Yes I am familiar with the curriculum, show up and you pass.

Those meanies made me design and mount an entire high school economics course that met all state standards using only free platforms and programs available to anyone with Internet access. That was my culminating project. They also made me learn various security measures, to use HTML, to run an online discussion with mixed students, and lots more.

So without further ado, I believe that I will wish you everything you deserve in life and put you on ignore. I've spent three decades in education and have far too many former students see me and thank me, most not for course content.

upsets me because they have bought the spin, the lies, by reformers bent on destroying public education by demeaning teachers and their training. It's the TFA mentality, and I have no use for it.

You know, only idiots become teachers and go into such "worthless" programs as education programs. BTW, knowing HOW to teach and above all mastering classroom management are perhaps as important as supposedly knowing "content." I'd even argue it is more important.

Strange, you know, how these people never attack male-dominated fields.

anything done, and that includes dealing with incessant interruptions - announcements, fire drills, bad weather drills, lockdown practice, requests to see a counselor, principal, librarian, bookkeeper, cafeteria manager, coach or other classroom teacher, walkthroughs by campus administrators, student teachers, administration supervisors from downtown, power outages, pep rallies, in-classroom arrests for outstanding warrants, possession of drugs or weapons, assault in a previous period, or for excessive absences and tardies, called meetings of the department, of the entire faculty, of members of the CIT, PLC, and a million other initials, former students wanting to visit, outside speakers, recruiters, bus drivers, and parents.

Yes, "content" changes frequently, and that is why we have source materials. If "learning" meant memorizing the Most Important Facts About Biology in 2012, that would be easy. Dealing with the time when some or all of those "facts" are NOT any more is where education begins, as well as socialization in general, learning cooperative work habits that employers desire, and a whole host of other NON-content skills.

And yes, for some reason, the male-dominated stockbroker profession, male-dominated hedge fund manager position, and a nearly infinite array of other male-dominated professions are all exempt from examination and critique. As a member of the 10% minority MALE teaching population, I get funny looks from people who are sure that the only reason a male would want to teach is because he's a pedophile.

So thank you for your post and agreement that we should not waste our time on the cannot-be-changed outlooks of those who are our sworn enemies. Sometimes it feels a bit like the Alamo.

Last edited Tue Dec 11, 2012, 11:10 PM - Edit history (1)

I can't stand posts that belittle the teaching profession by trashing education degrees and ed schools.

The "reformers" who do it don't believe teaching is even a profession at all; to them, people right out of high school can do it because it is seen as no more than babysitting.

It takes a lot of training to be a teacher.

A lot of the stuff they teach in ed schools has little to do with the training. The number of 'specialists' I've sat and listened and thought, "Full of s**t" is amazing.

fMRI scans that say nothing like what the researcher says they mean. Linguistic theories that haven't been widely accepted for the last 45 years touted as "cutting edge." Statistical treatments of phonemic awareness that talk about phonics but nothing about phonology or even phonemes.

Experiments touted as valid and statistically sound, done on two students in two settings. In other words, experiments that were utterly meaningless and statistically useless. Researchers to who into anaphylactic shock when you say, "Was there a control?"

This has nothing to do with being a teacher. This has to do with publishing as advocacy, publishing to make a point of power instead of helping to teach, struggling to find something that can make a difference while getting tenure instead of saying that most current trends are either well-known facts based on a century of teaching experience or soured tripe from decades past warmed over and served with a fresh garnish and a new name. "21st century learning," "brain-based learning," "data-driven approaches." As one teacher said to an administrator citing data, "Even meangingless or corrupt data are still data."

New things--innovative use of technology in flipping classrooms, that sort of thing--tend to come from teachers. Teachers tend to get a bit of classroom management training, some pedagogical techniques from veterans, and then are mostly trained in the classroom. As opposed to getting M.Ed. or PhDs.

And even then, "flipping the classroom" was what I observed as a student in the '60s and '70s. At the time instead of watching a video at home we were told to "read the textbook." Same idea. Warmed over and served with a fresh garnish.

The fact is education schools and ed degrees are being demeaned by privatizers so as to deprofessionalize the profession.

If you can't figure that truth out, I don't know what to tell you.

BTW, I have been a teacher.

You called me stupid, can I call you stupid? Look at that, we're having a discussion!

My college's education department's standards were higher than those for pre-meds. Many flunked out or moved on to other degrees that were easier.

If you take the time to look into degrees in elementary education, for example, you'd probably find required coursework in advanced psychology, history of education and learning, philosophy of education and schools, curriculum planning, pedagogy in various subjects, and content area-specific coursework in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, American history, world history, and literature. To earn a BA or BS in elementary education these days, it isn't shocking to expect a five year course of studies.

Is this OP meant to be sarcastic? I'm getting kind of sick of the threads started around here attacking teachers and/or public schools. I thought these were liberal forums. If I wanted more of this, I could head over to Free Republic.

which we know is nothing but a "reformer" group that has has their goal to LOWER standards for teachers, not raise them, by attacking their training and expertise.

It's deeply offensive.