the "excellent" teachers are doing right and design a program to get the average teachers to adopt those methods, or encourage more people with the skills and drive of the excellent teachers to go into teaching. We also need to remove political and bureaucratic barriers to successful innovations as the Jaime Escalante case illustrates.
In regards to teacher pay, this is something that needs to literally be evaluated on a district by district basis. Some districts have high pay but still poor results, including NYC. When you get out to the suburbs where property taxes determine the money available for the school system, you are going to find differences based on income. In my home state of MA, the public school systems with the highest average SAT scores are the Boston commuter suburbs with the wealthiest people. I've heard the argument that more accomplished people = smarter people = smarter kids, but that seems to me like wood-paneled smoking room rhetoric. It would be interesting to find a study that looked at the SAT scores of lower-income kids in wealthier communities to see if they are higher because of the improved facilities/better paid teachers.
-- JonathanWaisnor - 08 Feb 2010
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