The Education of our Educators
As I was browsing through random articles tonight, I found an interesting blog posting on The Huffington Post. It discussed some recent comments by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. It looked at the idea of making teacher training like med school, in the sense of the idea of residences. The idea is that education students would be observe and work more in schools near their college/university throughout the college years.
This is a great idea, but wait, don’t most places already do this? I know when I was in college I had to obtain a minimum of twenty observation hours per semester. Often I exceeded this since I enjoyed working with some of the teachers. As I have been teaching for a few years now I have been honored to have college students from different places observe and teach in my class.
The article does discuss that students say their programs failed to prepare them for their classrooms. This is probably true in any college program though. It is hard to actually prepare anyone to be one their own in any job field, teaching especially. Some of the parts of teaching is learned through ones own mistakes and successes. Teaching is not a controlled environment where ever situation is the same and is handled in the same manner. Also, when future-teacher walks into a classroom, its atmosphere has already been created by the main teacher. That future-teacher will more then likely not run into the problems of a poorly ran classroom.
The merit and point of this article is great. Getting teachers more experience in the classroom is a great way to prepare them for the future, but I am not sure the med school way of doing this is the best. Unfortunately sometimes student teachers and teachers themselves need to get a few bumps and bruises before they learn their teaching method. That in essence though is the main root of learning. We make our mistakes and get better from it. If we do not allow our future teachers to do the same, they will just imitate instead of becoming great!
Sources:
Belmont, Fred. “Teaching Teachers a Better Way.” The Huffington Post. V, 23 Nov. 2010. Web. 24 Nov. 2010. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fred-belmont/teaching-teachers-a-bette_b_787743.html>.
Photo Courtesy of Maggie Smith, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
Justin Cowen's Blog 
great post! I agree with authentic training for teachers. I too did classroom experience near my college, so as to be observed. I also believe there needs to be some sort of technology requirement for teachers in training. They need to implement “X” amount of technology tools so they are exposed to all the great resources. Thanks for your thoughts!
I think some programs require a tech class or two, I know mine did. There is a difference between being exposed and using it though. Young teachers need to be given the chance to explore and see the relevance of the available technology. Heck, so do older teachers!
Thank you for the comment!
Great post. I agree…teachers gain the bulk of their experience from their own experience in the classroom and sharing their experiences with others in their field.
And it is that experience that makes a stronger. Also, I agree with you about the sharing of experiences. It is amazing the blogs and websites that teachers run now. The vast amount of knowledge out there is purely unreal!
Also, thank you for continuing to view my blog. Hopefully I do not ramble to much!