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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
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. [/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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