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Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, my mother was getting ready to go
to college. She wanted to become a teacher. She was advised in the
most categorical terms to go to a mainstream university or liberal-arts
school -- *not* a "teacher's college" -- and in any case *not* to get
a degree in "education". She was told to select a major offered by
some legitimate department -- geology or biology or math or music or
history or whatever -- and then take as electives whatever teaching-
specific courses were needed to qualify for a teaching certificate.
If she was interested in the "psychology of learning" she should
take a course offered by the real psychology department, not by the
education department.
She has time and time again said that was the best advice she ever got.
The faculty of the education department don't think that's a very
constructive thing to say ... but from this student's point of view
it was entirely constructive.
On 06/16/2012 08:53 PM, Hugh Haskell wrote:
That said, I also have some harsh words for the schools that
purported to train them as physics teachers. The ignorance of some of
the simplest principles of physics among many of the teachers on the
list is astonishing, considering that they are supposed to be
teaching the top students in their schools. Even more concerning to
me is the apparent lack of the ability to think through a problem on
their own. It does seem to me that any teacher who undertakes to
teach an AP or IB or other elite course needs to be able to solve at
least the overwhelming majority of the problems they either give
themselves as homework or test (usually from a text or other
pre-designed source), or see their students try to solve on
externally designed tests (e.g., AP or Regents). Far too many of the
queries that arise on the AP-Physics listserve are from teachers who
are trying to solve some particular problems or improve their
understanding of some basic principle. I admire their interest in
improving their knowledge. They show their dedication and for that I
applaud them. But most of the questions that are asked are at a level
that the teachers should be at before they start teaching at the AP
or IB level, and for that, we must fault the schools that prepared
them.
I agree with that ... and my mother would agree. Every time I discuss
with her how awful the tests are, she says that's not the first priority.
She says nothing good will happen until the teacher-training is upgraded.
I reckon it's more of a package deal: We need to upgrade the tests
*and* the textbooks *and* the teacher-training *and* the school
principals *and* the school boards ... et cetera.
To defend against nitpickers, I would add that there must be "some"
good teacher-training programs out there ... but the average and/or
typical program is terrible.
Here's a suggestion that will simultaneously compensate for the weaknesses
in the teacher-training system (in the short run) and even /correct/
those weaknesses (in the longer run): Require teachers to have some
experience in the real world. For example, Jaime Escalante worked as
an electronics technician at one point, before he ever showed up at
Garfield High. Rationale: There is way too much BS in the educational
system. In the real world, outside the ivory tower, there is much
less tolerance for BS. Even in non-high-tech jobs such as insurance
adjuster or criminal attorney, if you can't separate BS from non-BS
you aren't going to last very long. Can you imagine what it would be
like if every physics teacher had experience actually doing industrial-
strength physics, say at an aerospace company or a solar-energy company
or a robotics company, or even just doing ray-tracing for a video-games
company or a Hollywood special-effects company?
If you think that's a bridge too far, start with just the principals.
New rule: Nobody gets promoted to principal unless they have some
kind of non-ivory-tower experience. Existing principals have five
years to get with the program.
Another rule to go along with that: Obviously anybody who wants to
take a year off comes back with at least as much seniority (and tenure
and pension) as when they left.
This is not rocket science. This is management 101. I'm not saying
it's easy, but it can be done. There will always be unintended
consequences, but they can be dealt with.
In the long run, this will require the teacher's colleges to clean
up their act, because when they find their graduates cannot get
jobs in industry, that will be a powerful and entirely appropriate
feedback signal.
If we are going to fix these problems, it starts with the education
schools and the agencies that fund our school systems, and we need to
start making sure that are teachers are well-qualified professionals
and that they get treated that way. Unfortunately that seems to be
counter to the current political climate--on both sides of the
aisle.
Two remarks:
1) I'm not sure the situation is as "unfortunate" as that. In lots of
places around the country, education is a campaign issue, discussed by
district school board candidates and by legislative candidates. Some
of them understand the issues. Some of them are trainable.
2) Before we foist onto others toooo much of the burden for fixing
the problem, we should look in the mirror. Teachers spend some huge
fraction of their time doing "assessments" -- figuring out where the
students are coming from, where there at, and where they need to go
next. At some level, we all know how to do that. So far so good.
Everybody agrees that assessments are necessary, and everybody agrees
that "some" sort of accountability is necessary. And yet ... we get
stuck with these state-mandated tests that (almost?) everybody agrees
don't measure anything worth measuring. I reckon that *we* need to
offer some specific constructive suggestions for how to do better
assessments.
As I said before: I'm not opposed to all tests. I'm opposed to
dumb tests. I've seen good standards. I've seen good tests. Alas,
the standardized multiple-guess tests we see today are not good.
Not good at all. These lousy tests have been receiving a great
deal of emphasis lately. This is not a tolerable situation.
Note that opposing the existing tests, without offering a viable
alternative, is a losing strategy ... on political grounds among
others.
One proposal is to move toward a "board of visitors" approach. Round
up a few folks who know what they're doing and send them around to
each of the schools. Note that a big part of NCLB seems to revolve
around identifying "failing schools". Well, if a school really is
failing, the board of visitors can figure that out in a femtosecond.
Also, they can probably make suggestions on how to improve things ...
which stands in contrast to a multiple-guess test which almost never
gives you the slightest hint as to how to improve things (even if
the test were measuring something you cared about, which it almost
certainly isn't).
I mean seriously, if you want to know whether a grade-school kid is
reading up to grade level, sit down with the kid and read with him.
I'm not saying this is easy, but I'm saying we know how to do it.
Similarly, if you want to know whether a kid knows any physics, don't
ask him 85 trivial multiple-guess questions ... ask him one or two
*nontrivial* physics questions and see how he approaches them.
To those who say it's too expensive to do that for every kid, I
respond that the board of visitors doesn't need to examine every kid.
The teachers have already assessed the kids in great detail, in the
ordinary course of business. The board just needs to spot check,
to see how well the teachers' assessments line up with reality.
If the school is truly a "failing school" the board will figure
that out after talking to only a handful of students. Conversely if
certain teachers or certain schools have a years-long track record
of getting good results, the board should be able to figure that
out, and then make sure nobody pesters those folks.
And just to state the obvious: Nobody and I mean NOBODY gets to
serve on the board of visitors unless they have demonstrated both
experience /and success/ in the real non-ivory-tower world. Some
fancy certificate granted by this-or-that college of education
does not count.
Nitpickers note: I have never said that subject-matter expertise
or common sense substitutes for teaching ability or vice versa.
It's a Venn diagram. You need all of the above.
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