Apparently, according to this article, "the real problem with education in America" comes down to the lack of adequately qualified teachers.
But if that's the case, the article doesn't really get to the real root of that particular problem. It fails to mention that there is *no* incentive for qualified, interested, and dynamic people -- other than masochistic good intentions -- to become teachers.
The US can hardly expect to attract anything other than borderline competents if they're paid only a living wage (if that).
I wonder who Gibbon thinks is going to shell out to become a member of "a transformed teaching profession: one with demanding entrance requirements and rigorous graduate degrees" if they can't afford that kind of preparation, let alone see it pay off in the long run Graduate degrees? The administrators of Big Tent, of all people, should know what it costs to indenture themselves to a university to earn a graduate degree, particularly while trying to work full-time in a profession that values real hands-on experience above a list of letters following your name.
I speak as a teacher myself, one who is lucky enough to work at a (private) school that *does* pay its teachers relatively well, as well as offer some nice perks. Thus, I know when I have it good. Yet I *still* don't have it good enough that I don't resent people who earn much more than I do for doing far less for society. And I particularly resent those people telling me that teachers should spend more of their own money to do a job that no one else seems to want to do because of its low return.
In many American (and Canadian) public school districts, teachers -- *all* teachers, good or bad -- earn far less than they ought to for preparing the future generations for the world beyond school. Most of them are in this line of work because they want to be; many of them could have earned far more in the private sector with the skills they possess.
As for the idea of merit pay, it's not something I entirely disagree with. But consider the fact that there's little to entice a potential teacher into the profession in the first place, and then consider the obstacles they must face to demonstrate that merit (such that 30 per cent of teachers quit from the strain of burnout in their first five years of teaching), and you run the risk of never seeing the kind of payback that just going in to work every day with a smile on your face ought to earn, under the circumstances.
I also dispute the concept that "knowledge of subject [should] become the highest priority" for a teacher: certainly, teachers should know their subjects, but shouldn't a love of teaching and learning, an ability to communicate, and an inherent interpersonal ability with children and young people be a teacher's priority?
These are the people you want teaching your children. And you want to draw them into the profession with a promise of decent pay, decent working conditions, and decent respect from the public: the kind of pay, conditions, and respect that lawyers, doctors, and politicians currently enjoy.
- Jodi "Maple Sugar" - sister of Mark "Maple Leaf", Big Tent blogger
We’ve reached a point where we expect too much from our schools. Read and listen to the discussions that appear in the media, and you’ll see that schools are blamed for childhood obesity, guns and drugs, not meeting the needs of students with a myriad of physical and psychological problems, and falling test scores. Our society asks schools to parent, but insists that in the process no actual parents’ values and prerogatives get stepped on. AND to do all of this on what turns out to be, considering all that is involved, miniscule budgets.
With all of that in mind, grade level has a great deal to do with whether or not knowledge of subject matter is the most important skill for teachers to possess. In the lower grades, especially, knowledge of children is much more important. In those grades, kids are not just being taught subject matter; they’re being taught to get along with their classmates and how to approach the task of learning. Some of them are not adequately fed; others of them face tremendous obstacles at home. The large binders, which all grade-school teachers have, full of medical and psychological issues, not to mention which child is not allowed to go home with which parent, is frightening and daunting.
And in the upper grades, a culture of “cool” tells many students they should not be interested in school. And society bombards them with all of the “reasons” they should not pay attention to their teachers in the first place. Success, for students and teachers, in such an environment becomes quite difficult.
Do some, in fact many, students and teachers succeed in these circumstances? Yes. How? Well, if we could absolutely know the answer, we would have the problems solved. Part of it involves a great deal of hard work on the part of teachers who don’t get nearly enough respect or remuneration. Part of it DOES involve teachers who are extremely well-grounded in their chosen subject matter. Part of it involves grit and determination on the part of students. Part of it involves families—those students who come from families in which learning is valued (sadly, not true for FAR too many people out there) and in which authority figures (i.e. teachers and administrators) are expected to be shown respect (NOT “anything they say or do is right, but rather, at first, they should get the benefit of the doubt) do much better in school. Until we can figure out a way to address the cultural realities that promote the idea that 1) learning is not valuable unless it leads to an immediate, direct financial reward and 2) teachers are bumbling fools that could not get a job anywhere else and therefore should be challenged at every move, we’re not going to get anywhere in the effort to better educate our youth. I don’t know how we get there. One part of the solution probably does involve finding teachers who have better training. But this is only a part; and getting to that point necessitates addressing a slew of other realities that work against educated people being able to be proud to say, “I teach.”
Thanks for the comments and all, but I'm getting fairly tired of the recycled arguments about not compensating teachers enough. Sorry, I do not buy the argument. First off, teachers generally do not have the educational background to earn the beginning level of respect afforded to physicians, lawyers, those with their doctorates. A four or five year bachelors degree is no where near the equivalent of a MD, JD, or PhD--or even most MAs or MSs.
Second, let's not forget the benefits of being a teacher. With just a bachelors degree, you get a solid paying job with usually good benefits, lots of time off (including the winter holidays always), and the chance to continue participating as a director or coach in extracurricular activities like band, theater, and sports--something that is nearly impossible in any other profession. These activities are voluntary, there is some money involved, and they are almost always done for fun. That is a big deal. And, oh yeah, you get to teach.
I went to a teachers' college, and there were lots and lots of very smart and capable people there who were going into teaching for benefits that extended beyond monetary returns. The problem was that they (we) spent most of their time in college in theory-based education courses that were by and large nothing short of worthless (I'm speaking more to secondary education here--as I think Gibbon was doing--primary school is a different animal). In the meantime, they (we) had to go on and teach subjects about which they (we) had only taken a few, if any, courses. Too much time and money had been spent on the ridiculous education departments for any to be left for the subjects. But that's okay, now a lot of states require that their teachers go and get Master's degrees--in education, where they take the advanced version of those pointless theoretical classes they took as undergrads.
There was an article we linked recently on an ungodly number of teachers in Florida failing a basic skills test on subject matter for teaching. The problem isn't the quality of the people who want to teach--the problem is the preparation those people receive. No one ever looks at Education in Higher Education when they talk about improving the American educational system. Fix that. Raise subject standards for teachers. Force education departments in colleges to back off and allow future teachers to learn what they are teaching. (And, like the second comment pointed out, let the teachers' primary responsibility be to teach that subject.)
Throwing more money at teaching is not going to get better teachers, it is just going to put more money in the pockets of the poorly prepared teachers that are there already.
Hi -- this is a friend of Jodi's directed to the discussion by same.
Teacher compensation isn't a "tired" argument. First of all, you assert that teachers have just a four or five year BA -- this is true in places like Canada and in parts of the US, but in most of the US the trend is, more and more, to demand a master's degree in teaching -- if not at the beginning of a career, often within a set time period.
Either way, the question doens't merely boil down to, "How much did they spend on their education?" but how do you keep teachers in the classroom? The trend is for teachers to come in, teach a year or two, and burn out and leave for greener pastures where less is demanded of them and they will get higher compensation. Often in the most disadvantaged areas, it is the brand-new teachers that are sent to the most difficult classrooms, ill-prepared and under-equpped. Spending money on the profession means not just increased salaries, but increased professional development and on-the-job support, more paras/aides for the tricky situations that require them, and more debt forgiveness for the copious loans amassed in pursuit of teaching degrees and in maintaining one's license.
However, while I agree knowledge of subject is important, I would say the cases where a teacher lacks a knowledge of their subject are grossly over-reported. This is by far NOT the magic missing ingredient in our educational systems.
When you have a child showing up for breakfast underslept, no breakfast in the belly, coming out of a culture that venerates violence and at a part of their lives (adolescence) when they are far more biologically inclined to worry about their social status vis a vis their peers than about who did what to whom 500 years ago or how to diagram a sentence, there is only one absolutely magical ingredient that will let a teacher reach a student and form that essential connection to keep the student tuned in, and that ingredient is a LOVE of kids.
Unfortunately, those people most motivated to get into the profession for the sake of the kids are often scared away by the increased hoops they'll need to jump through before even stepping foot in the classroom.
The front lines of American education are being manned by idealists who are, for the most part, there because they want to be, and are getting screwed for it when they are people with enough intellectual resources to have gone into a far less difficult field.
One friend of mine in the Memphis inner-city school system has had to buy nearly all her student's school supplies out of her own already very-underpaid pocket, for instance. My mother, as a school principal in the New York City system, used to have to fight tooth and nail just to get her kids out of having janitors' closets as classrooms. Seeing the high new-teacher burnout, she started a pilot program through Columbia University to get teachers-in-training into the classroom in a longer-term internship system rather than just the quickie in-and-out student teaching system, so that they would walk into their first year as a solo teacher far better prepared -- but even at Columbia Teacher's College this is a small pilot program, and requires a lot of funding.
This is an age very much in love with the bottom line. I understand the temptation to believe that measurable results and test scores and punishing thosse who fail can somehow become a magic fix for our educational system's ills. The problems with this are myriad -- the danger of a standardized system in which every teacher is merely "teaching to the test" is one of the big ones. It also does nothing to address the problem of how to help the schools and classrooms and students who need more support: from parents, from funding sources, and from society as a whole.
FYI, Peter Gibbon, the author of the article quoted above, was the head of my high school back in the 80s, and later went on to become the headmaster of the entire school -- an exclusive, private one. I do not believe he has EVER been in the trenches of public education. Furthermore, the examples he cites in this article of headmasters who inspired the great minds and personalities of past generations is laughable. Peter Gibbon, alas, was nearly universally reviled in my high school by the students, even those in his tutorials. His job was made very easy by the population selected by an admissions office that was focused on the bottom line and on selecting a docile student body. He had almost no positive direct interactions with the students in his own school, and as I was preparing to leave the school (early for college, to escape the stale atmosphere), so were several of the school's other more brilliant minds preparing to depart their teaching and administrative roles to escape his nascient tenure as headmaster. I don't mean to suggest that debunking Peter Gibbon as a voice worth listening to in this debate destroys, in and of itself, the arguments he is attempting to put forward, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
As you say, teachers start with a four or five year BA or BS and in many places have to get an MA in a few years, usually in Education because it is the easiest subject and the degree is a joke. My point is that a beginning teacher hasn't earned the respect of a beginning physician or lawyer or someone with a doctorate because their educational background isn't even close. There is no comparison, and the fact that people are making the argument and expecting all of us to take it seriously belies the fact that teachers get no respect. What other profession requires only a BA or BS and then (in some places) a joke of a Master's and gets to compare itself to medicine or law or faculty in the academy?
I cannot really comment on what some are calling a "trend" of teachers burning out because I do not know what evidence there is of that, besides personal and anecdotal. I'm not trying to be snide, I just would like to see some statistics on these assertions. As far as the most disadvantaged areas goes--I'm not sure it is the best idea to pick the extreme and use it as evidence of any kind of general argument. Inner city schools and schools in extremely poor rural areas have their own unique problems that need their own solutions. (I do wonder how teachers being more competent in their subject area would hurt them in poor areas, though).
"I would say the cases where a teacher lacks a knowledge of their subject are grossly over-reported." I'm not sure what that means. Do you mean that such cases are exaggerated? That it is not much of a problem? Since we are dealing in so much anecdotal evidence, let me reply: I went to Adams State College in Colorado. Our history department did not have enough money to cover a wide variety of fields, so they had to pick and choose. As a result, and this is pretty common, ASC had no historians of the ancient world and thus no upper division classes on the ancient world. Yet middle and high school history teachers in Colorado teach a history of civilization course that covers the ancient world. So we have teachers out there teaching about ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, who have never taken anything on the subject beyond a college freshman level survey course.
But even that is not the problem--there are always subjects that history teachers will have to learn on their own. The problem is that social studies education students spend so much time in education classes that their history professors do not have time to teach them how to teach themselves, through what we call historiography. So they go into classrooms a half-step ahead of the students relying on canned assignments from textbooks and workbooks to eat up time.
I don't care how well you communicate, how many assistants you have, how small your classroom is, how great your resources are, how good your interpersonal skills are, or how much you love (even in capital letters) the kids, if you do not know the subject you are teaching then the students aren't going to learn anything.
Two other notes:
1) I'm not going to comment on standardized tests because that was not the focus of the original article or any of my comments.
2) One anonymous story about Peter Gibbon far from 'debunks' him. My personal experience with the man was that I sent him a cold email to request an electronic copy of an article he wrote for "History Matters!" and he was kind enough to help me. Harvard and Boston University seem to think enough of him to keep giving him research positions. I think his voice and his arguments still have a place in the debate.
First off, gotta love the hubris of defining an entire discipline as a “joke.” Some ever-so-trained Ph.Ds make crappy teachers, whatever their chosen field. Bottom line: not all educational theory is garbage. Some of it is, there is hardly a doubt; but the task of presenting information/skills to students of varying backgrounds and capabilities is a serious challenge. Much of teaching does turn out to be trial, error, and tons of experience, it’s true; but SOME grounding in basic principles of learning theory could aid many a college prof. Further, the most effective teachers do care about their students. Pure devotion to subject matter belongs in the task of book-writing, not teaching.
Aside from that—ok; so someone earning a doctorate in a specific academic field is in theory an expert in that particular subject, and by the logic forwarded in a couple of posts particularly well-suited to teach that subject in a high school. This is an honest question: is anybody who contributes to or reads this blog, who is earning a Ph.D, actually considering teaching high school? My guess is no, but I could be wrong. But if not, why not? It seems to me (still just guessing here) that the answer lies in the very same institutional, prestige, and pay issues already cited.
I don’t begin to pretend I have the answers. What I do know is that having future-teacher English majors read more Shakespeare in college may be a step in the right direction, but is only a sliver of the work to be done.
First off, gotta love the accusation of hubris based on a misrepresentation. I said the MA in Education was a joke, not the entire discipline. Of course when you go to college graduations and the entire college of education seems to be graduating with honors, you do have to wonder. Similarly, I never said teachers did not need to be able to communicate or love their students, I just said those things won't get you very far if you do not know your subject.
Yes, some grounding in educational theory is necessary, especially for teaching young kids, but right now college education departments make future teachers take long lists of education courses that cover the same material. Again, to be anecdotal: my psychology for adolescents class covered almost exactly the same material as the general education psychology course. To this day I couldn't tell you the difference among my Basic Teaching Concepts, Exceptional Student in the Regular Classroom, Planning for Teaching, Reading for Secondary Education, and Curriculum Development courses.
I don't think any of us are planning on teaching high school right now--not that we really have the option since we would have to go back to school to get a teaching certification. Until proven otherwise by other experts, a person with a doctorate is an expert in their chosen field, not in theory, in reality. They may be crappy teachers, no doubt, but they have more than earned the chance to prove it without going back to school to take education courses.
People who are willing to put themselves through the process of earning a PhD have not just done a BA or BS on steroids, as one of our professors likes to tell new grad students. Along the same lines, teachers with BAs and MAs are simply not the equivalent of college professors with their PhDs. Even today, a doctorate is very rare and very prestigious. Not everyone can do it. As someone who is struggling to finish my dissertation, I can say with all possible modesty that earning a PhD is one hell of an accomplishment.
I chose to go to graduate school and hopefully on to a college teaching career because it became apparent that I could do more than be a high school teacher. Earning a PhD, researching and writing articles and books, and teaching in college is doing more than teaching high school. Insomuch as it is more prestigious than teaching high school it is because of the requirements, not the letters after our names. Trust me, if you think money is so important and teachers are underpaid, then you ought to be outraged over the paltry salaries given to starting college professors who have done at least three times as much work in school as starting high school teachers, but only make a small sum more, if that.
Hi, Tom. Glad you decided to engage in this debate. However, if we’re talking about stale arguments:
1) Teachers generally do not have the educational background to earn the beginning level of respect afforded to physicians, lawyers, those with their doctorates.
>> Even when this is true (and it is not always true), it is not for lack of interest or desire in teachers to earn that kind of higher learning. If there’s anyone who’s interested in higher learning (or, in fact, in lifelong learning, and not simply going to school to line one’s resume), it’s a teacher. But here's my point: who’s going to fund it? Doctors and lawyers can rely on paying back their indentured servitude with the salaries they will earn later in life; teachers cannot. Sure, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem (which can you rely on first, the loan or the payoff?), but the fact remains, if teachers knew they would be able to pay back the cost of earning a graduate degree, the ones I know would be the first to sign up.
2) Second, let's not forget the benefits of being a teacher. With just a bachelors degree, you get a solid paying job with usually good benefits, lots of time off (including the winter holidays always)
>> This is the most tired argument of all. I can’t tell you how often I hear "yeah, but you get all that time off" as a rationale for resenting teachers, portraying them as lazy parasites, or offering them less compensation for their jobs. The fact of the matter is, the benefits are a function of creating livable working conditions.
My average day lasts 11 hours. I’m not including weekends in this. I arrive in the school at 8am and I’m lucky to leave at 7. And I don’t have a family; I honestly don’t know how people who do are able to hold it together and still perform.
And as I mentioned, I’m one of the lucky ones. This year I’m insanely lucky to have a relatively small student load of approximately 65 students. In the public system in my city, teachers are more likely to have six classes of at least 30 students each. An English teacher might collect, on average, three 4-page essays from each student in the year. Each essay will take at least 20 minutes to mark (assuming it's legible). Do the math. That’s about 200 extra hours of out-of-class time devoted to their courses. And that doesn’t include smaller assignments, tests, and, above all, good prep.
Damn, when those holidays come around, it’s all I can do to collapse in a heap on my bed and do nothing but sleep for about 24 hours straight. That’s if I haven’t gotten sick from prolonged stress. And, as I keep saying, I’m one of the lucky ones. Many teachers I know need to take on summer school positions to make ends meet. Most teachers use their time off to upgrade skills (again, on their own buck) or recuperate from the past session in order to face the coming session. Much holiday time is often devoted to catching up on work that they did not have the time to complete while class was in session. In other words, what looks like simple vacation time really isn’t that simple.
As for other benefits, well, they vary from place to place. Where I live they’re not bad, but then again, I live in Canada, where in general I believe the average worker gets better benefits, including Health Care and legislated extended maternity leave, than in most places in the U.S. But overall, those benefits barely balance out the demands that such a job places on those who practise it.
3) and the chance to continue participating as a director or coach in extracurricular activities like band, theater, and sports. These activities are voluntary, there is some money involved, and they are almost always done for fun. That is a big deal.
>> I’m sorry – did you say "the chance to"? Try "the expectation to". Teachers who do not do these things are labeled, by their colleagues and the profession at large, as well as by their administrators, as slackers. Whom else is a school going to get to run the extra-curricular activities that are now so integral to the school experience? While these activities bring a great deal of joy and satisfaction to the dedicated teacher, they are implied (or in some cases contractual) duties, as much a part of the job as coming to school prepared with lessons, taking part in school policy committees, and meeting with parents in interviews. You make this sound like a perk, like a junket to the Caribbean. True, a dedicated teacher will enjoy being involved in extra-curriculars (I wouldn’t trade the past four months, including Saturdays, spent rehearsing my upcoming play for the world), but it’s not billed as a “benefit” on any teaching contract I know. And no, they are not paid duties in every school system. I do not get paid for my extra-curricular time. God, I wish.
Now, for the things I agree with you about:
1) The problem was that they (we) spent most of their time in college in theory-based education courses that were by and large nothing short of worthless.
>> Yes. Education faculties are, by-and-large, strongholds dominated by ivory towers. Mentorship programs that support new teachers by pairing them with successful veterans in the workplace would be far more effective. But this is a huge commitment on the part of the mentors, and either their teaching workloads need to be reduced without a reduction in pay, or some other compensation needs to be considered.
But then people like Gibbon turn around and insist that teachers spend more time in universities earning higher degrees. Which do they want – practical experience or book-learning?
2) In the meantime, they (we) had to go on and teach subjects about which they (we) had only taken a few, if any, courses.
If this is a problem in the US, I agree that it needs to be changed. But for my part, I majored in the subject I teach (English), and minored in the second subject I am qualified to teach (History). Every faculty of Education I applied to here in Ontario required this minimum background in applicants’ teachables. I didn’t learn my subject while earning my B.Ed.; I knew my subject *before* I got there. So perhaps it’s not the Faculty of Education programs that need to be changed, but the standards for acceptance into those faculties.
3) Throwing more money at teaching is not going to get better teachers, it is just going to put more money in the pockets of the poorly prepared teachers that are there already.
>> Blindly throwing money at anything is of course not the answer, and it’s not an answer I’m proposing. Consciously making the profession worth going into for those who want to pursue it but might otherwise be deterred by the bad conditions and compensation will make the pool of better candidates grow and prevent having to hire teachers who are not up for the challenge to fill the gaps left by the dearth of qualified applicants.
Having earned a Ph.D, I'm certainly aware of the work that goes into attaining one. But I don't think that what I do is "more than" teaching high school. It is different. In many respects, mine is a MUCH easier job (I know this from having spent a very small amount of time in public school classrooms). My starting salary at the college level is at least 1/3 more than it would be at the high school level. Admittedly, my debt is enormous.
But high school teachers will touch lives in a way I never will. They'll also deal with many more frustrations. And I don't believe for one second that earning my degree means that no other discipline has anything to teach me. Asking Ph.Ds to attain certification is not some sort of insult, but rather a recognition that knowledge of subject matter, while of course vital, isn't enough to make it in a high school classroom.
Could education departments trim the fat and streamline? You betcha. And most (not all; some are already doing great jobs) should. That's a start. But just a start.
(I figured I should get a Blogger account if I'm to continue posting. Still getting used to the editing features -- or lack thereof -- in Comments.)
Tom said: I cannot really comment on what some are calling a "trend" of teachers burning out because I do not know what evidence there is of that, besides personal and anecdotal. I'm not trying to be snide, I just would like to see some statistics on these assertions.
>> Here are a few:
* "Statistics show that 15% of teachers leave during or after the first year of teaching and that 50% leave within six years (Thomas & Kiley, 1994). Data from the National Center of Educational Information suggests that the annual attrition rate for beginning teachers is approximately twice that of experienced teachers (Feistritzer as cited in Odell & Ferraro, 1992)." - http://www.mid-mo.net/slgreene/ment.htm
* Across the nation, one out of every five full-time teachers leaves the teaching profession to pursue a career outside the education field (National Center for Education Statistics, 1998). - http://www.prel.org/products/products/Coping-teacherStress.PDF
* "The average length of a teaching career in the United States is now down to eleven years (Stephens 2001). One quarter of all beginning teachers leave teaching within four years (Benner 2000). The length of an urban teaching career is even less since fifty percent of beginners leave in five years or less (Rowan et al. 2002)." - from http://www.educationnews.org/teacher-burnout-in-black-and-white.htm
* "Approximately 27 percent of teachers leave the profession within three years, according to national statistics. In urban districts, the rate is nearly 40 percent." - from http://main.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=63392 (2003)
So, let's see, with a focus on urban areas (and an application of my admittedly basic math skills - I don't teach math for a reason):
1994: 50% make it past the first six years - avg attrition rate: 8.3%/year 1998: 20% total leave to pursue other careers (no time span indicated) 2000: 50% make it past the first five years - avg attrition rate: 10%/year 2003: 60% make it past the first three years - avg attrition rate: 20%/year
Looks a bit like a trend to me. One might even venture to say a growing trend. - Jodi
Jodi, thanks for the stats on teachers leaving the profession. I don't know yet what they really mean in the context of this discussion--i.e.: does that mean teachers shouldn't have better knowledge of their subject?--but they are interesting.
1) You might be right that a lot of teachers want to go and earn more advanced degrees, but that is irrelevant to my point. The difference is between want and need. Teachers do not have to have advanced degrees to be teachers. Doctors and lawyers and professors must have those degrees before they can be doctors and lawyers and professors. The starting point for those professions are just not equal.
2) No one said that teaching is not a lot of work. But the fact remains that a significant amount of time off is fixed into their schedules, including the holidays. Again, there is no comparison to elite professions like law and medicine. New doctors and new lawyers work insane schedules year round, and do not get the time around the holidays off--often it is quite the opposite. Academics face a slightly different type of workload--when they are not teaching they are forced by the job market and tenure system to be researching or writing, so they too have very little time off, even with the regularly scheduled vacations. Yes, most teachers work hard, but the benefit of a lot of time off is a good one.
3) This is my "I can't" comment: I can't be particularly fair about the question of extracurricular activities because, frankly, the hardest part of the decision for me to go into the academy was that I was most likely leaving coaching behind. I can't speak to the pressure to participate in extracurricular activites because I'm not in a high school and I would be participating even if I was. I can't speak to Canada or private schools or even activities like band or theater, but every U.S. public school I know pays its sports coaches. Sure, the money works out to far below minimum wage, but I for one would coach for free if I had the opportunity. A perk, like a junket to the Caribbean? For me, absolutely.
I'm not exactly sure where we all disagree on the major point. Gibbon's main point in the article, and the one I think should be screamed from the rooftops, is that we need to look at the training of teachers in improving our education systems, particularly when it comes to knowledge of subject matter. His individual prescriptions for improvement are hit and miss. Jodi made the very good point that teachers should not have to carry a heavier educational burden if they are not going to be compensated. But my point is that teachers in training are being failed by college education departments that force them to take repetitive education classes at the expense of learning the subject they are going to teach. My recommendation is not a panacea, but it is one area that is far too often ignored.
To the Anonymous PhD: I simply disagree. Earning a PhD and having an active career in the academy is doing more that teaching high school. It may not be better or more fulfilling, but it is a harder career to enter, and it has more rigorous standards for success, and that is why so many less people do it. Down the road, in the day to day of teaching high school vs. the day to day of being a tenured professor, well, there things can level out some.
Further, no one said that PhDs cannot learn from other disciplines, but considering every education class I've ever been in or heard about boils down to the admission that for all the helpful tips, you learn on the job and that you can either teach or you can't, any PhD is more qualified as a starting teacher than a newly minted BA, BS, or BEd. None of them may be able to cut it, but it is absurd to send people with terminal degrees back for more school before they have a chance to prove their worth in a classroom.
It seems to me that this conversation has been going in several directions, the least productive of which have been those in which defensiveness has taken the place of rigorous argument. Do I think teachers should be paid more? Depends. I think I'd be all for it if we could set some standards. For all of the weepy homages to how teachers have inspired some of you, I can speak from my personal experience, and I bet Tom would second it without giving it even a second thought, the best tachers I have ever had were college professors. Some of the worst I ever had were high school teachers. A huge part of this has to do with content -- in order to teach history, the person teaching it should know some history. Or English. Or whatever. A lot of it has to do with natural aptitudes. A lot has to do with passion for the subject. Whatever. But the problem I have is with the "society owes us" argument. Yes, teaching is important, although beyond the political ad soundbites about the wonder of children, I have yet to have anyone explain to me why that argument works for high school teachers but not college professors. Lots of professions are important and do not get paid as much as they deserve. But you knew this when you went into teaching. And if you did not, you are really, really not very bright. So what changed? I don't know. But if you want more money, you cannot just expect it across the board. And why wouldn't teachers themselves want higher standards in the profession anyway? Why protect those teachers who are truly bad? And why on earth expect that they should get a raise? I think teaching is important at all levels. But I am sorry, I deserve more money than a high school history teacher. I have a PhD. I am a damned good teacher. I teach those teachers, in fact, who are smart enough to take history classes rather than another damned MA course in history, most of which are as worthless as teats on a bull. Come to think of it, I teach those future teachers as undergrads too. And on top of all of that I write and publish. But if I get a raise or a promotion, there is going to be a whole lot of merit attached and the process is a bit like an enema. I am going to be judged by rigorous standards. I am going to have to teach well. And write and publish. A lot. And serve on committees. I do not mind this. But I then do not want to be told that all teachers deserve raises without a comparable, if less invasive (with far fewer expectations) process. Forgive me if I am not going to categorically assert that all teachers deserve more money as a matter of course. And forgive me if I am not willing to be blackmailed be people who suddenly decide (epiphany!) that they aren't paid enough, so they are going to leave, but a little more money and, well, we'd stay. Social workers, nurses, clinic doctors, and many, many others, including a large number of college professors, would love to get paid more and do not get paid enough. The only profession that so regularly wears it on its sleeves is teaching, and they are not even willing to have that expected pay raise come with expectations of assessment or merit. It's all take, no give, and for the love of God don't judge us.
OK, I think this will be my last post on this. Mostly cause I think everything will have been said, at least on my end, but also cause my kids' play is later this week and it's consuming my brain. :)
Tom asked where exactly it is that we differ. I think it's a fair question, so I'll answer it, I think, by pointing first to the places in which we seem to share some views.
I don't disagree that teachers should be better educated. I agree that teachers should know their subjects. I strongly believe that a good teacher should get more recognition (in wages, in priviledges, or in other forms of recognition) than a bad teacher, and that in fact there should be better ways to replace bad teachers with good teachers.
I agree that those earning higher degrees have spent a lot more time in school than most teachers, and that they therefore have a more in-depth knowledge of their subjects. I agree that they are suited to teach in a college or university environment, which demands from them research, publication, and the focused, in-depth instruction of their particular subject area.
So those, Tom (and others), are items that I stipulate to willingly.
Now, for the things that I disagree on:
I disagree that being an academic necessarily means that that person is a better teacher. Better versed in the subject area, yes, by virtue of having spent more time with it, writing, researching, lecturing, discussing, attending lectures. But this does not make a good teacher. I applaud those universities that are now requiring PhD candidates and other T.A.s to take pedagogical training courses in order to help them add to their repertoires approaches that escape the old (and not always effective) paradigm of lecture-based instruction. Some academics might think they're a waste of time; some of the courses may indeed be poorly designed, if well-intentioned. But there are plenty of academics out there who could use a good lesson in how to teach.
Absolutely, there are some very talented professors, just as there are some singularly untalented high school teachers. But by no means does a PhD automatically qualify people to *teach*. It qualifies them to be experts in a subject area, to research, to be viewed by colleagues as a resource and a peer. To be respected for all that, certainly. To demand recognition as a *teacher* - only if they can prove they can *teach*.
I disagree that those who have spent more time being formally educated necessarily deserve more respect than those who have not. By this token, the famously uneducated Lincoln deserves less respect for advancing the cause of black Americans than does, say, John F. Kennedy. A person's merit or ability to contribute to society should not be measured by their level of education. More than a few "uneducated" but highly respectable people might join me in taking to task people who argue this particular point.
This is not a question of pay only, but a question of respect. So yes, I do believe that a teacher contributes as much as a lawyer to society, and I do not believe that a PhD has contributed *more*. Each has contributed something *different* that the other cannot do. It's an unfortunate fact that our society measures respect in terms of dollar signs, but there's also the respect afforded people in attitude, and I believe both Tom and Derek need to reconsider their attitudes towards teachers, whom they, sadly, seem to consider inferior to themselves.
That said, I return to the main argument in this thread: what can be done to improve the standards of teaching in the US? Because I do not deny that teachers with *both* higher degrees *and* pedagogical training are better positioned to teach successfully than those who are not, *provided* they are also suited to their environment (in the case of high school teachers, by virtue of strong interpersonal skills, an aptitude with adolescents, a strong sense of accountability towards the various stakeholders, among other attributes).
I think there's something I overlooked or misunderstood in entering this discussion. Where I live, teachers are required to have a solid grounding in their subject matter before even applying to a teachers'-education program. Thus, I had an Honours degree in English with a minor in History before I was allowed to apply to teach either.
But it seems, from what Tom is saying, that this is not the case in the US. If I understand him correctly, it seems that prospective teachers are entering teachers'-education programs and *there* expecting to gain the grounding they need to teach a subject.
If this is the case, it is not necessarily the teachers'-education programs that need remedying. It's the standard of admission to those programs in the first place. Insist that the prospective teachers have honours standing in their subject(s) in their undergraduate degree. Insist that those undergraduate degrees include certain core courses that will cover anything that needs to be taught at the high-school level. In other words, get people who are adequately qualified in the subject area, and *then* focus on ensuring they have the skills to survive in a high-school environment.
And if higher degrees are so very desirable in a teacher (and I don't dispute that they are -- again, with the proviso that they do not stand as the only qualification, especially not for high school), make those degrees *accessible*. Not by lowering standards, but by making it actually pragmatic and attainable for teachers, by ensuring that they will be able to pay the tuition necessary for getting it. Subsidize programs that enable teachers to return to school after earning their base-line degrees, with the understanding that they will then go on to teach high school, or pay the money back. Medicine provides incentives for doctors to practice in less-desirable areas by contracting them to serve those areas with a promise to subsidize their training; why shouldn't this apply to other professions?
In this last post I am not wearing my heart on my sleeve. I really believe in this issue and believe that greater attention needs to be paid it. While in other posts I have indeed put forth impassioned *personal* arguments, I hope I have made these last points in a pragmatic, reasoned way, so that I won't be subject to the kind of snide comments that Derek ends his own post with, but instead will be taken seriously.
Jody -- What was snide? You've been lobbing bombs and accusations for thousands of words here. I come in and make some aggressive points, but ones that are right and by which I stand, and suddenly you are whining about snideness. You must be a hoot in social settings. (note: that was snide; though snide can be true.) Your Lincoln-JFK analogy is nonsense given that the argument about PhD's having a great deal more education comes in a discussion about the field of education. That Lincoln did more for black Americans than Kennedy is fine as far as it goes but it has nothing to do with the argument at hand (Lincoln was not educated? Hmmm . . .). It is a dumb analogy. If the argument were that presidents need to have more education, your argument would work. But we are talking about education for educators. Further, the fact remains, I've seen a lot more bad high school tachers than bad professors. And at least the bad professors go through an evaluation process AND have the ciontent to convey. As for pedagogical classes for professors: please. No one has yet shown to me that one can be taught how to teach. I have, however, seen education majors who seemed singularly unqualified to do so. Having gotten my fall semester teaching evaluations today, I'll toss my credentials as a teacher out there with you or any of your colleagues, and I have the added benefit of being an expert in my field, published, quoted, and as a junior person, becoming more well known. One can be a popular high school teacher and be full of crap. In other words: if you want to do the teachers vs. professors argument, prepare for a bit of snideness from those of us who teach well, know our stuff, and are expected to write books and articles and reviews and conference papers.
Wow! That's a lot of balls. Some gutless anonymous twirp just alleged that my professional reputation is "notorious." If that anonymous person would like to explicate, would like to say what they mean, and use their own name, I'd gladly have a professional respect pissing contest. I'll gladly compare my professional reputation with yours any time you would like. I also note that you do not address the substance of what I say in any of my posts. It takes a brave, brave person to hit and run on a weblog. Show yourself, and bring some evidence to bear, please, or admit that you are not only a coward, but also a libelous little wretch of a person. For now, I'll just assume that by "notorious" you mean, much, much smarter than you.
I'm kind of amused that you're drawing attention to this debate again, but thanks for the tip of the hat to its energy. :)
I enjoyed debating with you. I think you have some interesting things to say, though I don't agree with them (obviously).
But two things prevent me from continuing the debate. The first is that, as I stated in my last post, I think I've said pretty much everything I want to on the subject. The second is that, while I enjoyed debating with some of the people who posted, I actually was really turned off by Derek's over-the-top attacks, including some that were ridiculously ad hominem (who cares what I'm like in social situations? Does that render my arguments invalid?)
In any case, I'm interested to see if other people have valid points to make, and look forward to seeing some.
This is an interesting site. I've been using some of the material as starting-points for my lessons on effective (and ineffective) argumentation for my AP English class.
I'm not using this *thread*. I'm using this *site* for ideas to provide a balance of material for my class to analyse from a variety of sources.
For example: someone posted about how journalists have a responsibility to keep military secrets secret - it's an interesting and important counter-argument to the idea of "freedom of speech". It's not logical to say that just because you have the freedom to say what you want that it's always a good idea to do so.
Don't jump to conclusions, and try reading more carefully, fellas. :)
24 comments:
Apparently, according to this article, "the real problem with education in America" comes down to the lack of adequately qualified teachers.
But if that's the case, the article doesn't really get to the real root of that particular problem. It fails to mention that there is *no* incentive for qualified, interested, and dynamic people -- other than masochistic good intentions -- to become teachers.
The US can hardly expect to attract anything other than borderline competents if they're paid only a living wage (if that).
I wonder who Gibbon thinks is going to shell out to become a member of "a transformed teaching profession: one with demanding entrance requirements and rigorous graduate degrees" if they can't afford that kind of preparation, let alone see it pay off in the long run Graduate degrees? The administrators of Big Tent, of all people, should know what it costs to indenture themselves to a university to earn a graduate degree, particularly while trying to work full-time in a profession that values real hands-on experience above a list of letters following your name.
I speak as a teacher myself, one who is lucky enough to work at a (private) school that *does* pay its teachers relatively well, as well as offer some nice perks. Thus, I know when I have it good. Yet I *still* don't have it good enough that I don't resent people who earn much more than I do for doing far less for society. And I particularly resent those people telling me that teachers should spend more of their own money to do a job that no one else seems to want to do because of its low return.
In many American (and Canadian) public school districts, teachers -- *all* teachers, good or bad -- earn far less than they ought to for preparing the future generations for the world beyond school. Most of them are in this line of work because they want to be; many of them could have earned far more in the private sector with the skills they possess.
As for the idea of merit pay, it's not something I entirely disagree with. But consider the fact that there's little to entice a potential teacher into the profession in the first place, and then consider the obstacles they must face to demonstrate that merit (such that 30 per cent of teachers quit from the strain of burnout in their first five years of teaching), and you run the risk of never seeing the kind of payback that just going in to work every day with a smile on your face ought to earn, under the circumstances.
I also dispute the concept that "knowledge of subject [should] become the highest priority" for a teacher: certainly, teachers should know their subjects, but shouldn't a love of teaching and learning, an ability to communicate, and an inherent interpersonal ability with children and young people be a teacher's priority?
These are the people you want teaching your children. And you want to draw them into the profession with a promise of decent pay, decent working conditions, and decent respect from the public: the kind of pay, conditions, and respect that lawyers, doctors, and politicians currently enjoy.
- Jodi "Maple Sugar" - sister of Mark "Maple Leaf", Big Tent blogger
Amen, Jodi, and thanks.
Some other real problems with schools:
We’ve reached a point where we expect too much from our schools. Read and listen to the discussions that appear in the media, and you’ll see that schools are blamed for childhood obesity, guns and drugs, not meeting the needs of students with a myriad of physical and psychological problems, and falling test scores. Our society asks schools to parent, but insists that in the process no actual parents’ values and prerogatives get stepped on. AND to do all of this on what turns out to be, considering all that is involved, miniscule budgets.
With all of that in mind, grade level has a great deal to do with whether or not knowledge of subject matter is the most important skill for teachers to possess. In the lower grades, especially, knowledge of children is much more important. In those grades, kids are not just being taught subject matter; they’re being taught to get along with their classmates and how to approach the task of learning. Some of them are not adequately fed; others of them face tremendous obstacles at home. The large binders, which all grade-school teachers have, full of medical and psychological issues, not to mention which child is not allowed to go home with which parent, is frightening and daunting.
And in the upper grades, a culture of “cool” tells many students they should not be interested in school. And society bombards them with all of the “reasons” they should not pay attention to their teachers in the first place. Success, for students and teachers, in such an environment becomes quite difficult.
Do some, in fact many, students and teachers succeed in these circumstances? Yes. How? Well, if we could absolutely know the answer, we would have the problems solved. Part of it involves a great deal of hard work on the part of teachers who don’t get nearly enough respect or remuneration. Part of it DOES involve teachers who are extremely well-grounded in their chosen subject matter. Part of it involves grit and determination on the part of students. Part of it involves families—those students who come from families in which learning is valued (sadly, not true for FAR too many people out there) and in which authority figures (i.e. teachers and administrators) are expected to be shown respect (NOT “anything they say or do is right, but rather, at first, they should get the benefit of the doubt) do much better in school. Until we can figure out a way to address the cultural realities that promote the idea that 1) learning is not valuable unless it leads to an immediate, direct financial reward and 2) teachers are bumbling fools that could not get a job anywhere else and therefore should be challenged at every move, we’re not going to get anywhere in the effort to better educate our youth. I don’t know how we get there. One part of the solution probably does involve finding teachers who have better training. But this is only a part; and getting to that point necessitates addressing a slew of other realities that work against educated people being able to be proud to say, “I teach.”
Thanks for the comments and all, but I'm getting fairly tired of the recycled arguments about not compensating teachers enough. Sorry, I do not buy the argument. First off, teachers generally do not have the educational background to earn the beginning level of respect afforded to physicians, lawyers, those with their doctorates. A four or five year bachelors degree is no where near the equivalent of a MD, JD, or PhD--or even most MAs or MSs.
Second, let's not forget the benefits of being a teacher. With just a bachelors degree, you get a solid paying job with usually good benefits, lots of time off (including the winter holidays always), and the chance to continue participating as a director or coach in extracurricular activities like band, theater, and sports--something that is nearly impossible in any other profession. These activities are voluntary, there is some money involved, and they are almost always done for fun. That is a big deal. And, oh yeah, you get to teach.
I went to a teachers' college, and there were lots and lots of very smart and capable people there who were going into teaching for benefits that extended beyond monetary returns. The problem was that they (we) spent most of their time in college in theory-based education courses that were by and large nothing short of worthless (I'm speaking more to secondary education here--as I think Gibbon was doing--primary school is a different animal). In the meantime, they (we) had to go on and teach subjects about which they (we) had only taken a few, if any, courses. Too much time and money had been spent on the ridiculous education departments for any to be left for the subjects. But that's okay, now a lot of states require that their teachers go and get Master's degrees--in education, where they take the advanced version of those pointless theoretical classes they took as undergrads.
There was an article we linked recently on an ungodly number of teachers in Florida failing a basic skills test on subject matter for teaching. The problem isn't the quality of the people who want to teach--the problem is the preparation those people receive. No one ever looks at Education in Higher Education when they talk about improving the American educational system. Fix that. Raise subject standards for teachers. Force education departments in colleges to back off and allow future teachers to learn what they are teaching. (And, like the second comment pointed out, let the teachers' primary responsibility be to teach that subject.)
Throwing more money at teaching is not going to get better teachers, it is just going to put more money in the pockets of the poorly prepared teachers that are there already.
Hi -- this is a friend of Jodi's directed to the discussion by same.
Teacher compensation isn't a "tired" argument. First of all, you assert that teachers have just a four or five year BA -- this is true in places like Canada and in parts of the US, but in most of the US the trend is, more and more, to demand a master's degree in teaching -- if not at the beginning of a career, often within a set time period.
Either way, the question doens't merely boil down to, "How much did they spend on their education?" but how do you keep teachers in the classroom? The trend is for teachers to come in, teach a year or two, and burn out and leave for greener pastures where less is demanded of them and they will get higher compensation. Often in the most disadvantaged areas, it is the brand-new teachers that are sent to the most difficult classrooms, ill-prepared and under-equpped. Spending money on the profession means not just increased salaries, but increased professional development and on-the-job support, more paras/aides for the tricky situations that require them, and more debt forgiveness for the copious loans amassed in pursuit of teaching degrees and in maintaining one's license.
However, while I agree knowledge of subject is important, I would say the cases where a teacher lacks a knowledge of their subject are grossly over-reported. This is by far NOT the magic missing ingredient in our educational systems.
When you have a child showing up for breakfast underslept, no breakfast in the belly, coming out of a culture that venerates violence and at a part of their lives (adolescence) when they are far more biologically inclined to worry about their social status vis a vis their peers than about who did what to whom 500 years ago or how to diagram a sentence, there is only one absolutely magical ingredient that will let a teacher reach a student and form that essential connection to keep the student tuned in, and that ingredient is a LOVE of kids.
Unfortunately, those people most motivated to get into the profession for the sake of the kids are often scared away by the increased hoops they'll need to jump through before even stepping foot in the classroom.
The front lines of American education are being manned by idealists who are, for the most part, there because they want to be, and are getting screwed for it when they are people with enough intellectual resources to have gone into a far less difficult field.
One friend of mine in the Memphis inner-city school system has had to buy nearly all her student's school supplies out of her own already very-underpaid pocket, for instance. My mother, as a school principal in the New York City system, used to have to fight tooth and nail just to get her kids out of having janitors' closets as classrooms. Seeing the high new-teacher burnout, she started a pilot program through Columbia University to get teachers-in-training into the classroom in a longer-term internship system rather than just the quickie in-and-out student teaching system, so that they would walk into their first year as a solo teacher far better prepared -- but even at Columbia Teacher's College this is a small pilot program, and requires a lot of funding.
This is an age very much in love with the bottom line. I understand the temptation to believe that measurable results and test scores and punishing thosse who fail can somehow become a magic fix for our educational system's ills. The problems with this are myriad -- the danger of a standardized system in which every teacher is merely "teaching to the test" is one of the big ones. It also does nothing to address the problem of how to help the schools and classrooms and students who need more support: from parents, from funding sources, and from society as a whole.
FYI, Peter Gibbon, the author of the article quoted above, was the head of my high school back in the 80s, and later went on to become the headmaster of the entire school -- an exclusive, private one. I do not believe he has EVER been in the trenches of public education. Furthermore, the examples he cites in this article of headmasters who inspired the great minds and personalities of past generations is laughable. Peter Gibbon, alas, was nearly universally reviled in my high school by the students, even those in his tutorials. His job was made very easy by the population selected by an admissions office that was focused on the bottom line and on selecting a docile student body. He had almost no positive direct interactions with the students in his own school, and as I was preparing to leave the school (early for college, to escape the stale atmosphere), so were several of the school's other more brilliant minds preparing to depart their teaching and administrative roles to escape his nascient tenure as headmaster. I don't mean to suggest that debunking Peter Gibbon as a voice worth listening to in this debate destroys, in and of itself, the arguments he is attempting to put forward, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
As you say, teachers start with a four or five year BA or BS and in many places have to get an MA in a few years, usually in Education because it is the easiest subject and the degree is a joke. My point is that a beginning teacher hasn't earned the respect of a beginning physician or lawyer or someone with a doctorate because their educational background isn't even close. There is no comparison, and the fact that people are making the argument and expecting all of us to take it seriously belies the fact that teachers get no respect. What other profession requires only a BA or BS and then (in some places) a joke of a Master's and gets to compare itself to medicine or law or faculty in the academy?
I cannot really comment on what some are calling a "trend" of teachers burning out because I do not know what evidence there is of that, besides personal and anecdotal. I'm not trying to be snide, I just would like to see some statistics on these assertions. As far as the most disadvantaged areas goes--I'm not sure it is the best idea to pick the extreme and use it as evidence of any kind of general argument. Inner city schools and schools in extremely poor rural areas have their own unique problems that need their own solutions. (I do wonder how teachers being more competent in their subject area would hurt them in poor areas, though).
"I would say the cases where a teacher lacks a knowledge of their subject are grossly over-reported." I'm not sure what that means. Do you mean that such cases are exaggerated? That it is not much of a problem? Since we are dealing in so much anecdotal evidence, let me reply: I went to Adams State College in Colorado. Our history department did not have enough money to cover a wide variety of fields, so they had to pick and choose. As a result, and this is pretty common, ASC had no historians of the ancient world and thus no upper division classes on the ancient world. Yet middle and high school history teachers in Colorado teach a history of civilization course that covers the ancient world. So we have teachers out there teaching about ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, who have never taken anything on the subject beyond a college freshman level survey course.
But even that is not the problem--there are always subjects that history teachers will have to learn on their own. The problem is that social studies education students spend so much time in education classes that their history professors do not have time to teach them how to teach themselves, through what we call historiography. So they go into classrooms a half-step ahead of the students relying on canned assignments from textbooks and workbooks to eat up time.
I don't care how well you communicate, how many assistants you have, how small your classroom is, how great your resources are, how good your interpersonal skills are, or how much you love (even in capital letters) the kids, if you do not know the subject you are teaching then the students aren't going to learn anything.
Two other notes:
1) I'm not going to comment on standardized tests because that was not the focus of the original article or any of my comments.
2) One anonymous story about Peter Gibbon far from 'debunks' him. My personal experience with the man was that I sent him a cold email to request an electronic copy of an article he wrote for "History Matters!" and he was kind enough to help me. Harvard and Boston University seem to think enough of him to keep giving him research positions. I think his voice and his arguments still have a place in the debate.
First off, gotta love the hubris of defining an entire discipline as a “joke.” Some ever-so-trained Ph.Ds make crappy teachers, whatever their chosen field. Bottom line: not all educational theory is garbage. Some of it is, there is hardly a doubt; but the task of presenting information/skills to students of varying backgrounds and capabilities is a serious challenge. Much of teaching does turn out to be trial, error, and tons of experience, it’s true; but SOME grounding in basic principles of learning theory could aid many a college prof. Further, the most effective teachers do care about their students. Pure devotion to subject matter belongs in the task of book-writing, not teaching.
Aside from that—ok; so someone earning a doctorate in a specific academic field is in theory an expert in that particular subject, and by the logic forwarded in a couple of posts particularly well-suited to teach that subject in a high school. This is an honest question: is anybody who contributes to or reads this blog, who is earning a Ph.D, actually considering teaching high school? My guess is no, but I could be wrong. But if not, why not? It seems to me (still just guessing here) that the answer lies in the very same institutional, prestige, and pay issues already cited.
I don’t begin to pretend I have the answers. What I do know is that having future-teacher English majors read more Shakespeare in college may be a step in the right direction, but is only a sliver of the work to be done.
First off, gotta love the accusation of hubris based on a misrepresentation. I said the MA in Education was a joke, not the entire discipline. Of course when you go to college graduations and the entire college of education seems to be graduating with honors, you do have to wonder. Similarly, I never said teachers did not need to be able to communicate or love their students, I just said those things won't get you very far if you do not know your subject.
Yes, some grounding in educational theory is necessary, especially for teaching young kids, but right now college education departments make future teachers take long lists of education courses that cover the same material. Again, to be anecdotal: my psychology for adolescents class covered almost exactly the same material as the general education psychology course. To this day I couldn't tell you the difference among my Basic Teaching Concepts, Exceptional Student in the Regular Classroom, Planning for Teaching, Reading for Secondary Education, and Curriculum Development courses.
I don't think any of us are planning on teaching high school right now--not that we really have the option since we would have to go back to school to get a teaching certification. Until proven otherwise by other experts, a person with a doctorate is an expert in their chosen field, not in theory, in reality. They may be crappy teachers, no doubt, but they have more than earned the chance to prove it without going back to school to take education courses.
People who are willing to put themselves through the process of earning a PhD have not just done a BA or BS on steroids, as one of our professors likes to tell new grad students. Along the same lines, teachers with BAs and MAs are simply not the equivalent of college professors with their PhDs. Even today, a doctorate is very rare and very prestigious. Not everyone can do it. As someone who is struggling to finish my dissertation, I can say with all possible modesty that earning a PhD is one hell of an accomplishment.
I chose to go to graduate school and hopefully on to a college teaching career because it became apparent that I could do more than be a high school teacher. Earning a PhD, researching and writing articles and books, and teaching in college is doing more than teaching high school. Insomuch as it is more prestigious than teaching high school it is because of the requirements, not the letters after our names. Trust me, if you think money is so important and teachers are underpaid, then you ought to be outraged over the paltry salaries given to starting college professors who have done at least three times as much work in school as starting high school teachers, but only make a small sum more, if that.
Hi, Tom. Glad you decided to engage in this debate. However, if we’re talking about stale arguments:
1) Teachers generally do not have the educational background to earn the beginning level of respect afforded to physicians, lawyers, those with their doctorates.
>> Even when this is true (and it is not always true), it is not for lack of interest or desire in teachers to earn that kind of higher learning. If there’s anyone who’s interested in higher learning (or, in fact, in lifelong learning, and not simply going to school to line one’s resume), it’s a teacher. But here's my point: who’s going to fund it? Doctors and lawyers can rely on paying back their indentured servitude with the salaries they will earn later in life; teachers cannot. Sure, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem (which can you rely on first, the loan or the payoff?), but the fact remains, if teachers knew they would be able to pay back the cost of earning a graduate degree, the ones I know would be the first to sign up.
2) Second, let's not forget the benefits of being a teacher. With just a bachelors degree, you get a solid paying job with usually good benefits, lots of time off (including the winter holidays always)
>> This is the most tired argument of all. I can’t tell you how often I hear "yeah, but you get all that time off" as a rationale for resenting teachers, portraying them as lazy parasites, or offering them less compensation for their jobs. The fact of the matter is, the benefits are a function of creating livable working conditions.
My average day lasts 11 hours. I’m not including weekends in this. I arrive in the school at 8am and I’m lucky to leave at 7. And I don’t have a family; I honestly don’t know how people who do are able to hold it together and still perform.
And as I mentioned, I’m one of the lucky ones. This year I’m insanely lucky to have a relatively small student load of approximately 65 students. In the public system in my city, teachers are more likely to have six classes of at least 30 students each. An English teacher might collect, on average, three 4-page essays from each student in the year. Each essay will take at least 20 minutes to mark (assuming it's legible). Do the math. That’s about 200 extra hours of out-of-class time devoted to their courses. And that doesn’t include smaller assignments, tests, and, above all, good prep.
Damn, when those holidays come around, it’s all I can do to collapse in a heap on my bed and do nothing but sleep for about 24 hours straight. That’s if I haven’t gotten sick from prolonged stress. And, as I keep saying, I’m one of the lucky ones. Many teachers I know need to take on summer school positions to make ends meet. Most teachers use their time off to upgrade skills (again, on their own buck) or recuperate from the past session in order to face the coming session. Much holiday time is often devoted to catching up on work that they did not have the time to complete while class was in session. In other words, what looks like simple vacation time really isn’t that simple.
As for other benefits, well, they vary from place to place. Where I live they’re not bad, but then again, I live in Canada, where in general I believe the average worker gets better benefits, including Health Care and legislated extended maternity leave, than in most places in the U.S. But overall, those benefits barely balance out the demands that such a job places on those who practise it.
3) and the chance to continue participating as a director or coach in extracurricular activities like band, theater, and sports. These activities are voluntary, there is some money involved, and they are almost always done for fun. That is a big deal.
>> I’m sorry – did you say "the chance to"? Try "the expectation to". Teachers who do not do these things are labeled, by their colleagues and the profession at large, as well as by their administrators, as slackers. Whom else is a school going to get to run the extra-curricular activities that are now so integral to the school experience? While these activities bring a great deal of joy and satisfaction to the dedicated teacher, they are implied (or in some cases contractual) duties, as much a part of the job as coming to school prepared with lessons, taking part in school policy committees, and meeting with parents in interviews. You make this sound like a perk, like a junket to the Caribbean. True, a dedicated teacher will enjoy being involved in extra-curriculars (I wouldn’t trade the past four months, including Saturdays, spent rehearsing my upcoming play for the world), but it’s not billed as a “benefit” on any teaching contract I know. And no, they are not paid duties in every school system. I do not get paid for my extra-curricular time. God, I wish.
Now, for the things I agree with you about:
1) The problem was that they (we) spent most of their time in college in theory-based education courses that were by and large nothing short of worthless.
>> Yes. Education faculties are, by-and-large, strongholds dominated by ivory towers. Mentorship programs that support new teachers by pairing them with successful veterans in the workplace would be far more effective. But this is a huge commitment on the part of the mentors, and either their teaching workloads need to be reduced without a reduction in pay, or some other compensation needs to be considered.
But then people like Gibbon turn around and insist that teachers spend more time in universities earning higher degrees. Which do they want – practical experience or book-learning?
2) In the meantime, they (we) had to go on and teach subjects about which they (we) had only taken a few, if any, courses.
If this is a problem in the US, I agree that it needs to be changed. But for my part, I majored in the subject I teach (English), and minored in the second subject I am qualified to teach (History). Every faculty of Education I applied to here in Ontario required this minimum background in applicants’ teachables. I didn’t learn my subject while earning my B.Ed.; I knew my subject *before* I got there. So perhaps it’s not the Faculty of Education programs that need to be changed, but the standards for acceptance into those faculties.
3) Throwing more money at teaching is not going to get better teachers, it is just going to put more money in the pockets of the poorly prepared teachers that are there already.
>> Blindly throwing money at anything is of course not the answer, and it’s not an answer I’m proposing. Consciously making the profession worth going into for those who want to pursue it but might otherwise be deterred by the bad conditions and compensation will make the pool of better candidates grow and prevent having to hire teachers who are not up for the challenge to fill the gaps left by the dearth of qualified applicants.
- Jodi again
Having earned a Ph.D, I'm certainly aware of the work that goes into attaining one. But I don't think that what I do is "more than" teaching high school. It is different. In many respects, mine is a MUCH easier job (I know this from having spent a very small amount of time in public school classrooms). My starting salary at the college level is at least 1/3 more than it would be at the high school level. Admittedly, my debt is enormous.
But high school teachers will touch lives in a way I never will. They'll also deal with many more frustrations. And I don't believe for one second that earning my degree means that no other discipline has anything to teach me. Asking Ph.Ds to attain certification is not some sort of insult, but rather a recognition that knowledge of subject matter, while of course vital, isn't enough to make it in a high school classroom.
Could education departments trim the fat and streamline? You betcha. And most (not all; some are already doing great jobs) should. That's a start. But just a start.
(I figured I should get a Blogger account if I'm to continue posting. Still getting used to the editing features -- or lack thereof -- in Comments.)
Tom said:
I cannot really comment on what some are calling a "trend" of teachers burning out because I do not know what evidence there is of that, besides personal and anecdotal. I'm not trying to be snide, I just would like to see some statistics on these assertions.
>> Here are a few:
* "Statistics show that 15% of teachers leave during or after the first year of teaching and that 50% leave within six years (Thomas & Kiley, 1994). Data from the National Center of Educational Information suggests that the annual attrition rate for beginning teachers is approximately twice that of experienced teachers (Feistritzer as cited in Odell & Ferraro, 1992)." - http://www.mid-mo.net/slgreene/ment.htm
* Across the nation, one out of every five full-time teachers leaves the teaching profession to pursue a career outside the education field (National Center for Education Statistics, 1998). - http://www.prel.org/products/products/Coping-teacherStress.PDF
* "The average length of a teaching career in the United States is now down to eleven years (Stephens 2001). One quarter of all beginning teachers leave teaching within four years (Benner 2000). The length of an urban teaching career is even less since fifty percent of beginners leave in five years or less (Rowan et al. 2002)." - from http://www.educationnews.org/teacher-burnout-in-black-and-white.htm
* "Approximately 27 percent of teachers leave the profession within three years, according to national statistics. In urban districts, the rate is nearly 40 percent." - from http://main.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=63392 (2003)
So, let's see, with a focus on urban areas (and an application of my admittedly basic math skills - I don't teach math for a reason):
1994: 50% make it past the first six years - avg attrition rate: 8.3%/year
1998: 20% total leave to pursue other careers (no time span indicated)
2000: 50% make it past the first five years - avg attrition rate: 10%/year
2003: 60% make it past the first three years - avg attrition rate: 20%/year
Looks a bit like a trend to me. One might even venture to say a growing trend.
- Jodi
Jodi, thanks for the stats on teachers leaving the profession. I don't know yet what they really mean in the context of this discussion--i.e.: does that mean teachers shouldn't have better knowledge of their subject?--but they are interesting.
1) You might be right that a lot of teachers want to go and earn more advanced degrees, but that is irrelevant to my point. The difference is between want and need. Teachers do not have to have advanced degrees to be teachers. Doctors and lawyers and professors must have those degrees before they can be doctors and lawyers and professors. The starting point for those professions are just not equal.
2) No one said that teaching is not a lot of work. But the fact remains that a significant amount of time off is fixed into their schedules, including the holidays. Again, there is no comparison to elite professions like law and medicine. New doctors and new lawyers work insane schedules year round, and do not get the time around the holidays off--often it is quite the opposite. Academics face a slightly different type of workload--when they are not teaching they are forced by the job market and tenure system to be researching or writing, so they too have very little time off, even with the regularly scheduled vacations. Yes, most teachers work hard, but the benefit of a lot of time off is a good one.
3) This is my "I can't" comment: I can't be particularly fair about the question of extracurricular activities because, frankly, the hardest part of the decision for me to go into the academy was that I was most likely leaving coaching behind. I can't speak to the pressure to participate in extracurricular activites because I'm not in a high school and I would be participating even if I was. I can't speak to Canada or private schools or even activities like band or theater, but every U.S. public school I know pays its sports coaches. Sure, the money works out to far below minimum wage, but I for one would coach for free if I had the opportunity. A perk, like a junket to the Caribbean? For me, absolutely.
I'm not exactly sure where we all disagree on the major point. Gibbon's main point in the article, and the one I think should be screamed from the rooftops, is that we need to look at the training of teachers in improving our education systems, particularly when it comes to knowledge of subject matter. His individual prescriptions for improvement are hit and miss. Jodi made the very good point that teachers should not have to carry a heavier educational burden if they are not going to be compensated. But my point is that teachers in training are being failed by college education departments that force them to take repetitive education classes at the expense of learning the subject they are going to teach. My recommendation is not a panacea, but it is one area that is far too often ignored.
To the Anonymous PhD: I simply disagree. Earning a PhD and having an active career in the academy is doing more that teaching high school. It may not be better or more fulfilling, but it is a harder career to enter, and it has more rigorous standards for success, and that is why so many less people do it. Down the road, in the day to day of teaching high school vs. the day to day of being a tenured professor, well, there things can level out some.
Further, no one said that PhDs cannot learn from other disciplines, but considering every education class I've ever been in or heard about boils down to the admission that for all the helpful tips, you learn on the job and that you can either teach or you can't, any PhD is more qualified as a starting teacher than a newly minted BA, BS, or BEd. None of them may be able to cut it, but it is absurd to send people with terminal degrees back for more school before they have a chance to prove their worth in a classroom.
It seems to me that this conversation has been going in several directions, the least productive of which have been those in which defensiveness has taken the place of rigorous argument. Do I think teachers should be paid more? Depends. I think I'd be all for it if we could set some standards. For all of the weepy homages to how teachers have inspired some of you, I can speak from my personal experience, and I bet Tom would second it without giving it even a second thought, the best tachers I have ever had were college professors. Some of the worst I ever had were high school teachers. A huge part of this has to do with content -- in order to teach history, the person teaching it should know some history. Or English. Or whatever. A lot of it has to do with natural aptitudes. A lot has to do with passion for the subject. Whatever.
But the problem I have is with the "society owes us" argument. Yes, teaching is important, although beyond the political ad soundbites about the wonder of children, I have yet to have anyone explain to me why that argument works for high school teachers but not college professors. Lots of professions are important and do not get paid as much as they deserve. But you knew this when you went into teaching. And if you did not, you are really, really not very bright. So what changed? I don't know. But if you want more money, you cannot just expect it across the board. And why wouldn't teachers themselves want higher standards in the profession anyway? Why protect those teachers who are truly bad? And why on earth expect that they should get a raise?
I think teaching is important at all levels. But I am sorry, I deserve more money than a high school history teacher. I have a PhD. I am a damned good teacher. I teach those teachers, in fact, who are smart enough to take history classes rather than another damned MA course in history, most of which are as worthless as teats on a bull. Come to think of it, I teach those future teachers as undergrads too. And on top of all of that I write and publish. But if I get a raise or a promotion, there is going to be a whole lot of merit attached and the process is a bit like an enema. I am going to be judged by rigorous standards. I am going to have to teach well. And write and publish. A lot. And serve on committees. I do not mind this. But I then do not want to be told that all teachers deserve raises without a comparable, if less invasive (with far fewer expectations) process. Forgive me if I am not going to categorically assert that all teachers deserve more money as a matter of course. And forgive me if I am not willing to be blackmailed be people who suddenly decide (epiphany!) that they aren't paid enough, so they are going to leave, but a little more money and, well, we'd stay. Social workers, nurses, clinic doctors, and many, many others, including a large number of college professors, would love to get paid more and do not get paid enough. The only profession that so regularly wears it on its sleeves is teaching, and they are not even willing to have that expected pay raise come with expectations of assessment or merit. It's all take, no give, and for the love of God don't judge us.
OK, I think this will be my last post on this. Mostly cause I think everything will have been said, at least on my end, but also cause my kids' play is later this week and it's consuming my brain. :)
Tom asked where exactly it is that we differ. I think it's a fair question, so I'll answer it, I think, by pointing first to the places in which we seem to share some views.
I don't disagree that teachers should be better educated. I agree that teachers should know their subjects. I strongly believe that a good teacher should get more recognition (in wages, in priviledges, or in other forms of recognition) than a bad teacher, and that in fact there should be better ways to replace bad teachers with good teachers.
I agree that those earning higher degrees have spent a lot more time in school than most teachers, and that they therefore have a more in-depth knowledge of their subjects. I agree that they are suited to teach in a college or university environment, which demands from them research, publication, and the focused, in-depth instruction of their particular subject area.
So those, Tom (and others), are items that I stipulate to willingly.
Now, for the things that I disagree on:
I disagree that being an academic necessarily means that that person is a better teacher. Better versed in the subject area, yes, by virtue of having spent more time with it, writing, researching, lecturing, discussing, attending lectures. But this does not make a good teacher. I applaud those universities that are now requiring PhD candidates and other T.A.s to take pedagogical training courses in order to help them add to their repertoires approaches that escape the old (and not always effective) paradigm of lecture-based instruction. Some academics might think they're a waste of time; some of the courses may indeed be poorly designed, if well-intentioned. But there are plenty of academics out there who could use a good lesson in how to teach.
Absolutely, there are some very talented professors, just as there are some singularly untalented high school teachers. But by no means does a PhD automatically qualify people to *teach*. It qualifies them to be experts in a subject area, to research, to be viewed by colleagues as a resource and a peer. To be respected for all that, certainly. To demand recognition as a *teacher* - only if they can prove they can *teach*.
I disagree that those who have spent more time being formally educated necessarily deserve more respect than those who have not. By this token, the famously uneducated Lincoln deserves less respect for advancing the cause of black Americans than does, say, John F. Kennedy. A person's merit or ability to contribute to society should not be measured by their level of education. More than a few "uneducated" but highly respectable people might join me in taking to task people who argue this particular point.
This is not a question of pay only, but a question of respect. So yes, I do believe that a teacher contributes as much as a lawyer to society, and I do not believe that a PhD has contributed *more*. Each has contributed something *different* that the other cannot do. It's an unfortunate fact that our society measures respect in terms of dollar signs, but there's also the respect afforded people in attitude, and I believe both Tom and Derek need to reconsider their attitudes towards teachers, whom they, sadly, seem to consider inferior to themselves.
That said, I return to the main argument in this thread: what can be done to improve the standards of teaching in the US? Because I do not deny that teachers with *both* higher degrees *and* pedagogical training are better positioned to teach successfully than those who are not, *provided* they are also suited to their environment (in the case of high school teachers, by virtue of strong interpersonal skills, an aptitude with adolescents, a strong sense of accountability towards the various stakeholders, among other attributes).
I think there's something I overlooked or misunderstood in entering this discussion. Where I live, teachers are required to have a solid grounding in their subject matter before even applying to a teachers'-education program. Thus, I had an Honours degree in English with a minor in History before I was allowed to apply to teach either.
But it seems, from what Tom is saying, that this is not the case in the US. If I understand him correctly, it seems that prospective teachers are entering teachers'-education programs and *there* expecting to gain the grounding they need to teach a subject.
If this is the case, it is not necessarily the teachers'-education programs that need remedying. It's the standard of admission to those programs in the first place. Insist that the prospective teachers have honours standing in their subject(s) in their undergraduate degree. Insist that those undergraduate degrees include certain core courses that will cover anything that needs to be taught at the high-school level. In other words, get people who are adequately qualified in the subject area, and *then* focus on ensuring they have the skills to survive in a high-school environment.
And if higher degrees are so very desirable in a teacher (and I don't dispute that they are -- again, with the proviso that they do not stand as the only qualification, especially not for high school), make those degrees *accessible*. Not by lowering standards, but by making it actually pragmatic and attainable for teachers, by ensuring that they will be able to pay the tuition necessary for getting it. Subsidize programs that enable teachers to return to school after earning their base-line degrees, with the understanding that they will then go on to teach high school, or pay the money back. Medicine provides incentives for doctors to practice in less-desirable areas by contracting them to serve those areas with a promise to subsidize their training; why shouldn't this apply to other professions?
In this last post I am not wearing my heart on my sleeve. I really believe in this issue and believe that greater attention needs to be paid it. While in other posts I have indeed put forth impassioned *personal* arguments, I hope I have made these last points in a pragmatic, reasoned way, so that I won't be subject to the kind of snide comments that Derek ends his own post with, but instead will be taken seriously.
Thanks,
Jodi
Jody --
What was snide? You've been lobbing bombs and accusations for thousands of words here. I come in and make some aggressive points, but ones that are right and by which I stand, and suddenly you are whining about snideness. You must be a hoot in social settings. (note: that was snide; though snide can be true.)
Your Lincoln-JFK analogy is nonsense given that the argument about PhD's having a great deal more education comes in a discussion about the field of education. That Lincoln did more for black Americans than Kennedy is fine as far as it goes but it has nothing to do with the argument at hand (Lincoln was not educated? Hmmm . . .). It is a dumb analogy. If the argument were that presidents need to have more education, your argument would work. But we are talking about education for educators.
Further, the fact remains, I've seen a lot more bad high school tachers than bad professors. And at least the bad professors go through an evaluation process AND have the ciontent to convey. As for pedagogical classes for professors: please. No one has yet shown to me that one can be taught how to teach. I have, however, seen education majors who seemed singularly unqualified to do so. Having gotten my fall semester teaching evaluations today, I'll toss my credentials as a teacher out there with you or any of your colleagues, and I have the added benefit of being an expert in my field, published, quoted, and as a junior person, becoming more well known. One can be a popular high school teacher and be full of crap. In other words: if you want to do the teachers vs. professors argument, prepare for a bit of snideness from those of us who teach well, know our stuff, and are expected to write books and articles and reviews and conference papers.
dc
Ed. Note: Derek's last post was deleted because it was a repeat.
There's a fine line between "well known" and notorious.
Wow! That's a lot of balls. Some gutless anonymous twirp just alleged that my professional reputation is "notorious." If that anonymous person would like to explicate, would like to say what they mean, and use their own name, I'd gladly have a professional respect pissing contest. I'll gladly compare my professional reputation with yours any time you would like. I also note that you do not address the substance of what I say in any of my posts. It takes a brave, brave person to hit and run on a weblog. Show yourself, and bring some evidence to bear, please, or admit that you are not only a coward, but also a libelous little wretch of a person. For now, I'll just assume that by "notorious" you mean, much, much smarter than you.
Hi, Tom,
I'm kind of amused that you're drawing attention to this debate again, but thanks for the tip of the hat to its energy. :)
I enjoyed debating with you. I think you have some interesting things to say, though I don't agree with them (obviously).
But two things prevent me from continuing the debate. The first is that, as I stated in my last post, I think I've said pretty much everything I want to on the subject. The second is that, while I enjoyed debating with some of the people who posted, I actually was really turned off by Derek's over-the-top attacks, including some that were ridiculously ad hominem (who cares what I'm like in social situations? Does that render my arguments invalid?)
In any case, I'm interested to see if other people have valid points to make, and look forward to seeing some.
This is an interesting site. I've been using some of the material as starting-points for my lessons on effective (and ineffective) argumentation for my AP English class.
Cheers,
Jodi
I am interested to know how Jodi is using this thread in class.
Stephen posts the first sane response in a while. I, too, would be interested in Jodi’s pedagogical use of this material.
As for Derek: snide but true…goose and gander…if ever a response proved a point…
I'm not using this *thread*. I'm using this *site* for ideas to provide a balance of material for my class to analyse from a variety of sources.
For example: someone posted about how journalists have a responsibility to keep military secrets secret - it's an interesting and important counter-argument to the idea of "freedom of speech". It's not logical to say that just because you have the freedom to say what you want that it's always a good idea to do so.
Don't jump to conclusions, and try reading more carefully, fellas. :)
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