Get Schooled

By Jennifer

August 4, 2005 04:17 PM | Link to this

My college coursework absolutely did NOT prepare me for a career in education.

I trained to be a secondary education teacher, so I majored in English and had a concentration in Education, which is the correct procedure for the school. However, my English courses were just that—studies of literature. They did not teach me what I needed to know in order to have the subject knowledge required to instruct high schoolers.

Not only that, but the Education classes were an absolute waste of my time. We took 10 credit hours of classes, rangind from classroom management to special needs students, in the 5 weeks preceeding my 10-week student teaching experience! What a waste! There’s absolutely NO way that I could read all of those texts, digest the material, and be ready to apply it in a school setting in that short of an amount of time. Plus, my professors did not have the time that they needed to ensure that we fully understood the material.

To make matters worse, I student taught at a 4x4 block schedule high school in rural VA. Since the kids only had English for one semester, my supervising teacher was not comfortable giving me control over the class for the 10 weeks, which was essentially 20 weeks worth of instruction. So, I was bounced between 4 or 5 teachers at the school, teaching 2-3 week lessons. I never got a chance to truly learn classroom management, since I was never with a group of children for longer than a couple of weeks.

I think that the student-teaching aspect of the degee requirements needs to change to require students to work with a teacher for a full semester, if not a year. We need to see how teachers plan for the year, establish & maintain control, etc. I got a snapshot in 10 weeks, but I’d rather have gotten the big picture.

By T. Barrett

August 4, 2005 04:18 PM | Link to this

The ideal situation/process would be for prospective teachers to get a 4-year undergraduate degree in a major of their choice (not education!…prospective high school teachers would major in something related to the subject level, other teachers would choose, hopefully something general and broad) and then all education/pedagogical training would happen for 1.5 - 2 years at the post-graduate level. Teachers would get a Masters degree in Education. This would allow for all prospective teachers to have a firm background in an area other than education, and then would allow true pedagogical training would to happen at a much higher level. Prospective teachers would be more well-rounded and more mature.

Many education experts are advocating for this.

By Zabud

August 4, 2005 04:53 PM | Link to this

T. Barrett’s suggestion about restructuring the teacher education program is right on targer. In the “ideal situation” scenario, I would add an additional year of teacher internship, plus two years of “residency” status. After that the survivors would be allowed to enter the regular teaching pool at a beginning salary of $100,000 per year. Too radical? Then, we are not really serious about truly improving the quality of teaching, are we?

By Eric

August 4, 2005 04:53 PM | Link to this

So Patty Ghezzi…you’d like to here (sic) from teachers, huh? Your (sic) probably the type that thinks your pretty smart. You probably are. However, you didn’t display your intelligence in your comments above. I believe that it is not only the responsibility of teachers and parents to lead by example. I think all members of society, especially those with any kind of voice or distribution (i.e. journalists), should lead by example and hold society to a certain standard. That standard includes basic grammar. That standard means taking your work seriously and not turning in a hastily typed up editorial because you stayed out too late drinking. I’m not at all against drinking, but I am in the fight against laziness, apathy, and ignorance.
Let’s make a deal: You take five minutes to proofread your next composition, and I’ll take five minutes not judging you so quickly.

By Jennifer

August 4, 2005 05:08 PM | Link to this

Eric,

Don’t be a jerk. It’s called a typo. Ever made one?

And just for the record, this is not the print version of the op-ed section of the newspaper; it’s a blog. She did not post an opinion piece, she merely asked several questions to get the conversation started. There’s no need to get nasty about a simple typo. Now, back to the point: Do you have anything that you wish to add about teacher prep. programs?

Jennifer

By Jennifer

August 5, 2005 08:08 AM | Link to this

Eric,

One other thing: You obviously are not above reproach when it comes to typos since you can’t even spell her name correctly. Either contribute to the conversation at hand or leave.

By Tara

August 5, 2005 09:22 AM | Link to this

I disagree that more schooling is necessary. It is unrealistic to expect someone to go further into debt and spend an additional year in school, only to make a low salary upon graduation.

I earned a B.S. in elementary education and felt 100% prepared to enter a classroom. I was required to take nearly 60 hours of coursework including classroom managmenet and subject matter expertise. My program required me to complete classroom experiences from the first semester. By the time I reached student teaching I had already spent the equivalent of 2 months in a classroom teaching lessons, tutoring, and observing.

Colleges of education should not be expected to prepare master teachers. It takes at least 2-3 years of actual teaching to move from survival teaching to master teaching skills. Colleges of education instill the basic teaching skills a new teacher needs to survive in a classroom. Instead of increasing teacher preparation requirements we should be spending more resources on new teacher professional development and mentoring to ensure that they progress from basic teaching skills to becoming master teachers.

By kaa

August 5, 2005 09:22 AM | Link to this

I agree that teacher education should be revamped. After graduating from college with a degree in mathematics, I completed a Master’s of Arts and Certification program at the Univ. of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The absolute best part of the program is that I student taught for an entire school year. From Sept. to Dec. three days a week and then from Jan. to June five days a week. I was given a total teacher experience instead of performing a dog and pony show for 8 to 10 weeks. Student teaching should be more than learning how to write pretty lesson plans and teaching one or two units.

Of the subject: If you have never been a teacher:

DO NOT BASH TEACHERS. If you have a problem with particular teachers, call them out by name and voice your concern. Do not lump all teachers together. That’s called stereotyping.

DO NOT get jealous because teachers get the summers off. Teachers did not make up the school calendar. Don’t hate the player hate the game.

This blog is so harmful to eduacation and hurtful to teachers.

By Syrupmaker

August 5, 2005 10:06 AM | Link to this

Career and Technical Education teachers (you might remember us as Vocational) are usually a little different in our backgrounds. Most of us come into education from industry. Georgia has a wonderful program that takes skilled workers and gives them 6 weeks of intensive training in classroom management, lesson planning, etc. and follows up with a year of mentoring by a veteran teacher. Valdosta State University is particularly good at this preparation.

Because we are preparing our students with job entry level skills, it is imperative that we have “experts” in the training areas. The New Teacher Institute really does give them the nuts and bolts of taking what they know how to do and turning it into lessons for high school students. We have 3 heavy shop teachers right now who not only successfully made the transition from industry to education but have really connected with the students and are doing a marvelous job.

And about us having summers off…we are employed (and paid) for 190 days each year. Holidays and summers are not paid vacations as our 190 salaries are simply divided up into 12 months instead of 10. I spend my summers in workshops, staff development classes, and back to industry skills updates.

What do you do with YOUR vacations?

By Carter

August 5, 2005 10:23 AM | Link to this

Tara I don’t understand why you think colleges/universities are not responsible for preparing teachers? That’s exactly what they are being paid to do. And allowing teacher’s a grace period to move from “survival” teaching to “master” teachers not only harms students but it gives the impression that survival teaching is ok. Thats why so many teachers are complacent and never become master teachers. A story about a new teacher: In my eighth grade class we had a brand new teacher. She was sweet and she was eager and she wanted everyone to like her. We hated her. She had no clue what she was doing. She came to school expecting one thing and instead got a handful of rambunctios, eager, almost-high-school students. The said part is, this was a “gifted” classroom. We actually wanted to learn. I dont remember a single thing from that class, but I have a project that I kept in the back of another project to prove a point. The first project was something I worked very hard on to receive the grade I got while the second one was something I’m now embarrassed to look at… I got the same grade on both. The fact is new teachers have it rough. That is why colleges should better prepare them for the harsh reality of the classroom. You can’t send an unexperienced young adult into a classroom and expect them to earn respect, teach a valuable lesson, maintain order or anything else short of babysitting.

By Syrupmaker

August 5, 2005 11:37 AM | Link to this

Oops! I meant to say “Our 190 DAY salaries….” Sorry for the error.

By Christy

August 5, 2005 12:15 PM | Link to this

I am going the “non-traditional” route. I graduated from UGA with a dual degree in Psychology and Criminal Justice with the intent to go to law school. However, I just couldn’t get away from my lifelong desire to work with children. I am now getting my masters degree in Early Childhood Education online because there are very few grad schools who will even allow you to get a masters in education without a batchelors degree in eduation, for elementary ed anyway. Over the course of my degree I will be required to do 100 hours of “observation” and 10 weeks of student teaching. I am unsure how prepared I will feel at the end of it all, but I do feel that the course material is incredibly relevant and that we are really learning a lot about how children learn and the best techniques for teaching them. We are also learning a lot about recent trends in education such as the changing demographics of some of our local areas and how these issues will affect our schools both now and in the future.

By Tara

August 5, 2005 01:09 PM | Link to this

Carter

My comments were directed at the first entries clamining that masters should be required. I do think colleges are responsible for preparing teachers, I merely said that more course work doesn’t mean that teachers are going to be more prepared. There is only so much preparation and observation that a person can undergo, before it becomes redundant. I believe that most teacher preparation programs adequately prepare teachers. You cannot possibly expect a new teachers to be prepared to handle every single situation. Therefore teacher prepapartion programs like the one I went through gave me lots of tools. It was my job to find the ones that worked best for me and for the school setting I was in. Only real world experience will teach you the rest.

By Ty

August 5, 2005 01:37 PM | Link to this

I went to college at Georgia College and State University. The program was very tough, but it really prepared me for the field of education. I was in a Physical Therapy career education field previous to being in education and I found that my education program was more difficult, but I was definitely prepared when I finished the education cohort. My professional training experience was with a thirty year veteran teacher. It was a fourteen week trial that was extremely tough, but in the end I was ready. It wasn’t easy but I was definitely ready for the exhaustive world of education.

By Pullie

August 5, 2005 02:04 PM | Link to this

I agree that four years of school are adequate for anyone who is to teach someone with no education at all in the subject matter.

Let’s be realistic. We go to 12 years of school taking math, history, enlish, Etc. So we do not enter into college with no grasp of the subject matter. Then we go to college for four more. How can anyone, after 16 years in school not be prepared to teach a 10 year old? Please, someone respond to that suggestion.

Starting in the 11th grade I tutored 9 and 10th graders in Algebra and basic math. And I will admit I am just average when it comes to brains.

To you teachers out there….if you could design a classroom from the ground up…or a school….how would you do it? Aren’t most all schools designed and operated by teachers?

By Steven

August 5, 2005 02:29 PM | Link to this

“I am now getting my masters degree in Early Childhood Education online because there are very few grad schools who will even allow you to get a masters in education without a batchelors degree in eduation, for elementary ed anyway.”

And that my friends is why our schools are messed up…because idiots are running the show. Here is a women who graduated from a very tough school with a dual degree…yet, after fours years of study she is not “worthy” of teaching “children”. The best math teacher I had was a retired army guy with no teaching experience at all.

None of my teachers….we did not have “professors”….whom I took all my Engineering classes from had any formal training as a teacher. But boy, did they know their stuff.

By GW

August 5, 2005 02:38 PM | Link to this

Regardless of the type of training and degrees one has, teaching is more of an art than a science. That makes it difficult to quantify. It all depends upon the person. Training in psychology may be the best bet for dealing with today’s students.

By David

August 5, 2005 03:41 PM | Link to this

Unfortunately the way colleges of education are set up, they can do little to prepare teachers for the real world. Most college professors have very little experience in “real-world classrooms. The requirements for hiring are that the person must have a “terminal” degree. In other words, they must have a Ph. D. Most education Ph. D’s get their degrees in their mid 30’s and then go right to a university to start being a professor. Their total experience in the “real world” consists of 3 to 5 years. I won’t mention the name of the college, but the one I graduated from had only one professor in the science education department with any significant public school experience, and he was a classroom teacher for three years in a public middle school in the Research Triangle area. He taught engineer’s children. Boy, that’s tough work(sarcasm intended).

I’m tempted to say that there should be a requirement of teaching at the public school level for a minimum of 10 years before a person could be hired by a university/college as an instructor. Additionally, I’d also like to require them to have children of their own before instructing anyone on how to educate a child. I would waive the “terminal” degree requirements for the experience level. I would rather have a person instructing the next generation of teachers who had experience in teaching than a person who had an advanced degree but had little experience.

I know. I don’t live in the real world either, sigh. It’s only kids, who really cares? It’s not like it’s important, eh?

By Jim

August 5, 2005 04:15 PM | Link to this

I have a BBA and worked in the business world for 12 years before getting into education. I had to take enough content courses to be qualified to teach secondary math. Those courses were fine and met the course needs of what I would be teaching.

After I obtained by teaching certificate, I went back to school and obtained my Masters in Secondary Education and my Ed. Spec. degree in Administration. I would say the vast majority of the classes I took were a waste of time. Those dealing with math were pertinent, but the education courses were not helpful. Never did I once take any course that helped me learn how to deal with a disruptive student, a non-responsive student, nor a beligerent student. Psychology classes are fine, in theory, but how does one actually put those theories to use? That is what needs to be taught.

I have talked to new teachers over the years and they express the same thing. I know of teachers that obtained their college degrees but quit after only one year because they did not like it at all. They all said that they were totally unprepared for what they experienced when they were finally left alone with a classroom full of students.

I don’t know the answer, but teachers need to be taught how to do EVERYTHING that will be expected of them once they are ALONE with a classroom full of students.

P.S. There may some grammatical or spelling errors here, but please don’t be too harsh.

By T. Barrett

August 5, 2005 04:28 PM | Link to this

More…

In addition to pedagogical training happening at the post-graduate level, prospective teachers would be required to student-teach for an entire year. One-half of the year can be three days a week or half-days; the other half of the year full-time, everyday.

The next initiative (in addition to the post-graduate training and a year of student-teaching) can be to require an apprenticeship (paid!)with a master/mentor teacher for a year or so before a prospective teacher becomes a full-certified teacher (we can talk about this initiative several years down the road!).

By Gary Furman

August 5, 2005 04:31 PM | Link to this

I am a public high school teacher who is very opposed to the early August start date for students. The rationale for this is that students will perform better on standardized tests and final exams. This overblown theory assumes that, like college students, high school kids will actually “study” for these tests. 99.999% of high schoolers do not study a lick for any Final Exams or End of Course tests, because by the time the tests are given the kids are burned out by school, or feel overwhelmed by the volume of material or the time that has gone by. Even college students (whose semesters are 14 weeks, not 18 weeks like high school) are often overwhelmed. The exception to this are your tiny percent of top students who actually study for ACTs and SATs so they can enter the most prestigious colleges. By far, the overwhelming criterion for scoring well on tests is the quality of the parents and the socioeconomic status of the child. The “education crisis” is not a crisis created by schools, which have better-than-ever teachers, but a social crisis, in which half of the kids have single parents, many have drug-using or criminal parents, and come from homes where respect for adults and a good work ethic are absent. My generation, baby boomers, did just fine by starting school after Labor Day, and continuing through around June 6 or so. (and we still had a week off at Christmas and at spring break!!!!) We need to return August to families, and save money on air conditioning in cash-strapped schools. We need to reduce the Christmas break to one week (most of the “ski and caribbean” crowd sends their kids to private schools anyway!!) and get rid of other holidays during the school year. Also, many teens are hired by summer vacation and tourism businesses, which mandate employee availability from mid-June through Labor Day. Kids can earn for college and obtain job skills.

By Bob

August 8, 2005 02:49 PM | Link to this

Lets get real. What other profession gets to claim “tenure”. What a bunch of pompous arrogant people…(College Professors)

By Dan

August 8, 2005 03:43 PM | Link to this

I am not sure what the school year was like here 30 years ago but in the northeast it essentially ended around the last week of June and started after labor day so july and august were vacation months. Here and now they have June and July as vaca months Now what the reasoning is who knows and the AC argument seems somewhat valid but the alternative is to spend it in June instead, but it is basically the same amount of school.
99.9% of kids don’t study for finals?? Then your tests are too easy or they hate the class enough to just blow it off. Now if they are not studying why are they burned out?
Tests, particularly when you don’t care enough to study, are a breeze. College kids overwhelmed? Nonsense it has become common place to take 12 credits and not work. It is like vacation compared to 20 years ago when 15-18 credits plus a work study job or waiting tables was more normal (and you still had time to party) and if the most important criterion for success is parent quality and “socioeconomic” status, and actually achievement would be a more proper if not politically correct word than status (these two traits are not mutually exclusive btw) Then why bother trying to teach them at all Just hire babysitters and let the chips fall where they may.

By SEE

August 9, 2005 04:35 PM | Link to this

My wife has a masters in psychology and had to get a masters in education to become a school guidance counselor. She was dreading the required statistics class. She barely got a C in stats when she took it for her psych masters program. She got an easy A in the education version of the same class. They never did one calculation the whole semester. All they were required to do on tests was explain what statistical method would be used to solve a problem. She couldn’t believe how dumbed down the content was.

By Gary

August 10, 2005 01:31 PM | Link to this

To follow up the comments by Dan:

These are good responses. It sounds like you grew up a lot like me, really busting your butt. However I maintain that most high schoolers do not study for final exams, and I bet most teachers reading this will agree. It is not that teachers are “too easy”. This assumes that grades motivate kids. If you are not a teacher, you would be shocked at how little grades mean to a huge number of students. It is a question of what really matters to kids. Those of us who give final exams that are representative of the semester’s work see that students do much more poorly on these than on more short-term assignments or tests. The main reason is that the kids lack the discipline to go home, take an hour a day for a week prior to the exam, and review the information. After spring break, and , increasingly into May, teens go on “mental vacation”. This is the rule, rather than the exception, especially in areas where the local culture does not place emphasis on education. No teacher can instill work ethic and the value of education as well as parents can. Of course, teachers make a difference; but the foundation the students bring with them to school from home has been proven to be the single most important factor in achievement.