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Are the educational requirements to be a K-12 teacher overkill?

Are the educational requirements to be a K-12 teacher overkill?

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jamesrage

jamesrage

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Are the educational requirements to be a K-12 teacher overkill?

I saw another thread as was wondering what everyone's opinions are on the subject.

I ask this question because it seems like overkill. What the hell does college level classes has to do with teaching little Timmy that 2+2=4 or that George Washington was the first president,especially if you only teach one subject? You wouldn't go to culinary school just so you can get a job at McDonalds flipping burgers or cooking french fries nor would you go to calculus just so you can be a cashier at Wal-Mart. Wouldn't be better if those wanting to be teachers only took courses related to the field they want to teach in or maybe a trade school for like lesson plan and test making and perhaps how to deal with unruly children?
 
jamesrage said:
Are the educational requirements to be a K-12 teacher overkill?

I saw another thread as was wondering what everyone's opinions are on the subject.

I ask this question because it seems like overkill. What the hell does college level classes has to do with teaching little Timmy that 2+2=4 or that George Washington was the first president,especially if you only teach one subject? You wouldn't go to culinary school just so you can get a job at McDonalds flipping burgers or cooking french fries nor would you go to calculus just so you can be a cashier at Wal-Mart. Wouldn't be better if those wanting to be teachers only took courses related to the field they want to teach in or maybe a trade school for like lesson plan and test making and perhaps how to deal with unruly children?
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I don't think teachers should have to have college degrees at all (except for high school teachers). I think college should be optional, with the college grads earning more...but I would agree that sitting through four years of education classes is not going to help people become better teachers, when maybe a couple classes and a student teaching assignment could do the job just as easily.

Many states are now requiring teachers to get master's degrees. This seems completely ridiculous to me. There is absolutely nothing they can learn in an additional year or two of school that they didn't already learn as an undergrad. I have some friends who are teachers, and they unanimously say that the Education classes they took in college and grad school were a huge waste of time.

There are plenty of people without a college degree who would make great teachers. Similarly, there are plenty of people with master's degrees who make terrible teachers.
 
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Children are highly impressionable - especially through age 12 or so. Since the children are our future, not everyone is fit to teach.

I believe that elementary school teachers and high school teachers should be the most qualified - especially for a certain age group if teaching very young children.

The only thing I ever learned from middle school was how to stick up for myself. Middle school years are doomed to the emotional angst of a developing child. :shock:

SO, I picked "no" generally because I believe educational requirements for most K-12 teachers seems to be in good measure.
 
Sanitas said:
Children are highly impressionable - especially through age 12 or so. Since the children are our future, not everyone is fit to teach.

I believe that elementary school teachers and high school teachers should be the most qualified - especially for a certain age group if teaching very young children.

The only thing I ever learned from middle school was how to stick up for myself. Middle school years are doomed to the emotional angst of a developing child. :shock:

SO, I picked "no" generally because I believe educational requirements for most K-12 teachers seems to be in good measure.
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Could you explain how are college level courses relevant to teaching little Timmy that 2+2=4 or that George Washington is the first president of the USA? What if McDonalds decided that all their fry cooks and burger flippers go to the Le Cordon Blue cooking school,wouldn't you say that was overkill? K-12 teachers are basically teaching what they learned in K-12 education.
 
jamesrage said:
Are the educational requirements to be a K-12 teacher overkill?

I saw another thread as was wondering what everyone's opinions are on the subject.

I ask this question because it seems like overkill. What the hell does college level classes has to do with teaching little Timmy that 2+2=4
Click to expand...

Just to pick out one example, what do you do when timmy doesn't understand why 2+2=4, or can't make the leap from accepting that 2+2=4 to being able to figure out that 2+3=5? I don't have any first hand knowledge, but AFAIK teachers go to college to learn how to teach, not to learn what they're teaching

Google brought me to NC State's page on their elementary education major, which includes the following classes

Childrens Thinking and Additive Reasoning, Teaching Science in the Primary Grades, Social Studies for the Young Reader, Teaching Reading in Elementary School, Teaching Language Arts, 21st. Century Literacy, Assessment of Learning and Behavior, Teaching Special Needs
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I don't think I could do any of that very well without prior training. I'm sure I could get the smart kids through the stuff alright, but I wouldn't know where to start with little Timmy the dumbass who doesn't understand that 2+2=4.

Also, as others have stated, the level of education that the person is teaching makes a difference. If you're teaching high school calc you need a better than highschool level of understanding of calc to do so in addition to needing all the skills necessary to help high school kids learn
 
jamesrage said:
Could you explain how are college level courses relevant to teaching little Timmy that 2+2=4 or that George Washington is the first president of the USA? What if McDonalds decided that all their fry cooks and burger flippers go to the Le Cordon Blue cooking school,wouldn't you say that was overkill? K-12 teachers are basically teaching what they learned in K-12 education.
Click to expand...

I think you're trying to make teaching sound like too easy of a job.
 
jamesrage said:
Are the educational requirements to be a K-12 teacher overkill?

I saw another thread as was wondering what everyone's opinions are on the subject.

I ask this question because it seems like overkill. What the hell does college level classes has to do with teaching little Timmy that 2+2=4 or that George Washington was the first president,especially if you only teach one subject? You wouldn't go to culinary school just so you can get a job at McDonalds flipping burgers or cooking french fries nor would you go to calculus just so you can be a cashier at Wal-Mart. Wouldn't be better if those wanting to be teachers only took courses related to the field they want to teach in or maybe a trade school for like lesson plan and test making and perhaps how to deal with unruly children?
Click to expand...

A teacher teaching only that should not be teaching. It's important to learn the "why's". College increases the chance that the teacher both knows why themselves, and how to teach that shy.
 
Sanitas said:
I think you're trying to make teaching sound like too easy of a job.
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Having a difficult job and having a job that requires a college education are not the same thing.
 
Kernel Sanders said:
Just to pick out one example, what do you do when timmy doesn't understand why 2+2=4, or can't make the leap from accepting that 2+2=4 to being able to figure out that 2+3=5?
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How did you understand that 2+2=4 or that 2+3=5? Most children can understand that 2+2=4 when you take 2 apples and add another 2 apples and tell that child to count them.


I don't have any first hand knowledge, but AFAIK teachers go to college to learn how to teach, not to learn what they're teaching
Click to expand...

Then how is the other stuff in college relevant, why not just a trade school that teaches potential teachers how to teach? Would you fell better if the fry cook,burger flipper or short order cook at a fast food restaurant went to culinary school, would you feel better if the cashier at Wal-Mart took calculus?
 
I think that the education of teachers could definitely be streamlined. Instead, we see some districts upping the requirement to a Masters Degree.

Teaching is a profession that requires a great deal of on the job experience. Teaching candidates spend too much time learning useless information, and not enough time on student teaching.
 
Redress said:
A teacher teaching only that should not be teaching. It's important to learn the "why's". College increases the chance that the teacher both knows why themselves,
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That's not really an issue, except at the high school level. I would hope that any reasonably intelligent adult would know the "why"s beyond a younger kid's question. And if they don't, they probably aren't going to learn it in college.

Redress said:
and how to teach that
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I've never taken Education classes, so all I have to go on is hearsay...but my teacher friends have told me that their Education classes were a complete waste of time. One class on maintaining order, and one class on motivating students, plus a student teaching assignment...that should be sufficient for the K-8 level, IMO.
 
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Sanitas said:
I think you're trying to make teaching sound like too easy of a job.
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Lots of jobs are difficult, it doesn't mean they should require college. Should an electrician go to college to be an electrician instead of some trade school?
 
I think more states are requiring teachers to get master's degrees because it allows politicians to act like they're improving education without actually doing anything.

The fallacy here is that better-educated teachers does not translate into better teachers.
 
jamesrage said:
Could you explain how are college level courses relevant to teaching little Timmy that 2+2=4 or that George Washington is the first president of the USA? What if McDonalds decided that all their fry cooks and burger flippers go to the Le Cordon Blue cooking school,wouldn't you say that was overkill? K-12 teachers are basically teaching what they learned in K-12 education.
Click to expand...

Are you being serious? Do you know what it takes to create lesson plans, to make sure all your kids are doing well. No teachers dont teach what they learned in High school, they teach what they learned in all the years of education and life exprience. Simply putting in HIgh School graduates as teachers would be great to create a generation of retards.

Teachers are one of the most important roles, and we must make sure we have the best of the best as teachers. We shoudl also pay much higher salaries.
 
How about we just require teachers to know what they are teaching, by whatever means? People graduating in Oklahoma don't know who George Washington was. :roll:
 
OxymoronP said:
Are you being serious? Do you know what it takes to create lesson plans,
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Why does it take four years of college to learn how to create a lesson plan? I have a pretty good idea just from observing others create them...I'm sure I could learn how to do it in a few weeks (at most).

OxymoronP said:
to make sure all your kids are doing well.
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Why do teachers need four years of college to make sure their students are doing well?

OxymoronP said:
No teachers dont teach what they learned in High school, they teach what they learned in all the years of education and life exprience.
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That doesn't make sense. If teachers are teaching kids what they learned post-high school, then that would mean that someone taught it to THEM at a younger age. Which contradicts the premise that they learned it post-high school.

OxymoronP said:
Simply putting in HIgh School graduates as teachers would be great to create a generation of retards.
Click to expand...

Is there any evidence that indicates that going to college makes people better able to teach kids, versus taking a couple courses plus a student teaching assignment?

OxymoronP said:
Teachers are one of the most important roles, and we must make sure we have the best of the best as teachers.
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I agree. But "the best of the best" does not mean "only people who have master's degrees." There are plenty of people who never went to college who are great with kids and instinctively know how to motivate them, and there are plenty of people with advanced degrees who are absolutely awful teachers.
 
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OxymoronP said:
Are you being serious? Do you know what it takes to create lesson plans, to make sure all your kids are doing well.
Click to expand...

Do you really need 4 years or more of college to be able to do this? Why not a trade school?

No teachers dont teach what they learned in High school, they teach what they learned in all the years of education and life exprience.
Click to expand...

Your telling me a elementary school teacher learned that 2+2=4 and that George Washington was our first president in college?


Simply putting in HIgh School graduates as teachers would be great to create a generation of retards.
Click to expand...

Any evidence of this? If what is said about Oklahoma high school students is true, then this is evidence that teachers with college education does not produce superior results.

Then why do home schooled kids do better grade wise than those who attend school?

Homeschool vs. Public School | The Conservative Front
Home School Versus Public or Private Education: Which is Better? - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com





Teachers are one of the most important roles, and we must make sure we have the best of the best as teachers. We shoudl also pay much higher salaries.
Click to expand...

Pay should be based on performance/results.
 
American said:
How about we just require teachers to know what they are teaching, by whatever means? People graduating in Oklahoma don't know who George Washington was. :roll:
Click to expand...

This seems like evidence that a college degree does not make someone a superior teacher.
 
Kandahar said:
I don't think teachers should have to have college degrees at all (except for high school teachers). I think college should be optional, with the college grads earning more...but I would agree that sitting through four years of education classes is not going to help people become better teachers, when maybe a couple classes and a student teaching assignment could do the job just as easily.

Many states are now requiring teachers to get master's degrees. This seems completely ridiculous to me. There is absolutely nothing they can learn in an additional year or two of school that they didn't already learn as an undergrad. I have some friends who are teachers, and they unanimously say that the Education classes they took in college and grad school were a huge waste of time.

There are plenty of people without a college degree who would make great teachers. Similarly, there are plenty of people with master's degrees who make terrible teachers.
Click to expand...

I completely disagree. It's already exceptionally easy to gain access to elementary students when you have no degree. As a college degree child development and becoming an elementary teacher is fairly easy as it is.

We don't want dumbasses teaching our kids. It's best to weed out the tards. It's not just about teaching a kid 2 + 2 = 4.
 
Kandahar said:
I think more states are requiring teachers to get master's degrees because it allows politicians to act like they're improving education without actually doing anything.

The fallacy here is that better-educated teachers does not translate into better teachers.
Click to expand...

I bet that is the truth. Good observation!

GWBush instituted the 'No Child Left Behind' federal mandate that has added tons of paperwork to already beleaguered teachers, another 'feel good' program to make politicians look good.
 
No. Our students are not as well educated as their foreign counterparts. The solution is not to lessen the qualification level of our teachers.
 
Just finished a teach education program, myself.. and about to start full time next January. My answer is Yes and No. I shall explain.

You see, it is a tough job that requires a great deal of knowledge. Therefore, a lot of education is needed. However, the type we recieve is very much mis-directed and not helpful. State officials like to load up on requirements, regardless of how useful the actual classes are.

So I am not mad at needing six years of education to make 30K a year, nearly so much as I'm angry at 5 of those 6 years on junk I can never use, taking classes either out of my subject matter and/or designed by non-educators.

Fun fact: I am about to teach European history at the high school level. I took 120 credit hours for my BA..guess how many classes were in Euro history? TWO!

Only took four in American. So whether we teach american or euro, my state gives licenses to people with hardly any actual subject-matter experience. Vast majority of the classes are not germane to my job: foreign language, mathematics, biology, etc.
 
my senior year is way to hard right now
 
bhkad said:
No. Our students are not as well educated as their foreign counterparts. The solution is not to lessen the qualification level of our teachers.
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YOu assume that higher "qualifications" would mean better teachers. Not true at all.

If we require a History teacher to be able to do 100 pull-ups and call him highly qualified, will he be a better teacher than one who only does 10? What if we make it even harder.. 1000 pullups! Great teacher, eh?

Wait, no.. that's not germane to his subject. We need to make sure the requirements are actually making him better.. right now, and I speak from experiences, 90 percent of the classes and requirements are pure filler.
 
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