It really is. I will readily confess that the professoriate doesn’t give it much appreciation either — we’re all just tossed straight into the classroom with negligible preparation — but at least we’ve got a kind of Darwinian mode going on to weed out the worst. Jonnny Scaramanga has a guest post from someone who was subjected to Christian fundamentalist education. It’s ugly.
Others were not so lucky, I remember one boy being ridiculed by the teachers for having “girl hair” and other members of my class were reduced to tears after being publicly screamed at by the head teacher’s wife for offenses as minor as not completing their lunchtime chores (which included vacuuming the classrooms and cleaning the staffroom) to a satisfactory degree. One of my chores included removing the spiders from the girl’s cloakroom… since I was terrified of spiders I refused in tears and was shut in the cupboard until the job was complete – afterwards I was told to pray for God to make me less of a coward. The school’s policy appeared to be ridiculing and humiliating children into submission.
In case you needed reminding, here’s what ACE’s sex education looks like.
Some of my more bizarre memories include “sex education” lessons. Sex ed in the ACE booklets is notoriously bad, so at the very least Maranatha tried to supplement these. All students over eleven were separated into boys and girls to, very awkwardly, talk about our bodies. I can’t speak for the boys but on our side this included the youngest girl being teased by the teacher for being too young to “understand menstruation” and being told no husband would ever want us if we were “used.” This is what happens when you have a group of mostly untrained (as someone studying for 3+ years to become an educator, I do not count the five day ACE “Professional Training Course”) adults in charge of the education and well-being of children.
If you’re going for a secular degree in education, it’s a skill — I have a lot of respect for the students at my university in the teaching program. If you’re in one of these ACE schools, though, ideology is the most important message, and the education is secondary. Or tertiary. Or, hell, forget it, not important at all.
The Finnish have figured that out.
Both my parents were teachers who took both their work and its effects very seriously, so, for a very long time, it was a mystery to me that people didn’t get this. And I still think the majority of people have no idea whatsoever how hard a competent teacher works. None whatsoever.
Shutting kids up in the cloakroom (at the back of every classroom) was a favourite of the nuns at my Catholic school. That’s a memory I could have been happy not to have revived.
Yes, teaching is most definitely a skill, and a damned hard one to attain. I remember every one of my teachers who had that skill, and fed the kindling of learning into a bonfire.
I always figured professors required less in the way of teaching skills than elementary or high school teachers because the students presumably have more in the way of learning skills. Not that I didn’t appreciate professors who did have teaching skills.
@ chris61
Not sure where you get the idea that students tend to leave high school with any learning skills. I got As and high Bs throughout high school with no effort. Not because I’m gifted but because I paid a modicum of attention in class and did my homework. Then I got to college and oh shit.
Also, I think a lot of professors have to spend a good chunk of time un-teaching a lot of the tripe we fill kids’ heads with in public schools in the US.
Seven of Mine, #4
I was educated in Canadian (more accurately, New Brunswick) public schools and my experience was largely the same. While I had some great teachers in high school for the most part I was not left prepared for university. I was on cruise control all through high school and had no learning skills to cope with a more demanding environment. I got used to it quickly but it was not high school that prepared me.
yes, absolutely teaching is a skill. It is taught in universities even. As a skill that can be taught not everyone can learn it. Of those who poses the skill not all of them have the same degree of ability to perform it.
I was in my 20’s when I finally learned how I learned things I learned how to learn. It was not in school but from a private music teacher who really had a gift for teaching and great skill in musical performance.
I suspect that one of the most important aspects of great teaching is respect of the student by the teacher not a vast knowledge of the subject. the examples given show none of that at all.
uncle frogy
In college the students have an added motivation factor. If you are in Calc III or Linear Algebra you really want to be there, even if you see it as a means to an end.
In lower ed levels the issue is that a teacher is a) a government employee and b) often female. So they get devalued, partly because women do it so of course it must be easy, and partly because there’s this idea that government employees don’t work hard because they needn’t make a “profit.”
Yeah, I truly get upset when people claim that teaching must be such a cushy job because the school day ends at 4 pm, the teachers get long Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks and (!!!) the entire summer to relax.
My hubby watched me work as a teacher and often said that I worked twice as hard for less than half of the pay that he made.
I was up early to feed my own teens and see them off to school, then arrived at my high school before 7 am.
I would input the grades that I had graded the night before, tweak the day’s lesson plans and write the schedule on the whiteboard before fist period.
I would spend the day teaching five classes (three to four separate lesson plans) and supervising a study hall during another class. I would grade and/or tutor during my planning period and my lunch. After school I would devote a couple of hours to mentoring a couple of clubs, more tutoring, more grading, lesson planning and calling parents.
After the drive home, I would prepare dinner, supervise my kids’ homework, possibly attend one of their activities and then settle in with my laptop for more lesson planning and grading. I fell into bed around midnight every evening and then got up before 6 am the next day to start the whole thing over again.
As for those long breaks – Thanksgiving break was not as long for teachers – we had “professional development” days.
I used much of my winter break to research and plan for the spring semester. During spring break, I took my top students to area and state contest, and often managed to fit in a workshop at a university (all on my dime, not paid by the district).
Summer break was the time to take students to National competitions, attend my own national conference and to get some continuing education under my belt (also paid by me). The district wouldn’t even provide a bus for my students to attend any of their contests (not football, so we didn’t rate a bus), so the kids would fund raise and each year, my hubby and I rented a large van and he did the driving.
Before the students returned to school, we teachers had already put in two to three weeks of professional development and preparation of our classrooms and lesson planning.
I wish that some of those politicians, parents and others who criticize teachers and begrudge them their paltry paychecks could be thrown into a public school classroom to survive for a year or so. Then they would probably have a different attitude.
No, we have not. In Finland teaching is a relatively lowly paid job, without much certainty for the next year. Schools often hire incompetent teachers and end their contracts conveniently at the end of the spring semester, regularly hiring them back in the autumn.
Huh, I did not know that. When I lived in Espoo, I attended an international school, but after 10th grade many of my classmates left to go to public schools. I just remember being so impressed that by the time they graduated most were fluent in five or so languages, and went on to be successful in a variety of interesting careers. I moved away after 10th grade, and always felt a little cheated that I got stuck back in the USian school system.
I’m quite certain teaching is not a skill. It’s much too demanding and worthy of admiration for that. It’s clearly a class on it’s own! X3
Yet so many think they can just act like this and suddenly they can be trusted to take care of kids and teens. Throwing kids in cupboards and requiring them to clean the room at risk of punishment just sounds downright evil. I really hope that is something that can be fought and changed. ;_;
Wait, teaching is a skill?
I just thought that popping kids out and then giving them textbooks was enough.
It’s not like I learned anything useful in all those years in college… (/sarcasm)
As for the teaching skills of college instructors, let me rant here a little. The amount of badly made up tests I’ve been submitted to in college is huge. Because it’s not something somebody has to learn in order to get a PhD in, say, biology .
Because yes, a valid test is not something you can make up on the spot
Travis: you went to school in NB? Where at? I was in Dieppe (Mathieu-Martin).
jesse@7:
University profs have the same devaluation. Upper administrators and boards of administration tend to include many people from business, who assume that profs work only 9 hours a week and don’t produce profit — just a bunch of expensive loafers. It is largely futile to remind them that each hour in class takes at least two hours to prepare, more if it’s a class you haven’t taught before, and that profs have other responsibilities like research and service.
numerobis: Fredericton High School, in well, I guess it says it all right there.
I work hard for that lightbulb moment. (Education tech, I work with special ed students.) When a formerly confused student says ‘Ohhhh, I get it now!’, it’s deeply satisfying. Knowing how to process the information presented to them, and then clarify it in a manner they can grasp, is indeed a skill.
Seven of Mine:
Amen to that. I was in the top 10 of my year group throughout most of my schooling, with a minimum of effort and raw talent – I learned very quickly, once I got to uni, that the sort of talent that makes high school a walk in the park means shit all at a University.
PZ,
You forget, truly teaching those kids would be exposing them to the Tree of Knowledge. A bad thing. Worse, if the process leads them to start thinking for themselves. For many religious schools, perhaps what we consider poor teaching skills they see as features, not bugs.
Caveat: There are some quite decent schools that are run by religious organizations, which even teach evolution correctly. Unfortunately, they seem to be exceptions to the rule.
I’m not even a proper teacher (“ESL edutainer” is the description for what I do) and I still have to deal with a lot of crud. Not to mention the boss expecting me to pick up their incredible amount of slack in designing a program (ie: Not making one at all) and getting pissy when I (and pretty much everyone) can’t pull it off.
I can’t imagine what it’s like for my friends who are actual teachers and have the government to answer to.
@ 4 Seven of Mine,
I’m speaking about my own experience of course although I think that learning to pay even a modicum of attention in class and completing homework are learning skills. Still, I’ve known any number of bright people who’ve said they basically coasted through high school and found university a bit of an eye opener. Maybe the secret to picking up learning skills in high school was to be not quite as bright.
My faculty gets a disproportionately high number of (student voted) excellent teaching awards. Of course, since it’s the Education faculty, most of the staff are trained teachers. These facts may be related.
But I’d like to point out that your workload is so ( scarily) demanding because apart from being a mum as well, you are a conscientious teacher, committed to the idea of education; the sort all teachers should be. If you weren’t that kind of teacher, you wouldn’t be reading and contributing to Pharyngula. I think that many people’s experience was of teachers who didn’t give a shit about either education or them, and they resent that memory.
( Which is very unfair on you of course. And there is much about education that isn’t fair. )
On the bright side, a great presentation on teaching…
um that was a link — it’s not really obvious, I suppose
Teaching is a skill that only those with the right temperament and inate abilities can hone…You have to practice hard to become a concert pianist, but if you don’t have inate well-wired talent, no amount of practice will get you to carnege hall
Oh, goody. A sweeping attack on all U.S. public education without a shred of evidence to back it up. What is this, the comment page for Fox News?