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January 26, 2011 01:23 AM UTC
68 Comments
in Angry Hippie. Maybe he can write up some stuff for you.
Bennet’s education reforms are still government-dominated but they are .005% better than nothing, and still you hate on him. The far left likes to eat its own too, and I find this very reassuring.
Did you read this diary? Did you read the Hancock one? They are similar and neither has shit to do with actual plans.
What I find interesting is that there’s always something to bitch about against THE LEFT!!!!! Saying something, not saying something. Whatever, so long as you can pull out “hate on.”
When I read it, he was asking for citizen input, and willing to listen. Did we read different diaries?
Neither diary has any actual plan or reform. Asking for input isn’t reform. You noticed that I responded to a response and not the diary? Hmmmmm…. Paying attention. It matters!
There’s no substitute for all hands on deck, rowing the boat in the same direction. In fact, former Commissioner Dwight Jones and the Donnell-Kay foundation (one of your closest friends, Mr. Senator) said as much when they produced the report, “Profiles of Success: Eight Colorado Schools that are Closing the Achievement Gap.” They state:
We have all the deets at our website, at this page in particular: http://defensedenver.com/what-…
You see, Mr. Senator, we already know what works, and it doesn’t involve the hostile takeover of our public education, or of schools that have been woefully under-resourced and neglected by the central administration.
You are all super open minded to charter schools, aren’t ya?
Nice website. I suggest people take you up on your link and have a peek at your agenda. It’s…interesting…to say the least.
And aren’t there some studies that show reducing class sizes has absolutely no effect on student achievement? Yes, I believe there are.
Reducing class sizes works best in some cases, like in grades ECE-3, for English-language learners, special education and alternative education. It’s anytime there is a specialized sort of strategy that is needed that it works.
This comes from the Project STAR report that the state of Tennessee just released last year. What other studies are you referring to?
At any rate, it stands to reason that when a teacher’s workload is reduced, he/she has a chance to do a better job. It’s just basic logic.
And read a little more down the page. We’re not opposed at all to charters that community wants, after having looked at all the pros and cons, and after also revitalizing surrounding schools.
We just don’t believe in life rafts, and neither should you if you believe in equitable public education for everyone. The founders didn’t believe in life rafts.
Hard to argue DeFENSE’s principles. The trick, as always, in with the implementation. I’ve seen them work phenomenally well in under-served communities,and I’ve seen them fail despite the best intentions. The real trick is in #2: genuinely collective leadership. Community schools required the whole community, not just political leadership.
If I want to indulge myself in meaningless platitudes (“The founders didn’t believe in life rafts”), I’ll pick up a copy of America by Heart.
There’s plenty of hard data for you to digest in that Donnell-Kay report.
There is a distinct difference between community-supported charter schools, and the corporatized takeover of schools. There is definitely common ground here, don’t you think?
Just read the Donnell-Kay report we referenced above (http://defensedenver.com/what-works/). It’s happening right now in our Colorado, like at Beach Court Elementary in Denver.
It’s also working in Boston. Brockton High in 1999 was a low-achieving school of 4600 low-income kids, with lots of English-language learners. Today, they outperform 90%+ of all the other high schools in the state, not just those with similar demographics…and it was all achieved with just the collaborative, community-school approach you call out.
It works, if we’re willing to let communities step up without interference and with resources and support. The American barn-raising mindset is alive and well in our public schools.
Buried among what seems to be some hostility to the Senator, DD brings up perhaps the single best point about what makes a school work: co-operation and involvement.
Schools, perhaps more than most organizations, excel when everyone is committed to their success, and stagnate when too much of their mechanism is just interested in “getting by”.
A school needs superintendents and principals who listen to the students and parents they serve, and to the teachers who see the kids on a daily basis; in addition to listening, those leaders also need to be able to reach out compassionately to those same students, parents, and teachers and energize them toward success.
The teachers need to be not only knowledgeable (both in subject matter and in how to teach effectively), but also genuinely committed to getting their students involved and helping them to succeed in their studies; they need to feel empowered to tell their principals and other teachers what they see as problematic, and what they see as opportunities to excel.
Students need to be committed to learning and given the power to guide the teachers in helping them to learn. They need the encouragement to know that they can succeed in their classes, and the individual attention that ensures they’re learning to their full potential and not just to some average.
Parents need to understand that the school is doing its best to return value in their child’s education. In exchange, they need to commit to encouraging their children to learn through positive words and by ensuring their kids do their homework.
If the parents can’t commit, it makes the job of everyone else twice as hard. If the students are distracted, almost the entire school “machine” grinds to a halt. If the teachers are burned out, or are under-trained, or are in it for the job, then students only succeed in spite of the school system. If the principals and superintendents aren’t responsive and motivating, then nothing in the school is allowed to excel.
Everything has to work together. A slate of excellent teachers can compensate somewhat for lackluster administrators; likewise a truly exceptional administrator can sometimes motivate burned out teachers and uncaring students into excellence; and a really interested group of students can overcome (and even revitalize) a lackluster staff. But those are the exceptions we hear about, not the way we really want things to be every day, everywhere.
1. Eliminate the requirement for a teaching certificate. Private & charter schools are quite successful without it.
2. Put a major effort into research on what makes for effective teaching, and then get that info out to teachers. We know very little so far and should be able to improve significantly in a short time if this is done well.
3. Get us RttT funds for SB-191. It’s a really good bill and funding the optional parts will lead to significant improvement in our schools.
1. So, it’s ok for a doctor or lawyer to have a license, but not a teacher? Aren’t teachers arguably the most important in that group, because they can ultimately produce doctors and lawyers? Your realtor has a license…but not the teacher? With certificates come background checks and requirements to keep the certification. Not so for teacher wannabes.
Also, can you prove that privates and charters are so successful? First off, the Colorado Department of Education has no jurisdiction over private schools, so we really have no idea whether they’re doing well or not. They tend to enroll students of means that can afford the tuition, which means the effects of poverty are greatly diminished.
Second, Stanford University released a study in 2009, the CREDO study, that says:
Is 17% really all that “successful”?
2. It’s not just about the teachers. It’s also about the colleges that graduate them, as well as the quality of principals that are supposed to evaluate and coach them. The Donnell-Kay Foundation released a study just today that says:
Mind you, Donnell-Kay also runs charter schools.
3. The core of SB191 is the CSAP score. But all sorts of data shows that CSAP scores can vary wildly from year to year. Even simple logic sees this when you consider the effects of Katrina, for example. Do you think those teachers did well that year?
First off, even by your numbers 63% of charter schools are successful. (And yes, some do worse and should be shut down – as should lousy regular public schools.)
1. Is there anything to show that a teaching certificate makes a difference? The fact is private & charter schools don’t require them, hire many people without the certificate, and are quite successful.
2. You say there’s not enough qualified people. Ok, let’s eliminate the certificate requirement and we’ll increase the pool of qualified people.
3. The core of SB-191 is not CSAP. The core of SB-191 is direct ongoing measurement over the year and using that to determine student growth on a per-teacher and per-student basis. That’s worlds different from a single letter grade of an entire school.
And if we get a hurricane at the intensity of Katrina here, yes it will be taken into account – because it will impact everyone. Another key to SB-191 is its primary measures are comparative, not absolute.
But you still can’t quantify that. How do you define “success” without data? Is it just that private schools have wealthier kids that show up more ready to learn? Where’s the data to substantiate what you’re saying.
Not saying it doesn’t exist; rather, that you’re not showing it.
How does removing a licensure requirement automatically create qualified people?
The fact that SB191 requires 50% the teacher’s evaluation to be based on CSAP makes it the core. End of story.
And that’s a commendable hand-stand you did there to massage those numbers, by the way. By my reckoning, 83% of them don’t warrant the diversion of state funding that destabilizes a school to justify having them, because they do no better or worse.
I’ll throw you a bone, though. Colorado charter schools perform much better compared nationally. However, that has more to do with the fact that we’re nearly at the bottom of the United States in per-pupil funding levels, and most of our charters are actually spending much more than the ~$7k per kid the public schools spend. Just check their 990s.
The percentage of kids that go on to graduate from college. (Not that college is the best choice for all, but that percentage is a very good measure.)
And yes part of the SB-191 measure will be the son-of-CSAP tests. But what’s key is it is measuring individual student growth and for teachers comparing that against like classes.
What percentage graduate from college? You’re still just saying they do without a statistic.
Also, how many of those are low-income?
I do know that the measure for Denver Public Schools is horribly low. On the flip side, the vast majority of private schools sell themselves largely on the percentage of kids they send on to good colleges.
if you really want to make the schools better, please rethink your opinion on certification of teachers. Sending someone in there with zero training in classroom management, no field observation, and not having gone through student teaching would be utterly disastrous for our schools. Especially those schools that need the most help.
I know that a significant number of the teachers at Summit Middle School (charter) and Rocky Mountain School (private) have teachers that never took an education class. Yet they were very successful teachers.
I think starting them in an apprenticeship role if they have no experience makes a lot of sense. But let’s look at doing it in the schools, maybe where we have larger class sizes and the pairing helps ameliorate that large size and gets the person trained.
Fundamentally, I don’t think the approach we have had for the last 60+ years is the best one for today.
I’m familiar with Summit as my wife went there. I’m sure Rocky Mountain School is a fine institution as well.
But there is a big difference between a school like Summit, or Peak to Peak, or RMS or Alexander Dawson, and a Title I school. The biggest differences are parental involvement, and student engagement. At a school like Summit, for the most part, the kids want to be there, otherwise they’d be going to Southern Hills. There’s a huge number of kids with parents who want them to go to Summit for the exact reasons you describe–excellent teachers with PhDs and Master’s Degrees. That works when the parents and students are willing participants in the education system.
When you look at a Title I school, it’s a completely different universe. The kids whose parents are around mostly don’t care, they avoid teacher phone calls, and basically do the minimum amount required to avoid truancy officer visits. These are kids who qualify for the free breakfast everyone has been so up in arms about. They don’t have a computer. Most of them are at-risk to be involved with gangs. These are not children who will benefit from vast content area knowledge as much as an educator who is trained in classroom management.
Of course each school should be seen in its own lens, just like each student should be seen in their own lens. You can’t paint such a broad brush with policy as to say that certification should be completely unnecessary. Proper training is not what has been holding the education system back.
And though many of the private and charter schools do allow the hiring of people without Colorado teacher licenses, they pay more for those that have them, and I would ask you to find a scenario where two qualified candidates went head-to-head and the one without the teacher’s license won. There’s just no substitute for proper training–it will beat content knowledge every time.
I’ve seen teachers who have proper training but don’t have the content knowledge – they may keep the classroom running, but they don’t impart any knowledge.
I’m not saying ignore classroom skills. I’m saying give the school the power to choose from a larger pool of candidates. They can take certification into account in any manner they wish, including making it a requirement.
And I’ll leave you with this question – I have a substitute certificate. I can get it because my degrees are in Physics and Math. But if someone has a degree in Music, they can’t get one. So they’re willing to waive the certification requirement for substitutes based on specific content knowledge.
If you’re not trained in music, how could you possibly teach it? I mean, can you just pick up a euphonium and start playing etudes?
Just plain logic, right?
The point of teaching is to get you to learn how to learn, not crack open your skull and dump in knowledge. Kids have to learn to research, assimilate data, make inferences…all those things that are part of critical thinking.
That’s what axioms and theorems are all about, right? The point is not to memorize every mathematical possibility, but rather to give you the tool to figure out any problem.
He taught them the pythagorean theorem held for all triangles, not just right triangles. The entire year was like that – the kids in that class were basically taught by parents or tutors, or were left behind.
Yes it is about helping kids learn and discover. But the teacher needs the basic knowledge to be a decent guide on that effort.
But someone who has a math degree and no training with teaching isn’t any better – they know what there is to teach, but not how to impart it to students without overwhelming them or leaving them without a deep understanding of what they learned.
The question is – how do we get to a system where we can evaluate teachers based on their competency and on their commitment to their students, maintaining the protections they should rightfully have while being able to effectively divert them either out of the teaching profession or into some kind of remediation program when needed? This is one area where I think the teachers unions could take the lead – to provide some of these checks preemptively, and to provide the resources to help their members who appear to have trouble…
A teaching certificate is useful, but it’s certainly not a good predictor of good teaching. To get that certificate, you just need to show up to class and turn in your assignments. If you pay attention, you’ll get an idea of best practices and will try to put those to use.
Some of the best (and worst) teachers I’ve had were in college. Virtually none of them had teaching certificates. I suspect most never read anything on teaching methods.
I think there are lot of people who come out of grad school with degrees who would make awesome teachers. Why not allow them into the hiring pool?
Look, I’m not saying that the teacher certification is perfect, but characterizing it as a diploma mill is a little over-the-top.
My wife is going to Metro–which admittedly is one of the better licensure programs in the state–and I’ve watched her reap the benefits of the wealth of experience from her professors and class work. She tells me all the time that when she first decided to become a teacher, she was in the same boat as you guys. Now she’s a student teacher, and she realizes just how much she has grown as an educator thanks to the courses, volunteer work, and field experience she’s gained.
She also maintained a 4.0, and watched as many of her peers washed out of the program because it was too difficult. Would you want the people who couldn’t even cut it as a teaching student being given a shot at actually teaching your kids?
As I said above, at charter and private schools it’s probably a good idea to hire MAs, PhDs and other overly qualified people like colleges do. In many ways, those types of schools are similar to universities. But sending people without the kind of hands-on training with students my wife has received at Metro into a Title I school and god help those kids.
So yes, I’m with David ultimately on not wanting absolutes, but I think you’re both selling certified teachers short.
I got a master’s in education at CU Denver. The program I was in was oriented toward distance learning and computer-based training, not classroom teaching. If you showed up for class and turned in all the assignments, you got an A. I would say that there were 2 worthwhile classes in the program.
Before that I taught field geology for several years. I learned more teaching field geology than I did getting a degree in education.
I think classroom teaching is far more difficult than what I do now. I have a huge amount of respect for those that do it well. But I don’t think that certificate is the be-all and end-all. I suspect that those that are passionate about teaching would find a way to succeed, regardless.
Especially when you’re paying that much money in tuition, fees, books, etc.
I’m not completely opposed to seeing the effect of opening up positions to people who want to teach, but are not licensed teachers.
Here’s what I think should happen:
1. Prospective teachers who are not licensed would need to pass some sort of test similar to the current PLACE exam that all teachers must pass for their licenses now. They would also need to do a six month crash course in the law, and classroom management.
2. Do a better job to standardize the teaching certification programs at all Colorado public universities and colleges. More emphasis on in-class instruction, with hands on time with students.
3. Pay people who went through the certification programs enough to supplement the cost of their education. Reward them for the extra training they’ve undertaken.
Plus you have to have a semester student teaching. Doesn’t have to be through an ed school, but you have to be in a school and be evaluated and graded at the end by the school.
On teaching certificates: if we have a shortage of good teachers because they lack teaching certificates, the question to ask should be – why? If, as everyone else here is asking, we desire our doctors and lawyers and even realtors to have certificates or degrees appropriate to their profession, don’t we deserve to have teachers who’ve demonstrated a certifiable level of knowledge about their profession? Teaching certificates, as others are trying to say, indicate the holder has training in managing classes and in “what makes for effective teaching”.
And, while perhaps we do not know the entire psychology behind teaching, we do know quite a bit more than we did when I went through school. And from my short time on a school DAC, I know that many of those principles are at least acknowledged by some of the current course books. The question I have for teachers is, is what we know adequately applied in the classroom? Can and does our current system allow teachers to focus on students’ learning pathways to fully engage them and maximize their potential?
You want to put a major effort into researching what makes a good teacher. But then you say you don’t want teachers to have certification showing that they know what makes a good teacher.
We have enough teachers with certification. That’s why so many are unemployed. What we should do is change the way we train our teachers in college. I saw an idea not long ago that suggested teaching programs should be more like medical schools where most of the instruction happens in a real classroom. Teachers should be in the classroom on day one of their program. By the time they are ready for certification, they already will have 2-3 years of classroom experience.
First off, I’m not saying throw open the flood gates and hire regardless of training. I’m just saying make certification an item taken into account, not an absolute requirement. (The best English teacher I ever had was an ex-lawyer who never took a single education class. One of the best history teachers was ex Army who again never took an education class.)
I do think if the can dramatically increase the value of the education training, which would include a lot more time in the classroom, then it becomes a much more important criteria.
But I do think there is value in making it a criteria instead of a requirement.
of enacting policy changes by way of personal anecdotes.
An awful lot of the educational system is locked in to what we were doing in 1950. I think rather than say we must continue under the exact same strictures, we should turn those absolutes into sensible general guidelines.
I cite specific examples because it only takes one counter-example to disprove an absolute.
I knew an absolutist and they were TEH WORST ABSOLUTIST EVAH.
to do what people in any licensed profession do, and get the certificate?
I happen to be a decent programmer, despite having taken few formal programming classes. But it’s taken me a long time to pick up on all of the little (and not-so-little) things CS majors are taught from Day 1 in their colleges that seem like tedious bits until you get deep into it and realize their value. If I hadn’t had years of experience in the field already, I wouldn’t hire me on a bet, no matter how good I might turn out to be. And programming isn’t a licensed field.
I wouldn’t mind being a teacher, but I admittedly don’t know the best ways to control an unruly class or address a student’s specific learning needs. I’ve got some qualifications toward the job – teaching others around me, creating tutorials… – but I would consider myself less than an honest broker teaching kids without getting the formal training to do my best at it.
I majored in Physics and Math and took a total of 1 computer class in college. I never had that slow me down – I would just get a book when I was working on something new. And I found most that had a CS degree also had to go grab the same book.
(Physics major, with a single FORTRAN class in college.) I started programming when I was in middle school on a Bell&Howell Apple ][, with little formal training. (The high school math teacher assigned to teach Pascal was not a CS teacher by any stretch of the imagination…).
But I’m not talking about programming languages, just as we’re not talking about the knowledge imparted to students. I am talking about all the little organizational bits that really good programmers do to help themselves and their fellow (and future) workers, from comment content to program structure to naming conventions; programming is easy – maintenance is a bitch if you aren’t taking maximum advantage of the programming media, though. And I’m talking about knowing how to figure out the learning strengths and weaknesses of students, and what is permissible in class settings, and strategies for organizing a lesson plan; spitting out facts and figures is easy – maximizing students’ learning by understanding them and the learning process is not intuitive however.
I think that’s why not having a C.S. degree was no big deal – most of those other things aren’t taught to C.S. students.
I wonder how much an ed school teaches about understanding each student and how best to reach them. Because you’re right, that’s key.
Your first statement is exactly why I don’t support private schools, or vouchers. All teachers should be licensed and certified to teach. Without that, you get people who teach there is no such thing as global warming or evolution. Why not just teach using Fox news all day?
I am shocked you actually believe what you just wrote. Why on Earth would someone allow amateurs to shape the leaders of tomorrow? Seriously, I want to know.
There are plenty of certified teachers eager to
teachpreach about the Satanic, Anti-American conspiracies of global warming and evolution. Getting a teaching certificate unfortunately doesn’t dissuade people from that.The reasons for certification aren’t in course material – that mostly comes from the teacher’s other degree(s), and David apparently believes that knowledge is the overriding requirement for educators, not knowing how to teach and what is legal/illegal in a classroom.
He also thinks an ed certificate is not a gaurantee that some can teach effectively. But I do agree it would be nice if there was a magic solution that gauranteed someone would be a stellar teacher. I’d also like to see peace in the middle east.
I agree with RSB about different schools requiring different skills, and I agree that some charter schools do a better job than comparable neighborhood schools.
Students aren’t one-size, but school and school structures are. Kids are expected to begin learning A at age X and then go on to learn B at age Y. Faster learners get bored, slower learners fall behind and never catch up. I think it’s less about bad teachers and poor administrators and lazy parents, and more about the structure of the system itself.
Besides, which is easier to change, systems or human behavior?
It seems like too much of the school system is structured around Average Kid, and not enough resources are available to adequately satisfy those significantly on either end of the learning spectrum.
Advanced learners can get AP classes and perhaps replace some non-vital course with a special education class which can focus on the student through an individual assessment. But many of these types of students would love to drive their learning far faster and perhaps with more concentration on the areas they find interesting; they aren’t served by the system.
And it is often hard to find schools that adequately address those students who have a hard time learning in a general classroom, too.
Do these kinds of kids need special schools? Charters, perhaps, or more regional “magnet” type public schools that know how to teach to specific learners? And do we have the resources available (both teachers with that kind of experience, and money to run such a specialized system)?
So you can share your thoughts with us? I would be very happy to interview you on this.
ps – Who was your “date” at the SOTU last night? (I think that idea worked very well.)
I’d love to hear the other folks here address the Senator’s original question. Here’s my answer: I don’t know that there is that much Federal red tape to remove. Aside from the testing requirements of NCLB, Federal regulation of the education system has to me seemed reasonably minimal.
We can do charter schools under the Federal and State systems. We can arrange the school structure however we want, provided we teach kids to the NCLB testing requirements. We don’t do private school vouchers, but given that private institutions are outside of most government standards, this is to my mind the right legal decision.
As a lay person with an interest in our education system, the one thing that might be helpful to our system (and wasn’t immediately obvious when I served on my local school DAC) is the availability of Federal or State overviews of best teaching practices and similar guides that might help us as regular citizens improve our schools.
Otherwise, the best thing you as a Senator could do for our school system is to ensure that our schools are not funding school supplies by having teachers (or parents) buying every little thing they need to teach their class. If anything has gone wrong in our government’s (and society’s) approach to schooling, it may be that we no longer have proper respect for the fact that things take money (and commitment) to do correctly.
Tuesday night. Can the best practices there be duplicated elsewhere?
Sen Bennet, the single greatest thing we can do for our education system is to fully implement the Troops to Teachers program.
This will be especially effective in those tough, inner-city schools where those idealistic but under-trained young college grads have no hope of gaining the respect of their students. A veteran of tough combat in the streets of Fallujah is not going to be intimidated in the same situation, and will command the respect and attention of those same students. In addition, even the most junior leaders in the military are expert teachers, and can provide a level of mentorship, coaching and instruction not matched by any other vocation.
For the rest of our studio audience:
http://www.proudtoserveagain.com/
However, there’s one serious barrier to this program – that academic institutions refuse to acknowledge the experiences and skills of veterans up admission.
Let me explain.
Veterans who have served at least one enlistment have some college credits collected for either CLEP testing or some undergrad classes taken to improve duty performance (English, Writing, etc) that most institutions refuse to accept on admission.
In addition, almost all schools refuse to acknowledge that military training, as well as leadership and management experience have ANY academic value. Even some of the most technically comprehensive Army military occupation specialties (MOS) such as Broadcast Engineer (25V) Nuclear Medicine Specialist (68P) or Test, Measurement, and Diagnostic Equipment Support Specialist (94H) are not recognized to have any college credit hours of value, despite a comprehensive database compiled by the US Army in conjunction with the American Council of Education – (Found here: http://www.militaryguides.acen…
There are some exceptions – the DU’s University College program for example awards full credit for all academic achievement while in the Military but these are rare.
Sen Bennet, if you can pass a law that requires schools that accept federal funding that they are required to consider and accept ALL academic credit from military training, and consider awarding additional credit for such basic courses as leadership, then you will have a surge of veterans willing to serve their country again as teachers.
As former GEN Stanley McChrystal recent stated in a Newsweek op-ed:
“Soldiers who have fought for a road, hill, or village understand the value they place on otherwise meaningless foreign ground when they have invested in its protection.”
“Teachers who have worked tirelessly to motivate students understand the value and potential of young people who would otherwise pass them unnoticed on the street.”
America can have both, if we just give our veterans the credit they deserve.
I think for a lot of NCOs and officers, they can teach effectively without going back to get an education certificate. It would be good if they would lay out how to reasonably rank the experience the vets have.
I don’t think Dan is suggesting we let the Vets at our students “raw”. Instead, he’s suggesting that we provide a path to getting vets who might be motivated and understanding teachers fully trained and in to the classroom.
….I just want their to be a consistent standard for higher learning to give vets credit for all the education they’ve already achieved.
That, and I think the best way to meet the President’s call for better education can come from veterans in the classroom….
No one should teach a day in a classroom unless they have been educated in the field of education. The field of education teaches methods that work based on research — methods that respect the whole child’s needs for physical, emotional, psychological and cultural competencies. I wouldn’t let my doctor operate on me without some education in surgical methods, and I won’t let teachers teach my children without education in teaching methods. No amateur should be allowed to teach children. PERIOD.
I do respect the armed services and other communiy leaders, and with a basic education in the field of Education, they make excellent teachers.
Completely in lock step with Nancy Cronk on this. Good on you.
At any rate, there are racist implications in military teachers for inner-city schools. Apparently suburban schools don’t have their problems.
There is something to be said for a teacher who is able to make you sit up straight and pay attention, whether you need it because you’re distracted from school by inter-personal troubles or because you’re just not expected to work for your schooling.
A Drill Sgt. routine needs to be tempered with student respect and support, though; unlike in the Army, they aren’t there to break you down and mold you into a uniform fighting force. And that’s where getting a teaching certification – a good one that emphasizes class time and technique – comes in to play.
Where the hell do you get THAT?
Are you clinging to the stereotype that all NCOs look like R Lee Ermey and use a barrage of sexually-explicit and racist language to terrify their trainees?
I’ve got news for you – that may exist in Hollywood, but that hasn’t happened in any branch of the military since the 80s.
For both you and Nancy, I’m not advocating that we import Drill Sgts from Paris Island and Fort Benning and dump them into Montbello High School – I’m advocating expanding the Troops to Teachers program so that more veterans can get an education degree and start teaching in schools.
As far as being “amateurs,” military instructors somehow manage to teach 17-18 year olds to do the complex and the terrifying, usually in a few weeks. It seems that “professional” educators cannot teach high schoolers to read and write with a few years of effort.
That you are saying that inner-city kids need drill instructors for teachers.
My other not-too-well-articulated point is that the type of teaching styles instructed at most institutes of higher learning do no command an iota of respect from the students at certain middle and high schools…which tend to be in low income and/or inner-city locations.
That’s not a specific criticism of the students, but a reflection of the socioeconomic conditions that those students live in. In a choice of role models, most (thought not all) inner-city or rural poor students are not going to choose an idealistic young Yale grad over a gang leader, athlete or other local hero.
Will they choose a combat veteran over those same other choices? Possibly…probably. Based on the experiences of a friend who was a platoon sgt in the infantry who went on to teach middle school in shit-poor rural Kentucky, I’d side on yes.
Part of this is also based on the faulty stereotype of Drill SGTs and military basic training in general. Yes, there’s a lot of yelling and stupid exercises and pointless tasks. That lasts about a week.
Then those trainees see those Drill SGT’s thru their technical and tactical excellence, and their absolute dedication to them. At some point, those trainees desire to be as skilled and dedicated as those Drill SGTs and ultimately want their approval to be excellent Soldiers, Sailors and Marines. (And maybe Air Force pukes.)
Now, Drill SGTs aren’t the only ones that do this. I like to think I was a pretty damn good NCO in all of my jobs, and I sought to teach my soldiers how to be the best at their jobs, as military professionals, and as human beings.
I think that’s not a bad series of traits for teachers in today’s schools, especially in the underfunded crappy dangerous ones.
What in the world are you talking about?
Racist implications? You should be ashamed of yourself.
Could you please elaborate?
I’d agree a lot (although I would still say we should require that “or equivalent”). But one of the big issues we face today is we don’t know what makes a good teacher. And we definitely don’t have ed schools going over what works.
One of the big efforts of the Gates foundation is to learn what works. Their efforts remind me of the early days of the Rockefeller Foundation when they put a lot of money into making medical research a rigorous effort that figured out what best practices are.
I started teaching when I was on active duty.
In fact, at one of the best assignments I had (in one of the best units, in one of the hardest roles with the hardest mission – we were the sharp side of the sword – assuming special ops is the “pointy tip”) and our rule was “see one – do one – teach one”
No education about education. Education by education.
I replicated that in a military classsroom later- successfully enough the Air Force decided I must be “trained as a trainer. ” So I spent severla months getting educated about education. I got better at some things. But not teaching. Or I got better at teaching but not because of the training.
Meanwhile- I can teach successfully at Universities and Colleges, private for hire gigs and just because I feel like it. But I cannot get hired to teach in any public K12 classroom in the metro area.
I would do the dain bramage to get the degrees and licensure to make $16/hr – if it wouldn’t cost me $20,000+
If you think the brain of an 11-year-old kid is the same as the brain of a special ops soldier… you’re bonkers.
It’s a completely false equivalence to say that teaching kids is the same as teaching adults.
And in my experience too many want to set the bar too low for kids and too high for adults.
But my kids would agree with you.