For those of you who still think that the certification “The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education” requires of its teachers is necessary, this article is a must read.
Link via Discriminations.
For those of you who still think that the certification “The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education” requires of its teachers is necessary, this article is a must read.
Link via Discriminations.
Bravo! I did a bit on the NEA on my site. Horrible! Look at the planks in its Charter. It’s like reading anything the Soviets put out from the Kremlin.
Off Topic - I just linked you to my site. You have a fantastic site. I regularly post anti-Castro pieces and you should read the hates mail I get. Keep The Faith! Que Tenga Buen Dia!
Gracias Pat, Usted tambien!!!
I’m surprised you consider that article a must read since it doesn’t tell much (aside from the one example of a professor showing Fahrenheit 9/11) about the nature of a social justice requirement for a teacher education program to be accredited. There is nothing that really says what the letter from the Department of Education addressed nor is there much else about what Brooklyn College requires of the students in the teacher education program.
Also, you mentioned in a previous post something about requirements to become a teacher being “arbitrary.” What requirements do you (not some economist) consider arbitrary and why?
Cindylu,
You must have skipped the part about how it is hard to define ’social justice’ itself. In other words, the very topic of social justice itself is political. If you disagree, pray tell, how do you define social justice in a non-political fashion? In a way where both liberals and conservatives would agree and in a way where it’s meaningful? To simply say, ‘we wish the poor have a good education’ is to say nothing, unless you provide how you wish to accomplish that, afterall, everybody wants that. That would be as enlightening as having a class teach people the importance of ‘eliminating world hunger’, an issue everybody already agrees with without the need for a class. Which leads me to my next point, meaningless certifications….
You bring up a good point, just how much certification is necessary before it becomes too much?
I would probably support some sort of basic certification test, something like - but not equal to - the GMAT, GRE or something similar, not to easy, not too hard, but certainly tougher than we have now, than have a test for each persons individual teaching dept. Say, for example, a high school math teacher would have to score significantly higher on the math section than say the mean teacher, an English teacher on the English section, etc. I could also accept a class or two on teaching methods, some sensitivity training, and PC stuff like that, but definitely not at the current level.
Studies I have seen on what makes a quality teacher primarily boil down to having a bachelors degree, and atleast two years of experience, everything after that, you start to get rapidly diminishing returns.
With that said, I am not saying that teaching certification is the solution. Certainly the failure of the public school system is a mix of different variables all intertwined together that only a government monopoly would be able to have and still be in operation.
But here, let me turn the question on you now, what do you consider too much certification, assuming you believe there is, and if there isn’t enough, where would you add more certification?