[NLA] David's model and teacher certification

[KathleenBombach@aol.com]

Ref: Teacher certification

Roughly 10-15 years ago, the State of Texas took a hard look at its system 
for accrediting teachers.  What was discovered was something any high school 
student in the state could have said:  the focus on meeting teacher 
accrediting requirements had resulted in future teachers majoring in 
education and taking large numbers of courses in teaching, and not taking 
courses in the subject matter that they were going to teach.  To put it 
bluntly, many teachers in Texas knew very little about what they were 
teaching.  (As someone who attended Texas schools most of my childhood, this 
was no surprise. )

The state blamed this situation on the expectation that future teachers would 
major in education, and somehow pick up enough courses in their subject 
matter to know enough to teach.  Actually, it was surprising how little 
preparation many teachers had in their teaching field.  They knew how to make 
bulletin boards, but not much else.  So the state abolished education as the 
major for future teachers.  Teachers must now have a content major, and a 
minor in education, to receive certification.

(I have an additional explanation.  The focus on athletics in Texas schools 
meant that lots of men majored in education and minored in PE so that they 
could coach.  But coaching a sport is a two or three class period assignment 
each day, so these men were assigned to teach one or two content classes a 
day.  Often government, history, or health were those subjects, and we Texas 
students had to suffer through these classes taught by 'C' students who had 
taken (maybe) one or two classes in the subject in college.  You think I am 
joking?  Texas high schools, even small ones, typically have programs in 
football, basketball, volleyball, wrestling, tennis, soccer, baseball, 
softball, track, etc.  This is a lot of coaches to assign to teach 
government, history, English, health, etc.  Since I attended high school 
pre-Title IX, maybe we now have many women coaches with the same level of 
general ignorance.)

If we move to accreditation of teachers, for God's sake, let's not repeat the 
errors of the elementary and secondary school systems.  Should a future GED 
instructor take a major in adult education or should he or she study math, 
science, English, etc. with a few courses in teaching and curriculum?

Kathleen Bombach

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.literacytent.org/pipermail/nla-nifl-archive/attachments/20020624/e91f88fe/attachment.htm