Do Teachers Need Education Degrees? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com
These editorials from the New York Times are fascinating and illustrate what a fluid and strange profession teaching is. There seems to be no true consensus in our society (although many examples of forced consensus) about what children should be learning, how they should learn it, how we should measure it, to say the least about how teachers should be trained and what we should be doing.
These editorials from the New York Times are fascinating and illustrate what a fluid and strange profession teaching is. There seems to be no true consensus in our society (although many examples of forced consensus) about what children should be learning, how they should learn it, how we should measure it, to say the least about how teachers should be trained and what we should be doing.
Over the long run, I hope this blog will help teachers (and myself) navigate this incredible ambiguity.
As far as the specific debate above, I would say teachers do need education degrees, but most teacher credentialing programs should be changed to more of an apprenticeship model, with less time in the college lecture setting and more time in the schools they will be working in, practicing their craft in the classroom. At least in California where I am credentialed, it seems like much of the course content has to do with political mandates rather than serious explorations of the pedagogy and philosophy of teaching.
I'm curious to hear what other teachers think about the credentialing process and their experience.
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