Who is your child’s teacher? Do you have a fully prepared, appropriately credentialed teacher, or do you have a fast-tracker, a person who didn’t learn much about children, who maybe knows a subject, but essentially nothing about how children learn? Is your child’s teacher more concerned about raising test scores and collecting data than how to bring out your child’s best personal qualities?
Teaching, real teaching, is both an art and a science. To be a great teacher, you need to spend more time learning than a five week boot camp where you hear about test-taking and are bombarded with pep talks. It takes more than a year to learn how to be a good teacher too.
Colleges of Education, and those who attend them, have been criticized. Some of these schools rightly needed to improve, and others have been drained of funding, like our public schools, turned into shells of an institution. But these schools fulfilled an important purpose in the past. There were good teacher schools. I know. I attended three of them.
Unfortunately, almost all of these schools have been condemned in recent years. Those who want to privatize public schools, want to make it easy to fire teachers and create a workforce they can control.
We really do need to honestly evaluate teacher ed. programs and make them better. But with Gates and all the other rich business venture philanthropists, less is better. They don’t seem to understand that a critical teaching pedagogy does exist. And, without it, you are just not a teacher, no matter how you pretend.
And having a fast-tracker move onward and upward into a leadership education position is really ridiculous, for they know little about children and their development and education. They have never studied any of the critical information necessary to make informed decisions affecting children and their schools. Sadly, we have a lot of these faux experts today, in high level education positions, doing serious damage to schools and undermining student learning.
Every parent should wonder about the teacher who is teaching their child. Ask your child’s teacher—where did you come from? Just who are you?
Here are some sample questions for your child’s teacher/s:
- Did you earn a teaching degree at an accredited university? Be wary of for-profit colleges and totally online (outside of the real universities) and Teach for America types.
- What are your credentials? If you have a teacher credentialed in chemistry teaching students with autism, be concerned.
- How long did you study teaching? It should be two to three years–and more is a plus.
- Why did you become a teacher? Was it a career choice, or were there no jobs in the person’s chosen field? Did they go on to learn how to be a good teacher?
- Where did you student teach? Student teaching is often overlooked. A teacher should have student taught in a reputable school with a real credentialed teacher supervisor in their area.
- Did you take coursework about, study and get experience with this age group? Teaching middle school is a lot different than teaching kindergarten.
- Do you endorse Common Core State Standards? If you are a parent you need to know this upfront.
- How long do you plan on teaching? Is this teacher planning on teaching for a while, or are they temporary? It really does make a difference.
- Did you take any coursework pertaining to child development and child psychology? Every teacher should understand the developmental and psychological development of the children they work with, or they may mistake perfectly normal behavior as problematic.
- How many courses did you take to learn how to teach reading? To diagnose reading difficulties? This is a critical question for teachers in elementary school.
- How many courses and what experience do you have to specifically teach this subject?
- How did you learn behavior management? What is your disciplinary plan?
- How do you work with mainstreamed students with disabilities? How will these students be included in the classroom? It is important to know that if it is an inclusion situation, the regular ed. teacher has support.
- What is the emergency plan in the classroom in case of fire, earthquake, tornado, etc.? Do you know first aid?
- How will you update me on my student’s progress, problems?
Don’t forget to ask about the class size. If you think it is too large, get together with other parents and complain to the principal and the school board. And do this too, even if your child is in high school. I recently heard of a high school teacher who taught upwards to 200 students!
Ask teachers also whether they are getting needed resources and materials. Ask them what they need in regard to what they are teaching, and, importantly, join the PTA! Parents and teachers working together make the difference in a school. Fighting against harmful reforms doesn’t work without organization and camaraderie.
And, if you are a teacher with a real degree, from a real accredited university, now is the time to get it framed beautifully and hang it on your classroom wall with pride—over your desk for the world to see! If you have a Masters and/or a PhD hang those degrees up too. Don’t make parents ask for the above information. If you are a real teacher, with honest credentials, let parents know who you are.
Real teachers matter—don’t let anyone tell you they don’t!
You obviously come from a particular political mindset that favors institutional monoculture, and considers change to be an enemy. Yes, there are specific well weathered methodologies to teaching at each grade level, and yes these methodologies should be taught in a rigorous manner to those who are entering into an educational career. But the world is changing and the existing school model will simply not work for much longer.
The bone I wish to pick with you most is your picture of online education. It is a naive view that online education is inferior to the traditional university experience. The only thing it lacks the face to face experience. I argue that universities are losing this as well. I also argue that it is harder to cheat with an online curriculum. Sure if all they used was multiple choice, cheating would be possible. But they focus on deliverables and participation more than simple tests. This establishes whether a student understands the material rather than simply knows the facts. The tools that online universities use do make the experience complete and comparable to a University experience. These tools enable a professor to have an intimate relationship with a greater number of students. And the vast majority of providers of online education are accredited.
I did not attend an online university. And in full disclosure, I am not an educator. You would probably argue that I am not qualified to talk on the subject. That is the exact institutional monoculture that I am talking about. I am not qualified to teach students, but I am a smart man. I have known university born teachers that should not be teachers, and I know of teachers that have online educations that know full well what teaching entails. They were completely trained in pedagogy and are skillful, adequate teachers.
You can keep on with your monoculture and blanket criticisms, but I know one thing to be true. Monocultures inevitably become irrelevant, and people who are unwilling to change with the times do as well. I’m not saying that online education is better than brick and mortar universities, but it is a valid and credible form of education.
I am not against some online schooling. In fact, I received credentials to teach gifted by working online through a major university. I found it to be engaging and well-administered, and that was years ago when online coursework was rather unique. The profs., all with backgrounds in teaching gifted students, were terrific!
I think online instruction for children in rural areas and homebound children is a very good thing.
I don’t think the cheating issue is taken care of yet. I believe it will be worked out better someday. Right now the problem that I see is how to verify who is doing the online work.
I have also read where some university professors are concerned about online coursework and the numbers of students they serve.
But do you really think online teaching should replace real teachers in the future?
As a teacher, knowing the wonderful experience of communicating, in person, with students, in good school settings, I would find it very sad to lose that means of instruction.
Are there lousy teachers? Yes. I agree! Are there good online teachers? Yes! The university profs in my gifted work were excellent!
But shouldn’t teachers earn a degree like any other profession? That just seems like such a no-brainer that I have never understood the argument.
Also, when I was teaching, I did not run from the latest information about new technology. I was thrilled when the media specialist and tech rep. provided inservice. I tried everything possible to shore up my student’s skills.
In fact, somewhere I blogged that children should get some coding instruction when they are young. I got criticized for that.
I am amazed by technology. I just don’t think it should replace teachers yet, if ever! My background is special ed. I can’t help but think that.
There is also currently no proof that I can find to show that online learning is better than brick-and-mortar. I will wait for some honest-to-goodness peer reviewed studies. If you find some please share.
But I appreciate your views. There’s a debate here. I know that. I guess I am just not on your side of it.