No worries. As mentioned, my issue is more with Mr. Graham than with you.
Re: Master's degrees & Ph.D.'s...
You, and Mr. Graham, are confusing intellect with academic performance, and using them interchangeably to suit your argument when they are, in fact, very different things.
I agree, advanced degrees are not always representative of intelligence. In many cases they are simply representative of one's stamina at jumping through the hoops of convention and administration.
However, I brought up the academic statistic (60% Master's degrees or better) in response to his statement "...as a rule people planning to go into teaching rank academically near the bottom of the college population."
In this sentence, Mr. Graham's argument was one based on
academic performance (which is measured in grades and degrees), not intellectual performance (which is measured in countless other ways and is not always easy to measure; nor, as you pointed out, is it necessarily correlated with academic degrees). Whether or not one is intelligent, it is absolutely impossible to get an advanced degree without being "academically near the top of the college population." Most graduate programs have a minimum GPA requirement for entrance and maintaining candidacy, even if that minimum is simply "the top 50%". Not the most rigorous, to be sure; but certainly not "near the bottom."
Most of the people who I knew who wanted to be teachers, though, struggled in classes and generally didn't care so much about school. When I was studying 17 hours a day they were smoking pot and playing video games. Then again, that's just my experience of education majors I personally knew - which is not by any means a representation of said population.
This makes me very sad. I certainly am nowhere near "God's gift to teaching" or anything like that, but I do care very much about what I do and by many measures over the course of my short career, I have been told I am good at what I do. I hold myself to an extremely high standard and many of my colleagues approach their profession similarly. I feel I have a LONG way to go before I can feel like I am "a good teacher" but it is something I strive for on a daily basis, including during my summers "off." I consider myself a Teacher 24/7, and it saddens me to hear that there are people intending to enter the profession who aren't "pulling their weight" as I see it.
To be fair, when I was in undergraduate I goofed off a lot (notice in my first post I didn't list any academic ranking after my Linguistics degree, because I most definitely "did not work up to my potential," when I got my first degree)
. Your observations may have more to do with the age/maturity level of the people you observed, than of teacher preparation programs as a whole. That said, as mentioned before programs are different all over the country and can vary widely. Regardless, your comments about what you've observed sadden me.
It is a sad truth, however, that there are lots of half-assed teachers out there. Part of this has to do with the fact that in the earliest days of American public education, when the economy was highly agrarian, school was viewed as an inconvenient interruption of the necessary work on the farm. So it was the public's belief that school should interfere as minimally as possible (hence summers off so as not to interfere with the growing and harvesting seasons), and should simply provide the basics, the "Three R's." As such, teachers were culled from young unmarried women and the role of 'teacher' was not viewed as a profession at all, but as a way for woman to pass the time before she found a husband. Furthermore, because "true education" (or what was considered "true" education at the time: i.e. a college, or even high school, education), and a life beyond simply inheriting the family farm or mercantile, were beyond the imagination and reach of most Americans at this point in history, public school teachers were viewed as being simply an extension of maternal responsibility, rather than as being educators in the classical sense of the word. As such, early teacher-preparation programs were not terribly academically rigorous.
Over time, as society became more educated, and public school grew in breadth and scope to cover vastly more than grades 1-8, and subjects far beyond the "Three R's," teacher preparation programs had to grow more rigorous. Following the Industrial Revolution, public school became critical to students' success in the workplace. The addition of high school to American education was a response to this need and American education grew and standardized extremely rapidly. Education was seen as a means to prepare a workforce, and since the "workforce" at this time was understood to mean "assembly line factory workers," the model developed to respond to that: students coming and going based on the ringing of bells, compartmentalized subjects, grades based on ability to memorize and regurgitate information, etc. The school itself became a factory because this was the new basis for the American economy. During this period of massive growth, all that was expected of teachers was that they could be "factory foremen": maintaining order, filling in numbers on a spreadsheet, and dumping a finite set of information into empty receptacles within a specified period of time. Teaching was still largely a "female" profession, due to the legacy of teacher preparation in our agrarian economy, but since women weren't expected to be "professionals" at this point in our history, it was still considered a 'substandard' career: something to do while waiting for Mr. Right to appear. And of course women weren't taken very seriously in academic circles at this point in history anyhow.
Teacher preparation programs at this point weren't even full college programs. Teachers went to "normal schools," where, as the name implies, they went to learn how to deliver a finite set of information, according to grade-level "norms," to students. These norms were established based on what an average American factory worker would need to know to succeed at his/her job. As such, teaching got a reputation as being a non-serious, "easy" profession, and to be honest, although in the 1940s and 50s, most teaching programs became full-fledged college programs, it is only within the last 30 years or so that the standards have been raised to where we as a society should demand them to be.
Most of the growth of American public education happened during the period immediately following the Industrial Revolution, which meant that many of these norms fossilized into massive bureaucratic legacy programs, which, as we are now discovering, are extremely difficult to change. Although our society and our economy have changed drastically, our school systems are having a hard time moving away from that "factory" model and catching up. So yes, there are a lot of half-assed teachers out there; thankfully most of them are retiring, and the teachers coming up in the new ranks are products of teacher preparation programs that, while they vary in quality from state to state, are vast improvements over earlier models. That said, there is still a perception out there that teaching is an "easy" profession, which may be why you observed the things you did. I very much hope that your "pot-smoking, video game-playing" acquaintances did not 'make the cut' in their licensing program.
So yes, schools are behind, and the system is far from perfect. It's easy to blame the schools for this, but let's remember that schools are 100% dictated by tax revenues and school board mandates. As most school boards are elected members of the community, schools are the victims (and beneficiaries) of political whims and public opinion from the local level all the way up to the federal level. The majority of state and federal demands on public education, while well-intentioned, are under- or unfunded. A lot of the "catching up" that schools need, and in most cases want (desperately) to do, requires a change in attitude on a massive scale across society. It's not just that schools need more funding, but the whole model, the whole idea behind what constitutes "an educated person" needs to be re-examined. This very thing is happening in a lot of teacher preparation programs across the country, but sadly these newly-minted teachers are entering a very outdated legacy system when they take their first job. So change happens slowly, and "society," at least the population with voting rights, needs to change along with it. Sadly, most of the voting population with enough life experience and perspective to make funding decisions left public education at least 10 years ago, and are themselves products of this outdated legacy system, and therefore have a hard time imagining anything different, not to mention supporting any change. So it becomes a self-perpetuating system.
There is a lot wrong with public education, and I am a passionate advocate for reform. Having said that, however, there is a lot
right with public education. In its earliest days, public schools were expected to teach students how to read, write, and do simple math. Most education was only to about 6th or 8th grade, and students learned enough to manage the family farm or mercantile, and that was it. Today, only about 150 years later, public schools provide the following to American students aged 4-18 (and up to age 23 in some cases):
-reading, writing, and mathematics instruction up to levels that were previously only available to college students
-American history
-World history
-biology, chemistry, physics
-physical education
-health
-music
-art
-performing arts
-AP and IB courses
-study in world languages, including: Spanish, French, Russian, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Farsi, Arabic, Latin, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, and many others
-language instruction and support for non-English-speaking students
-psychological treatment
-social work interventions for students in difficult social/family situations
-college preparation, both academic and administrative
-driver's education
-business courses
-computer courses
-first aid/health care instruction
-culinary instruction
-parenting classes
-bookkeeping/financial literacy
-provides at least one meal per day, sometimes two; in many cases provides these meals for free or reduced cost so that poverty-stricken students can have at least one meal per day
-alcohol and drug abuse intervention and support
-access to museums and arts events
-access to travel abroad
-job training/preparation for the "craft" professions
-services to support students with different learning needs
-services to support students with medical needs
-access to volunteering/service opportunities
-access to community internships/business relationships
-and on and on...
Whether or not you agree with the above programs, the fact is that public schools provide a LOT of services to America's kids; services which in many cases have been (in my opinion) abdicated by parents.
Yes, the system is not perfect, and in many ways it's broken; but considering the breadth of services it provides, and in how many different circumstances and funding situations, in how many disparate communities; and the fact that overall there is order in our society, and people are becoming educated and participating in a global economy, and this is more or less happening day to day across our huge country, well, I think that's really something.
But now I'm on a huge tangent.
It's just that the American pastime of hating on public education kind of honks me off. It's because it's "free" and universal, and therefore people take it for granted and choose to only see the bad parts.
In any case, back on topic...
Personally, I think that the student-teacher relationship is one that is often abused without realizing it. Teachers often tell their students things that are speculative, especially in the classroom setting. This is highly inappropriate. Many teachers are bombarded with questions daily from students - this is why there is school. Many teachers, however, think that its ok to speculate without telling their students they are speculating.
This relationship is misunderstood by many educators, in my opinion - and therefore abused - whether that be intentional or unintentional.
Really, the main point is you should be questioning EVERYTHING that comes out of EVERYONE'S mouth, ever. The fact that the teacher is in an authority position for so many children just makes children more vulnerable when they slip a half truth - whether innocent or malicious; intentional or unintentional.
I agree with you 100% on the above.
And the respect is mutual, mon ami. Thanks for a great and enlightening/engaging discussion.
