Re: improving textbooks -- some modest proposals

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 13:39 -0800 2/18/02, Michael Bowen wrote:
> Is it possible that foreign science teachers actually have to be
> knowledgeable of their subject, and that this compensates (when necessary)
> for the quality of textbooks?

I suspect it varies from country to country and the level of school
in which the teaching occurs. A former student of mine, probably the
best student I ever had (straight-As at a school that doesn't have
that happen very often), graduated from Stanford in physics, grad
school at U. Texas Austin. Left with an MS in physics when she fell
in love and moved to Germany to be with her new husband, an engineer
with a Berlin construction company. She started the process of
preparing to teach physics at the gymnasium level in Germany in 1994,
and just this year finally got certification after spending about as
much time taking course and passing tests as one would in a rigorous
PhD program. This is 8 years after finishing a masters in physics.
Granted, she took time out along the way to have a family, but as she
has described it to me, it was a grueling process.

Now that she is finally teaching, she will be on probation for one
year, and, if successful, she will start earning as much as her
husband, now a senior engineer, working on the Potsdammerplatz
federal government construction program. I think they plan on working
alternating years.

I would say that she is probably well qualified to teach physics at
the elite high school level. I doubt that any jurisdiction in the US
has anywhere near as rigorous standards of qualification as she has
now met.

On the other hand, only a small fraction of students in Germany ever
get to the gymnasium level, and they can keep the numbers down to
whatever they have the staff to handle. I have no idea what the
qualification levels are at the terminal schools that handle the
majority of students.

In general, I would argue that a well-qualified teacher can do well
in spite of the curriculum or the textbook or both (although it
certainly is harder, and the burn-out usually occurs sooner), but a
poorly qualified teacher is instant road-kill if the curriculum and
the textbook are not first-rate.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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