Tarrel wrote:
Real world experience is certainly useful to a teacher in being able to demonstrate the value of the subject matter by showing real-world application, and in establishing credibility. But other skills are also essential to good teaching; the ability to inspire and empathise, an understanding of the different ways people learn and being able to recognise this in individuals, planning and organisation, etc.
How do I know the person I am hiring to teach can empathize? How do you teach a wanna-be teach to empathize when there desire is to achieve a union teaching job so that they may not be held accountable for the rest of their career? How do I teach someone planning skills in an academic environment when avoiding just such things in the real world might be why they wish to hide in teaching in the first place?
tarrel wrote:
I attended a fairly well known academic institution as an undergrad. We had some incredibly bright people on our teaching staff, all accomplished in their fields. Some of them were great teachers, and some were truly awful. Having "done" does not automatically make you a good teacher, and not having "done" does not automatically make you a bad one.
I agree it is a broad generalization. However, such generalizations are often born out through time, which is why they exist, and more people will nod when you mention them, then not.
And what do you mean by "accomplished"? Folks who completed their first career as, say, field engineers and then came back to teach folks? Or those who wrote some papers, got their PhD, and suddenly were "accomplished" because of it?
Once upon a time I took the final class that teachers were required to have the semester before they began student teaching. This was AFTER better than half a decade of field experience, and I was basically doing it to clock time for the hell of it, wondering if it was time to consider a career change.
It was a riot. The disconnect between the real world and the world of math "teachers" was nearly absolute. Math students who couldn't' make their topic relevant because they had no experience at anything, really. Some were very empathetic….that I should not be allowed in the class, having not taken the prerequisites. Turns out later they wanted me out of the classroom for different reason, primarily related to the teacher's stated goal of using math integrated with learning real world science, and there was only one student in the room with experience in the real world. Or science. Like I said…a riot.
But it taught me quite a bit about what passes for "teaching" in the public systems of the American mid-Atlantic states.
Tarrel wrote:
Those who can, do. Those who can't quite often also do, and do badly!
Yes. Management fires them. I have done so myself. And then they become teachers probably.
Tarrel wrote:
Ever heard of the "Peter Principle"? "A person is promoted to his/her level of incompetence".
Yes. And if it is identified in time, the person is offered a demotion back to their old position. And if they won't take it, management fires them. Allowing incompetence to remain in a particular position is detrimental to any organization, and most people know that nowadays.
I realize that there are always folks that the company allows to stay on, incompetent or not, and any company can probably handle some measure of ongoing incompetence…until a local teaching position opens up anyway.
