Thursday, April 10, 2008

Teaching Courses are Full of Useless Stuff

My niece is considering becoming a teacher.  As I hear her talk about her assignments for one of the introductory classes, I don't know whether to smile or cry.  This 19-year-old was asked about her philosophy of education.  What teenager has a philosophy of anything, much less something she has only experienced from one side?  I know my own philosophy changed and evolved almost continuously.

Now she has to discuss the various reforms that have taken place in education, and discuss the reform she could support.  I guess she'll learn a bit about some of the things that have been tried--most of which made no measurable improvements.


What you learn, as you work in education, is that ideas come and go.  They get reworked, renamed, tweaked, researched, and implemented.  Then, another idea batch comes around, and so on and so on.  Publishers, researchers, bureaucrats trying to justify the importance of their positions and the value of their thoughts.


In reality, the only thing that really matters is the relationship students have with a good teacher: a teacher who knows the material, has techniques to help kids understand, and cares about the students.  The HOW is nowhere near as important.

1 comment:

Teacher Mama said...

I absolutely agree! Even more baffling than the college courses that we were all subjected to are the required district classes. They are taught by people trying to justify their positions at the district to people who are already qualified. They waste valuable resources. They rarely have any impact on students. Isn't that who we are trying to help?