A case against alternative certification or content only teacher training

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it, in this day and age, schools don't have class lessons that are ready to go for teachers? Why is everyone starting from scratch?

I also have this question.

Countries with very successful school systems have successful curricula as well. Teachers starting out should be able to follow a "tried and true" curriculum with ready made lesson plans that have a high likelihood of being successful for students that are of similar abilities to the students they have. That should at least be their starting point, and then they can customize and tweak as need be.

It is CRAZY to expect teachers to come up with all new lesson plans each day, especially beginning teachers. They should have structure and guidelines.

And this is why you hear teachers talking about working 60 hours a week on average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it, in this day and age, schools don't have class lessons that are ready to go for teachers? Why is everyone starting from scratch?

Because teaching isn't an automated factory-production process?

That's ridiculous. The man was teaching high school algebra. He said:

All this, and having to spend long hours planning lessons and developing his own material because the district didn’t supply much – and what was supplied was “thin and weak to the point of not being usable.”

“I needed more time to do planning, to understand my material and tune it so it was a highly effective weapon as opposed to two hours of professional development or driving down to Office Depot because I don’t have access to a copier,” he said.

Algebra is not some unknown body of knowledge. There are curricula out there that do a great job presenting the material (with workbooks, problem sets, textbooks, applications... ) and it sounds like they didn't bother to give him any of that?! Give the teacher a decent textbook to work with for heavens sake, this isn't rocket science.

Teachers are often their own worse enemies. For some inexplicable reason, there is a stigma against teaching out of a textbook, which seems ridiculous because almost all teachers get worksheets off the internet to give their students. Teaching out of a textbook is not simply read the chapter and answer the questions. Most textbooks have lots of suggestions for projects/games, etc. But for some crazy reason, teachers are looked down on for actually using the textbooks that their school divisions bought.

[Anonymous]

Teachers are often their own worse enemies. For some inexplicable reason, there is a stigma against teaching out of a textbook, which seems ridiculous because almost all teachers get worksheets off the internet to give their students. Teaching out of a textbook is not simply read the chapter and answer the questions. Most textbooks have lots of suggestions for projects/games, etc. But for some crazy reason, teachers are looked down on for actually using the textbooks that their school divisions bought.

It depends on what you are teaching. For example, in first grade, it is often better to use other resources. Although, in my opinion, the old fashioned basal reader is still the best way to teach reading. Do they even exist anymore?
As for high school, a good textbook is valuable. Unfortunately, not all textbooks are good. Check out the AP US History book used in FCPS. Painfully dry and boring. Hopefully, the teacher can fluff it out with interesting lectures and discussions.

As for math, all kids do not learn at the same rate--some lessons need to be repeated and some books assume that kids master every chapter in the same amount of time--they do not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Teachers are often their own worse enemies. For some inexplicable reason, there is a stigma against teaching out of a textbook, which seems ridiculous because almost all teachers get worksheets off the internet to give their students. Teaching out of a textbook is not simply read the chapter and answer the questions. Most textbooks have lots of suggestions for projects/games, etc. But for some crazy reason, teachers are looked down on for actually using the textbooks that their school divisions bought.

Teachers are explicitly told they are not to teach from the textbook -- certainly not to follow a textbook chapter by chapter in order, the way the textbook was written. They are to take lesson stems from one place; lesson seeds from another place, parts A and B from chapter 2 of textbook A, parts C and D from chapter 9 of Textbook B, video lesson from Kham Academy, and online practice from the online textbook company. Follow it all up with poorly written worksheets and problem sets from the Curriculum Office, plus worksheets from teacherspayteachers....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2017/09/29/arizona-teacher-shortage-made-me-break-down-tears/715137001/

This is an article about two men who were certified through alternative search vacation and were absolutely struggling with how to be good since they had no training in classroom management or how to do lesson planning. I admit that the school itself was incredibly chaotic and poorly run but the fact that jumped out at me the most was that it was taking the teachers three hours to do daily lesson planning for one class!

I know Andy, a lot of armchair experts think that teachers only need to be trained in content but I think this is a good example of the importance of pedagogy too.

I have been teaching for 30 years, and a good lesson plan still takes me three hours, especially if I haven't taught that particular lesson before. Anyone not spending significant time planning lessons isn't teaching all that well, unless they've been teaching the same thing for a long time. It's got nothing to do with pedagogy. Lesson planning is largely creative work.

I worked in K-12 for ten years, and the problem is not the people in the article - the problem is that there really is not enough time for teachers to plan good lessons. As they pointed out, your time is wasted in pointless meetings and "professional development" that, even if it weren't poorly done, takes away any time you'd have to actually implement it. I was a college professor before going to K-12 and got an alternative certification. I was horrified when I realized that there were no resources, no textbooks, no lesson plans, no nothing. Teachers were supposed to make it all up and create everything themselves, using "pedagogy." But you got 45 minutes free a day for this, and it was nearly always taken up by a meeting. I spend several years working 12-14 hour days, and then got burned out and decided I wanted to have a life. I returned to the university, where I still work 50-60 hours, but my time is rarely wasted and I can plan sufficiently for my classes.

K-12 is so broken, and everything there so entrenched that it is impossible to fix. The red tape is nonsensical and the government intrusion a huge impediment to accomplishing anything. This is why people with alternative certifications leave - because unlike career teachers, we have actually experienced a workplace that makes sense, and may have even been treated with respect. Teachers always seemed like sheep to me - they just accepted any insane illogical thing that came their way, and didn't seem to feel they deserved to be treated like adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Teachers are often their own worse enemies. For some inexplicable reason, there is a stigma against teaching out of a textbook, which seems ridiculous because almost all teachers get worksheets off the internet to give their students. Teaching out of a textbook is not simply read the chapter and answer the questions. Most textbooks have lots of suggestions for projects/games, etc. But for some crazy reason, teachers are looked down on for actually using the textbooks that their school divisions bought.

Teachers are explicitly told they are not to teach from the textbook -- certainly not to follow a textbook chapter by chapter in order, the way the textbook was written. They are to take lesson stems from one place; lesson seeds from another place, parts A and B from chapter 2 of textbook A, parts C and D from chapter 9 of Textbook B, video lesson from Kham Academy, and online practice from the online textbook company. Follow it all up with poorly written worksheets and problem sets from the Curriculum Office, plus worksheets from teacherspayteachers....

You nailed it! You just left out the part about the outcome. That where the lovely, learned people from Central Office come to the school after the standardized testing and earnestly ask "what went wrong"? Then they either fire everyone or everyone quits. Hit repeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it, in this day and age, schools don't have class lessons that are ready to go for teachers? Why is everyone starting from scratch?

Because teaching isn't an automated factory-production process?

That's ridiculous. The man was teaching high school algebra. He said:

All this, and having to spend long hours planning lessons and developing his own material because the district didn’t supply much – and what was supplied was “thin and weak to the point of not being usable.”

“I needed more time to do planning, to understand my material and tune it so it was a highly effective weapon as opposed to two hours of professional development or driving down to Office Depot because I don’t have access to a copier,” he said.

Algebra is not some unknown body of knowledge. There are curricula out there that do a great job presenting the material (with workbooks, problem sets, textbooks, applications... ) and it sounds like they didn't bother to give him any of that?! Give the teacher a decent textbook to work with for heavens sake, this isn't rocket science.

Teachers are often their own worse enemies. For some inexplicable reason, there is a stigma against teaching out of a textbook, which seems ridiculous because almost all teachers get worksheets off the internet to give their students. Teaching out of a textbook is not simply read the chapter and answer the questions. Most textbooks have lots of suggestions for projects/games, etc. But for some crazy reason, teachers are looked down on for actually using the textbooks that their school divisions bought.

I’ve taught for 15 years in MCPS. Except for BrainPop and a few other really good platforms, I can’t think of anything I’d give my kids printed from the internet. Even for the rare short video we show, my cohort writes our own questions for comprehension or reflection. This is partly to tailor it to the NCPS curriculum, but also because it needs to fit the profile of our learners.

[Anonymous]

PP, What do you teach?

MCPS doesn't give you a list of internet resources, such as this one for algebra?

Additional Resources:
http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/ (Choose your level on the menu on the
left)
https://www.khanacademy.org
http://achievethecore.org
https://www.illustrativemathematics.org/
www.insidemathematics.org
https://learnzillion.com/resources/75114-math
http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/ (Choose your grade level on the left)
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/standards/1
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html
http://nrich.maths.org
https://www.youcubed.org/week-of-inspirational-math/
http://illuminations.nctm.org/Lessons-Activities.aspx (choose grade level and
connect to search lessons)
http://www.yummymath.com/birds-eye-of-activities/
http://map.mathshell.org/tasks.php?collection=9&unit=HE06
http://www.shmoop.com/common-core-standards/math.html
http://www.njcore.org/standards?processing=true#
https://hcpss.instructure.com/courses/99
https://www.desmos.com/
http://www.geogebra.org/
http://ccssmath.org/ (Choose the Domain from the Resources tab.)
http://www.cpalms.org/Public/ToolkitGradeLevelGroup/Toolkit?id=14

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Teachers are often their own worse enemies. For some inexplicable reason, there is a stigma against teaching out of a textbook, which seems ridiculous because almost all teachers get worksheets off the internet to give their students. Teaching out of a textbook is not simply read the chapter and answer the questions. Most textbooks have lots of suggestions for projects/games, etc. But for some crazy reason, teachers are looked down on for actually using the textbooks that their school divisions bought.

Teachers are explicitly told they are not to teach from the textbook -- certainly not to follow a textbook chapter by chapter in order, the way the textbook was written. They are to take lesson stems from one place; lesson seeds from another place, parts A and B from chapter 2 of textbook A, parts C and D from chapter 9 of Textbook B, video lesson from Kham Academy, and online practice from the online textbook company. Follow it all up with poorly written worksheets and problem sets from the Curriculum Office, plus worksheets from teacherspayteachers....

You nailed it! You just left out the part about the outcome. That where the lovely, learned people from Central Office come to the school after the standardized testing and earnestly ask "what went wrong"? Then they either fire everyone or everyone quits. Hit repeat.

And then they adopt a new curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I have been teaching for 30 years, and a good lesson plan still takes me three hours, especially if I haven't taught that particular lesson before. Anyone not spending significant time planning lessons isn't teaching all that well, unless they've been teaching the same thing for a long time. It's got nothing to do with pedagogy. Lesson planning is largely creative work.

Honest question -- why do you need three hours to plan a (I presume) 1 hour lesson? In what field? What age student?

The content doesn't change that much from year to year. Kids don't change that much either. Either they are well prepared with strong background knowledge in the subject, and know how to read and write; or they have lagging skills in one or more of those areas. You and a thousand other teachers are probably teaching the same subject to the same types of students. I get that it can take some time to put together an interesting unit, but why three hours? Why every year? Why keep reinventing things? Find some lessons that are decent enough to get the job done, and have a life as a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I have been teaching for 30 years, and a good lesson plan still takes me three hours, especially if I haven't taught that particular lesson before. Anyone not spending significant time planning lessons isn't teaching all that well, unless they've been teaching the same thing for a long time. It's got nothing to do with pedagogy. Lesson planning is largely creative work.

Honest question -- why do you need three hours to plan a (I presume) 1 hour lesson? In what field? What age student?

The content doesn't change that much from year to year. Kids don't change that much either. Either they are well prepared with strong background knowledge in the subject, and know how to read and write; or they have lagging skills in one or more of those areas. You and a thousand other teachers are probably teaching the same subject to the same types of students. I get that it can take some time to put together an interesting unit, but why three hours? Why every year? Why keep reinventing things? Find some lessons that are decent enough to get the job done, and have a life as a teacher.

I disagree. Every year, I have a different class. Last year my kindergarteners were superstars. They made me look good. This year is going to be an uphill challenge. Yes, the curriculum is the same but I am going to have to do A LOT more pre-teaching of everything before I even get to the curriculum. We are also going to have to review A LOT. So my lesson plans from last year won't really help me. It is back to the drawing board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I have been teaching for 30 years, and a good lesson plan still takes me three hours, especially if I haven't taught that particular lesson before. Anyone not spending significant time planning lessons isn't teaching all that well, unless they've been teaching the same thing for a long time. It's got nothing to do with pedagogy. Lesson planning is largely creative work.

Honest question -- why do you need three hours to plan a (I presume) 1 hour lesson? In what field? What age student?

The content doesn't change that much from year to year. Kids don't change that much either. Either they are well prepared with strong background knowledge in the subject, and know how to read and write; or they have lagging skills in one or more of those areas. You and a thousand other teachers are probably teaching the same subject to the same types of students. I get that it can take some time to put together an interesting unit, but why three hours? Why every year? Why keep reinventing things? Find some lessons that are decent enough to get the job done, and have a life as a teacher.

I disagree. Every year, I have a different class. Last year my kindergarteners were superstars. They made me look good. This year is going to be an uphill challenge. Yes, the curriculum is the same but I am going to have to do A LOT more pre-teaching of everything before I even get to the curriculum. We are also going to have to review A LOT. So my lesson plans from last year won't really help me. It is back to the drawing board.

Sure, some years you get a class that is more unprepared and some years, you get all the strong students.

But that happens in EVERY kindergarten. The kids are 5. There's only so much range of prior preparation they can have.

You can't reuse the same centers and activities you used for your superstars last year, but all across your school, district, state and country there are teachers who have underprepared K students and you can use their lesson plans. And in one more year you will either have well prepared or underprepared K students and you can reuse on or the other's plans.

There's only so much range. Kids don't change that much.

[Anonymous]

Sure, some years you get a class that is more unprepared and some years, you get all the strong students.

But that happens in EVERY kindergarten. The kids are 5. There's only so much range of prior preparation they can have.

You can't reuse the same centers and activities you used for your superstars last year, but all across your school, district, state and country there are teachers who have underprepared K students and you can use their lesson plans. And in one more year you will either have well prepared or underprepared K students and you can reuse on or the other's plans.

There's only so much range. Kids don't change that much.

I haven't taught in many years, but I remember enough to know that this poster has never taught K. I cannot imagine ever using someone else's lesson plans, either. Ideas? Yes. Plans--absolutely not.

And, FWIW, when I taught K, there was no pressure like there is today--and, I still spent lots of time preparing. I know it takes more time now than it did then. The difference in preparing for K and in higher level grades, is that most of the prep needs to be done AT school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sure, some years you get a class that is more unprepared and some years, you get all the strong students.

But that happens in EVERY kindergarten. The kids are 5. There's only so much range of prior preparation they can have.

You can't reuse the same centers and activities you used for your superstars last year, but all across your school, district, state and country there are teachers who have underprepared K students and you can use their lesson plans. And in one more year you will either have well prepared or underprepared K students and you can reuse on or the other's plans.

There's only so much range. Kids don't change that much.

I haven't taught in many years, but I remember enough to know that this poster has never taught K. I cannot imagine ever using someone else's lesson plans, either. Ideas? Yes. Plans--absolutely not.

And, FWIW, when I taught K, there was no pressure like there is today--and, I still spent lots of time preparing. I know it takes more time now than it did then. The difference in preparing for K and in higher level grades, is that most of the prep needs to be done AT school.

I'm the PP you are responding to -- I have taught elementary school for 17 years. This is my 18th year.

I do not need to rewrite all my lesson plans every year. Just as doctors do not need to alter treatment plans for every single patient. Yes, patients have different illnesses, but for the most part treatment for the same illness is routine. You may tweak a little here and there but... there are only so many symptoms, so many illnesses, and so many methods of treatment.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP you are responding to -- I have taught elementary school for 17 years. This is my 18th year.

I do not need to rewrite all my lesson plans every year. Just as doctors do not need to alter treatment plans for every single patient. Yes, patients have different illnesses, but for the most part treatment for the same illness is routine. You may tweak a little here and there but... there are only so many symptoms, so many illnesses, and so many methods of treatment.

You must teach in a very homogenous situation if all you have to do is "tweak".