Re: [Phys-L] teaching credentials +- qualifications +- administration

[Marty Weiss <martweiss@comcast.net>]

No.. you are 180 deg. from what I was trying to convey.  It has nothing to do with statistics.  Remember who the students "are" not how much money their parents make. These are teenagers who take 6 or 7 classes, not just physics or chemistry.  They enjoy their video games, sports, girls or boys (depending).  They may or may not even like some of the subjects they have to take.  Plus they have to pass some cockamamie state test to graduate.  So here comes the BS in physics from Pronceton.  WHAM!  What a rude awakenibg.  The degree means nothing in the high school environment.  Classroom control, knowledge of the teenage mind and emotions, keeping the room clean and enticing, satisfying some principal who may or may not even know any science or understand what it is all about to teach science,... all of these things mean just as much as all the subject knowledge the university gave them.   Just because a person has a degree from an Ivy doesn't mean they can teach high school students.  Teaching is an art that not everyone has the talent to do.  The attitude that anyone with a top tier degree can enter a high school and become the savior of a physics program is why the teaching profession is filled with TFA people who do it for 3 years and leave;  why the turnover rate for 5 year teachers is approaching 50%;  why everyone who ever sat behind a desk thinks they can teach kids;  why professors with their huge lecture halls and myriads of TA's and a captive audience think they can suddenly produce tons of successful teachers better than the rest of us who made careers of understanding the thousands of teenagers who passed through our doors.  



On Oct 19, 2013, at 11:51 PM, Bernard Cleyet wrote:

> On 2013, Oct 19, , at 11:14, Marty Weiss <martweiss@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > On Oct 19, 2013, at 11:45 AM, John Denker wrote:
> >
> > > Furthermore FWIW, returning to the lower level, even the GPA 
> > > example persists in other places, e.g.
> > > http://www.education.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/pa_certification/8635/important_certification_requirements/506743
> > > In other words, half of the students graduating from Princeton
> > > are officially considered too stupid to teach in Yardley, PA -- 
> > > 15 miles away.  This is beyond bizarre.
> >
> > That assumes that the students of Princeton are CAPABLE  
>
> ????
>
> > of teaching in Yardley.  
> > >
>
>
> Which direction?  Too upper class???
>
>
> The median income for a household in Lower Makefield township/ Yardley was $98,090, and the median income for a family was $106,908 (these figures had risen to $112,677 and $128,314 respectively as of a 2007 estimate[2]). Males had a median income of $80,329 versus $47,138 for females. The per capita income for the township was $43,983. About 1.8% of families and 2.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.8% of those under age 18 and 3.7% of those age 65 or over. In the borough of Yardley, The median income for a household was $58,221, and the median income for a family was $70,938. Males had a median income of $50,816 versus $41,893 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $32,802. About 1.7% of families and 3.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.6% of those under age 18 and 3.3% of those age 65 or over.
>
>
> the HS where the Princeton certificated would teach:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsbury_High_School  
>
> bc
>
>
>
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