Comments on: Finding the best teachers

By: Carnival of Education - 202nd Edition | Steve Spangler's Blog

Carnival of Education - 202nd Edition | Steve Spangler's Blog — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:27:52 +0000

[...] Joanne Jacobs presents Finding the Best Teachers posted at Joanne Jacobs. [...]

By: Physics Teacher

Physics Teacher — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:05:20 +0000

What for? It’s not like there’s any professional distinction made between good teachers and bad teachers

Of course not. That’s because the current crop of supervisory personnel receive the same poor training brought on about by the same crazy philosophy.

Imagine guitarists supervising trombone players, and vice-versa. Imagine drummers supervising opera singers. Imagine garage band singers supervising violinists playing in the philharmonic. All under the assumption that all good musicians have something in common and that this commonality is observable by anyone who’s ever picked up an instrument.

By: allen

allen — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:38:46 +0000

I think we need better training and apprenticeship.

What for? It’s not like there’s any professional distinction made between good teachers and bad teachers.

By: Physics Teacher

Physics Teacher — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:36:33 +0000

I think we need better training and apprenticeship.

Regarding training:

Look, for example, at music. One could argue that all good musicians have certain things in common, like keeping time. Yet you take guitar lessons from guitarists, bass lessons from bassists, and drum lessons from drummers. If musicians were trained the way teachers are we’d have students taking trombone lessons from guitarists. When the trombone student would ask “how do I get a sound of this thing?” the guitarist would reply “I dunno. You’ll just have to find a strategy that works. That’ll be $75 for today.”

Training should be age and subject specific. We need to get rid of this ridiculous “generic” teaching.

Apprenticeship should be at least a full year and the teaching student shouldn’t be paying the teacher’s college for nothing.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 09:12:12 +0000

I understand from my friends who did medicine that before new doctors are let loose on patients, they go through a lot of learning (eg dissecting dead bodies, giving each other injections, learning how to take medical histories) and are tested on that learning. The doctor in the emergency department may be an apprentice, but they’re not just anyone with a pulse and a college degree.

By: Malcolm Kirkpatrick

Malcolm Kirkpatrick — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:22:16 +0000

Not (“schooling” = “education”). Apprenticeship is a form of education. Practical considerations usually motivate on the job training. Classroom instruction too often becomes an end in itself. Classroom instruction communicates some information more efficiently than on the job training. Consider, as a third way, self-paced instruction or independent study, in the fashion of some British universities. Students often do not attend lectures, but instead read transcripts of lectures, study on their own time, and discuss their material with tutors. Why couldn’t teacher apprenticeship work like this? Professional apprenticeship could incorporate the bookish part of instruction by this strategy. If that’s not “education” then the LSE abd some Oxbridge colleges aren’t educational institutions.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:21:04 +0000

Malcolm, you seem to privilege apprenticeship over education; I would argue that education, coupled with apprenticeship, is better, and that apprenticeship works better and more efficiently if significant education comes first. Praxis, in other words, must accompany education, but praxis without education is incompetence. I would also argue that saying “Apprenticeship was the route to most professions and skilled trades until about 200 years ago” is irrelevant, unless you want also to argue that bleeding to let out bad humours is the height of current medical practice.

By: Malcolm Kirkpatrick

Malcolm Kirkpatrick — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:13:09 +0000

Mike,

What inspires the elevation of academic instruction over on the job training? Becker defines “school” as an institution dedicated principally to education. “Principally” clearly implies a continuous variable. One can imagine, say, teaching hospitals which accept 14-year-olds (the age at which Admiral Richard Howe and Captain Robert FitzRoy went to sea) and raise people through candy-striper, nurse’s aide, EMT, etc, and selects for further training those who will enhance the institution’s reputation.

I suggest that many instructional structures which we currently accept originated in historical accidents, and are in no sense necessary.

By: pm

pm — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:50:52 +0000

I believe the medical profession is already using both approaches, training and apprenticeship (internship). If your primary source of medical care is an inner-city hospital emergency room I believe your chances of being under the care of an apprentice is pretty high.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:20:43 +0000

Tracy: “So, Andromeda, you’d go to see a new doctor if medicine operated by Malcolm Gladwell’s system?”

I would. Apprenticeship was the route to most professions and skilled trades until about 200 years ago.”

Malcolm, I hope someone has your medical power of attorney right now.