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Yes, I understand that your suggestion would increase the supply of teachers. But what I expressed skepticism about was that it would improve education. How is it that attracting slackers will improve education? I taught high school for many years, and there is no way that a slacker is going to be an effective teacher, with the possible exception of someone who is a genius.
I did specify smart slackers -- the goal is to provide some diversity of thought. Based on what I'm seeing with my kid that's going through this right now, this would be much more impactful than any 'quality' boost provided by teacher training. You think that I need two years of diploma to teach high school algebra? I'm already teaching it to my kid because his actual teachers seem to be failing miserably.
Again, my point is that slackers are unlikely to be effective teachers, so a "more slackers" policy is unlikely to improve education. I an not arguing for requiring teacher training. I am arguing against encouraging slackers to become teachers.
Eg: Bob teaches history. He requires students to write 10 papers per year. With 150 students and 10 minutes to grade each paper, that is 15000 minutes of grading per year. In contrast, Joe, a slacker, gives multiple choice scantron tests. Total grading time:3000 seconds. Which teacher would you choose for your kid?
High school students seem by and large incapable of writing papers these days, so Bob's approach seems like either a waste of time or a way to fail 90% of the history class. (or both) The scantrons at least will teach the students to get a decent grade on their AP exams.
A smart slacker will probably find some sort of middle ground -- but the important point is that when he's like, y'know, teaching he may be able to bring some depth to the curriculum for the 10% who would benefit from it.
Who's a better history teacher -- someone with a history degree who did summers digging up native archeological sites, or a teaching degree and a few 2-300 level history courses?
Well, slackers always convince themselves that hard work is a waste of time
You seem to think that I am advocating for dumb, hardworking teachers in lieu of smart slackers. I'm not. I am advocating for smart, hardworking teachers. Because that is what you would get if teachers were paid like lawyers.
This is a complete red herring. As I just said, I am not advocating for or against teaching degrees. I am arguing against encouraging slackers to become teachers.
Finally, I note that you did not answer my question.
Well I am mostly advocating against teaching degrees -- strike the 'slacker' comment from the preceeding conversation if you like; it was mostly playful rhetoric anyways. Maybe you will get hardworking history grads who's other option is baristadom.
I thought it was fairly clear that my answer was 'mu'?
Neither of those teaching methods are bad per se -- it mostly depends on the teacher's knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject.
My AP Western Civ teacher was no dummy, and not lazy -- I think he taught his other history classes in a Bob-ish way. (although I doubt he ever had 150 essays to grade, and I'm absolutely positive that he didn't spend 6*40 hour weeks per year on that.) But as AP History is (mostly? I forget) a scantron test, he taught us how to get fives on that first and foremost. He also had an amazing depth of knowledge on European history, and was happy to go down whatever rabbitholes in class time. The test/assignment balance was irrelevant to whether he was a good teacher or not -- as was his teaching degree.
I understood your answer to be re students en masse, as opposed to re your own child,
I didn't ask whether one was bad per se; I asked which is better. And, since we are only talking about the effect of slackerness, we can hold all other factors constant, including knowledge and enthusiasm.
Then we disagree -- the whole point of taking AP classes is getting the credit for your college application. If a teacher doesn't enable that, he is doing a bad job.
The point of that story is that the two are not mutually exclusive -- pretty much everything I know about non-Canadian history is because of that guy; he was an excellent teacher, and capable of teaching both ways. Neither way was 'better'.
And I don't know why you think that I think I'm talking about my own child exclusively -- AFAICT almost all of the kids are pretty bad at math (and writing essays) these days.
I understand that that is what some people think, but they are wrong. The point of taking AP classes is to learn more, both more content and more skills. For example, when I taught AP World History, I could have spent the last month before the test doing test review. Instead, I required students to research and write a term paper. I am very, very, skeptical that my students would have been better served by doing the former. Similarly, I did not spend class time on "how to game a multiple choice test", despite the fact that doing so would enhance AP test scores. I also required students to do a lot of writing, especially document-based questions, which required students to use evidence to support an argument, and also to identify and suggest ways to address weaknesses, lacunae, and potential biases in their evidence. I did that even though it meant that topic coverage had to be reduced. Again, I am skeptical that my students interests were not best served thereby.
I don't. I mean the exact opposite: I asked which teacher you would chose for your own child, but your response was re which teacher might be best for the mass of students.
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